Social media is one of the most popular marketing strategies for a reason. It helps agencies connect with their existing and potential customers as well as promote their products and services.
We believe that everyone can grow and market their agency using social media. In this article, we will show you how to succeed on Twitter as a web agency owner and use it to win business.
My Background
I created my Twitter account back in 2013 but never used it unless there was a major news event taking place. One of those major events took place in 2019 that changed our lives forever. Just like everyone else, I started spending more time on social media platforms to get the latest news and fight off boredom.
One of the unexpected benefits of spending more time on Twitter was discovering an awesome tech community. I have been running my agency (Clio Websites) since 2007 but I didn’t know too many people in the web development space. Discovering the tech Twitter community was a game changer. I started following and interacting with both industry experts and new people that wanted to get into the industry.
The more time I spent in this community interacting with other like-minded people, the more my following increased. In addition, more opportunities opened up to market my business and promote my services as an agency.
How Twitter Can Benefit Your Web Agency
Twitter has helped us secure 2-3 quality leads every week. They contact us needing help with things that we often tweet about, such as improving their WordPress performance, building new WordPress websites, or providing SEO services.
In fact, Twitter is our most popular lead generator and it’s the largest traffic acquisition vehicle for our website.
Below are our weekly stats, which show the organic social traffic source:
Besides generating leads for our business, we have also found that having a large following on social media also provides the following benefits:
- Helps you meet and learn from other industry experts in your field
- Leads to exciting collaboration opportunities
- Generates opportunities for guest posts and features
- Creates new revenue streams through paid promotions
- Helps you promote your new products and services
- Can help you conduct market research in a form of surveys
And lastly, Twitter has led to making some really meaningful and impactful connections with industry peers and people that I now consider friends.
Checking Your DMs
In order to tap into these opportunities, you have to turn on your DMs. Sure you may get some spam, but most business inquiries will come through your DMs. This is why it’s really important to have your DMs turned on by default and to check them regularly. It’s also a great way to meet new people in your industry and engage with your audience.
Responding to everyone once you get to a certain level of followers is impossible, but answering some of your followers' inquiries can lead to higher retention and will result in fewer people unfollowing you. I am a firm believer in making connections and interacting with people using DMs, even if that is an unpopular opinion.
How to Get Started On Twitter
“Most people on social media only consume content, very few create unique content” - Nat Miletic
Most people spend time on Twitter in order to get entertainment and follow their favorite celebrities. Only a few will create content with the intention of growing their audience and marketing their services.
As a web agency looking to use Twitter as a marketing vehicle, you need to follow a series of steps to avoid wasting your time and energy.
In order to get started, you will need to:
- Define what success looks like for your agency
- Come up with a strategy, and
- Be intentional in creating content that will lead to more business and inquiries
But before we jump into the specifics, let’s explore why you would use Twitter versus other social media platforms.
Twitter versus Other Social Media Platforms
Unlike other social media platforms, Twitter is mostly textual, which makes it easier and lowers the barriers of entry compared to other social media platforms. It requires less equipment, and if you are camera shy, it’s a perfect platform to create content without having to record yourself speaking into a camera. It also has a more casual feel as compared to LinkedIn, making it easier to be authentic and engaging.
Despite the more recent growth of video platforms like TikTok, Twitter still enjoys a healthy user growth rate. Twitter grew by 8.4% in 2020 and it is projected that the platform will continue to experience growth in the coming years (the growth was accelerated by the pandemic). It also has the second highest educated audience of all social media platforms (after LinkedIn) making it a perfect platform to promote your web agency services.
We chose Twitter due to the strong tech community and low barriers to entry, but similar results can also be replicated with other social media platforms. The strategies that we talk about in this article can be used for creating good quality content on other social media platforms as well.
Twitter Marketing Strategy
One of the first steps in growing an audience and succeeding on Twitter as a web agency owner is crafting a strategy.
For example, you might want to drive more traffic to your website, or you might want to use your account to share important news and announcements with your followers. The approach that you take will slightly defer based on the strategy. Define what that looks like for your agency and craft a strategy around your goals.
Twitter Marketing Myths
Before we get started, I would like to dispel some common myths around Twitter and social media in general.
There are a lot of myths surrounding content creation. Some of the most common misconceptions include:
- You have to be an extrovert in order to create content
- You need to be an expert in the field
- You have to spend all your waking hours on social media
- You have to be funny and witty
- You have to be a native English speaker
The good news is that these couldn’t be farther from the truth.
You absolutely don’t need to be an extrovert in order to create excellent content. In fact, some of the best content creators are introverted. The trick is to put yourself out of your comfort zone until it becomes second nature.
Needing to be an expert in your field is another thing that holds people back from posting on social media. There are plenty of accounts that simply post about the things they are learning and discovering, which can also lead to success.
