As a rep, I understand the importance of a strong presence on social media. I came across this fantastic article on A Photo Editor which speaks specifically to photographers as it details Twitter hacks. This information can help you enhance your brand via social media and get more of your content out into the world. Be sure to link through to the the full article for the complete information!
This helpful twitter toolkit comes from Wonderful Machine and was written by Alyssa Shand-Perreault. Thank you Alyssa!!! For the original post, click here.
Social media is an important part of self-promotion and marketing for any sized business. Utilizing all social media platforms is essential and while you can link all of your platforms together, each platform is unique and serves a distinct purpose. Twitter has distinguished features that helps develop your brand and implement your business strategies. While the tweets are short and sweet, it can easily get your photos into the minds of more people.
Twitter Fundamentals
The article lays out important steps to keep in mind when setting up your Twitter account. The steps include:
1. Theme Color The color set for your Twitter profile should match your brand identity that you use for the rest of your business branding.
2. Profile and Cover Images These images should be show who you are and what you do. Use a professional headshot of logo for your profile picture and then an example of your strongest work for the cover image. Keep these photos updated and refresh images to reflect your image and work.
3. Bio Keep your bio concise. This can be a trimmed down version of your websites bio, or perhaps a more casual bio to show off your personality.
@David Martinez
Tweeting 101
While Twitter has recently updated the amount of characters allowed, it is important to remember that Twitter is a site for concise and quick information. The article suggests three essential rules to keep in mind while adding hashtags into your tweets.
1. Don’t Over-Hashtag As a rule, less is more.
2. Remember your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Be aware of what is trending and be aware of what is already working for you.
3. Make sure hashtags are relevant to your content
Following Other People
It is important to keep personal practices separate from your business twitter. You want to make sure you are following people or companies that you’ve worked with, have a connection with, those you admire, those whose content you enjoy viewing and those you hope to work with in the future. Twitter can be used to network so keep your content professional and something you are proud of.
There is a 5,000 follower cap so make sure you are only following accounts relevant to you and your work.
Pinning Tweets
Pinning specific tweets allow you to showcase recent work you’ve produced. By pinning a tweet, it will stay at the top of your profile, even as you tweet more. Pinning tweets will help attract more viewers to your work.
@David Martinez
Using Your Likes Wisely
When you “like” another tweet, it gets saved on your profile under a tab called Likes. This tab can act as a great organization tool as you can save tweets you might want to refer to later. There are two things to keep in mind when liking tweets
1. Likes are public Like things that are on brand, relevant to your content, important news or by people that you want to follow you.
2. Use this feature as a way to build a reference list Like tweets that are written by potential prospects, feature an upcoming project you want to take part in, showcase creative ideas you might want to call on in the future.
Using Images On Twitter
Twitter is an excellent way to showcase photos. Due to recent changes to the platform, you are now able to tweet multiple images, post non-cropped images, and are no longer included in character count. Just make sure to tweet actual images instead of URLs as best to showcase the photo.
@David Martinez
Maximizing Your Twitter Potential
Once you have the basics down, here are some quick tips to maximize your account
1. Lists “Lists” is an organizational tool on Twitter where you can categorize accounts you are following by subject, organization etc. This is important for photographers because you can create lists for Brands, Agencies, and Publications.
2. Trends On the Twitter homepage you are able to see the top 10 topics and hashtags that are popular that day. This is a good tool to use to keep your posts relevant.
Twitter Analytics
Twitter Analytics is a free tool that allows you to see Tweet Impressions, Profile Visits, and Follower trends over time. This is a useful tool to track followers gained and lost, see which tweets are making an impression on your followers and taking note of which ones really stood out.
Twitter also offers Twitter Flight School, which is a free course that helps you understand all of the features of the platform. It helps you study Twitter Analytics to make sure you’re getting the most out of your account.