The relative simplicity of establishing a presence on Twitter can create a false sense of accomplishment for those who don't create a focused plan. Regardless of what your end goal may be, to be effective in this platform you need to acquire followers and engage with them on an ongoing basis. It's not enough to use your Twitter account as a way to blast out content and information. Send @replies and direct messages to respond to your followers' tweets, be interactive, and retweet others' tweets that your followers might find valuable, too.
Check out the links below for some Twitter basics and best practices.
- Twitter basics [Twitter]
- What are hashtags ("#" Symbols)? [Twitter]
- Improve Engagement With Hashtags [Social Media Examiner]
- Guidelines for Contests on Twitter
- Ways to Increase Twitter Engagement [Social Media Examiner]
- Not sure what size your Twitter images should be? The 'Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes' can help with Twitter image guidelines.
- Twitter Flight School for Marketers is a free online education program for marketers provided by Twitter, which is availble to advertisers around the world in 16 languages. To sign up visit twitterflightschool.com
Twitter updates and Information:
How photos are displayed: Twitter introduced a richer photo experience on twitter.com by uncropping photos "so you can experience and present them as they were meant to be viewed." [Dec 2015]
Direct Message length: Twitter no longer has a 140-character limit for direct messages. There will now be a limit of 10,000 characters per Direct Message (Twitter’s version of private messages, which users can send to each other without showing their followers). [Aug 2015]
Twitter Updates Direct Message: Direct Messages are the best way to take your public Twitter conversations private. Twitter has changed how direct messaging works so that it’s even easier for accounts to communicate one-to-one or with a chosen group of people. [April 2015]
Twitter has opened up its analytics tool to the public, giving everyone the ability to see the performance of their most recent tweets. To view your stats, go to the Twitter Ads dashboard and click on the ‘Analytics’ tab at the top of the page. The Timeline activity displays a graph for the user based on the number of mentions, follows and unfollows that they’ve received over the last month. A detailed list underneath shows all of the user’s most recent tweets, including the number of times someone has favorited, retweeted or replied to it. [Source: The Next Web]
Branded Twitter Header Photos
The Marketing team has created the following branded and correctly sized header photos of campus for your use:
- Limestone building with Queen's wordmark | Limestone building without Queen's wordmark
- Studying outside with Queen's wordmark | Studying outside without Queen's wordmark
- Spring tulips with Queen's wordmark | Spring tulips without Queen's wordmark
- Summerhill in the fall with Queen's wordmark | Summerhill in the fall without Queen's wordmark
- Grant Hall with Queen's wordmark | Grant Hall without Queen's wordmark
- University Ave with Queen's wordmark | University Ave without Queen's wordmark
The header photo of your account should be 1,500 pixels wide by 500 pixels high. To change yours click on the 'Edit Profile' button when you are logged in to your account and select the 'change your header photo' option.
Branded Twitter Profile Photos
If you would like a branded and correctly sized Twitter profile photo for your Department please email social.media@queensu.ca and we can provide you with one with your details. Here is an example for @QueensEngineer
If you would like to create your own, be sure to create it at 400 pixels by 400 pixels (displays at 200 x 200) and to use a file size that is under 100KB; Use JPG, GIF, or PNG.
The presentation below was given in April 2016 includes stats, useful tools and best practices for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.