Have you ever wondered what to write in a tweet that will actually hold the interest of your Twitter followers and create some sort of engagement?
In today’s article, we’re going to take a look at five ways you can create Twitter updates worth reading, responding to, and re-tweeting.
1. Create a monthly theme
Catherine Delcin, Managing Director of Delcin Consulting, suggests you “create a monthly theme that is tied to the brand you are developing. For every month, you should have updates that are thematic and raise the awareness of your brand.”
When it comes to your brand, you want art collectors to be able to look at a piece of art and know right away that it was created by you. You also want them to think about your art when they think about a certain style of art, color scheme, or genre.
The first thing they see on Twitter is text so you want to create a string of words that help define your brand. You want the words you tweet to identify your art, your concept, your company.
2. Leave space For re-tweeting
Dan Farkas, Instructor of Strategic Communication at Ohio University, says, “Just because you have 140 characters doesn’t mean you should use 140 characters. Give readers space to react and repost while retaining the integrity of your message.”
While tweets help you engage with your followers, re-tweets help increase exposure and bring awareness to your art and your brand so try to stick to 100 to 120 characters. That should leave plenty of room for your followers to re-tweet your status update and add to the conversation.
3. Include photos
Now that Twitter allows you to include photos with your tweets make sure 50% of your tweets include some type of image.
You can share progress updates on your latest piece, photos of your art studio, photos from your latest gallery opening, and more. The key is to share photos that somehow bring your brand’s message to the forefront.
4. Be yourself
Jayme Pretzloff, Online Marketing Director for Wixon Jewelers says, “Be yourself and be different. There’s no need to conform to a mold of what you think others are doing. It’s impossible to stand out (and differentiate) from other artists unless you have something unique about yourself, your tweets and your artwork.”
Jayme goes on to say, “The best way to build interest with your followers is to be open with and show them what you’re working on. You could update your status with progression of a particular piece your working on; people love to see progress of a project and it’s a way to engage with them.”
Finally, Jayme says, “Remember that your profile description, tweets and interactions should reflect yourself, style and creativity.”
5. Mention others often
Mike Wolfe, President of Wam Enterprises, LLC, believes one of the best ways to get noticed on Twitter is to reference others in your industry.
“There is a lot of information on Twitter and it moves quickly. The average life of a tweet is 1.8 hours. If you want someone to see your tweet, mention them,” says Mike. “It shows your interested in them and they are likely to read and/or share via a re-tweet.”
You don’t want to spam them, but you do want to encourage them to check out the information you thought would be of interest to them.
If, for instance, one of the more famous people you’re following has shown interest in abstract art, you could say something like, “@___, I noticed you’re searching for abstract art with a green color scheme, maybe this would interest you [link to your art].”
If, on the other hand, a journalist mentions needing an artist to interview who specializes in retro art and you know someone who fits the bill, you could reply with something like, “@____, In regards to your search for a retro artist, have you checked out @____ or his website [link to artist]?”
The most important thing you need to remember when interacting on Twitter is that Twitter is not meant to be a sales tool.
You’re not there to drown followers in status updates of items you just listed in your online store, you’re there to build a conversation around art—preferably, your art, or another artist that you respect. The more you can share ideas and artwork with that in mind, the better Twitter will work for you.
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