Spending too much time on social media is bad for your mental and physical health. In order to be successful, you don’t need to spend all your waking hours on these platforms. Prioritize providing value over frequency to your followers
You also don’t have to be naturally funny or witty, you can take a more serious tone when it comes to content creation.
English is the most common language on Twitter, so if you are trying to create content to reach a global audience, tweeting in English is preferable. However, your English doesn’t have to be perfect in order to create great quality content. Plus, you can always take advantage of the widely available grammar tools.
Getting Started with Content Creation
The hardest part about content creation is getting started. It’s hard to get traction when you don’t have a lot of followers and when you start tweeting into what feels like an abyss. After all, when you don’t have any followers, Twitter is a great note-taking app.
Instead of creating unique content that no one sees initially, try to establish connections with well-known influencers in your niche. Find the accounts in your niche with lots of followers and start commenting on their tweets with useful information that highlights your knowledge and experience.
Be respectful, add value, and interact with other users in a respectful way. This will help you gain some mutual followers in the niche.
Another way to get traction is to use hashtags (although not more than 2) in order to get discovered. Once you gain some traction and get your first 1,000 followers, I would stop using hashtags altogether as I will explain later.
Creating Your Twitter Profile
The first step to crafting and executing a successful Twitter strategy is creating a great and follow-worthy profile.
Your profile should have a professional and legible headshot, have an informative description of why people should follow you (utilize the header image to further drive the point home), and avoid using hashtags.
We also recommend creating a personalized profile instead of a business profile, unless you’re a well-known brand (in which case you should probably have two accounts anyway).
People have an easier time connecting and relating to a person, instead of a brand, and you will have an easier time growing an individual account than a company account. Growing a brand account is not impossible, but it’s much harder, especially when you’re first getting started.
Twitter Content Creation Tips
One of the most important (if not THE most important) content creation tips is picking a niche and sticking to it. For example, if you are trying to attract web agency clients, tweet about web development, and not about baseball.
Tweeting about unrelated topics confuses your audience and leads to people unfollowing your account.
Some niches cross over and are related. For instance, tweeting about web development, and SEO are related and can work together. Don’t be shy to explore other topics that your audience might find useful.
Creating content that drives engagement and leads to attracting new followers should fit under either education, entertainment, and/or the contentious topics umbrella. Content that fits into two or more of these categories usually leads to viral tweets.
We will explore each of these in a bit more detail in order to show you how to utilize them for a successful social media strategy.
Educational Topics
Educating your audience is my favorite way to gain followers. Educational tweets not only provide value to your followers, but they also showcase your knowledge in a particular area.
Don’t be afraid of giving away your knowledge, as this is the most underrated marketing trick that generates high-quality leads.
Most people on Twitter want to learn new things and follow industry experts. This is why educating your audience is the best way to gain engagement and get people to follow you.
People love free resources that will help them grow and follow you if your content is valuable and not something they can easily Google on their own.
Early on in my Twitter journey, this type of content helped me grow my audience significantly, like in this example:
Entertaining Topics
Let’s face it, people log into Twitter and other social media platforms to be entertained. They follow their favorite celebrities and seek out content that makes them happy. This is why entertaining tweets are great for engagement.
Although entertaining tweets don’t lead to as many followers as educational tweets and threads, they are a great way to get engagement from a wider audience. Although I personally don’t recommend focusing only on entertainment-style tweets, some content creators have made careers out of this. The only word of caution I would offer if pursuing this strategy is to stick to your niche.
Here is an example of an entertainment-style tweet in the web development niche that received a lot of engagement:
Spicy Takes
Contentious topics (aka spicy tweets) are another impactful way to generate a lot of engagement but not necessarily followers.
This type of content tends to do very well and generate a lot of buzz. However, they should be respectful, and as a content creator, you can’t take the replies personally.
I recommend using this strategy once in a while in order to change things up and keep your audience entertained and engaged.
Here is an example of a tweet in the web development niche that follows this formula:
Recipe for Viral Tweets
Creating viral tweets is easier said than done. Sometimes you have a great feeling about a particular piece but it flops, and sometimes an off-the-cuff tweet can get lots of engagement and likes.
Although there is no secret formula for creating this type of content, most viral tweets follow this format:
- They have an engaging hook that is short and concise
- Seeks to entertain, educate, or present a contentious take on a topic (ideally a combination)
- Are not long, complicated, or hard to read and understand
- They are posted at a time when your audience is most active (you will have to play around with timing once you find your rhythm and gain experience)
Common Content Creation Mistakes
As a content creator, every week you will lose followers. This is just part of being a content creator. But every week, you will also gain new followers. As long as you are moving in a positive direction, you are doing a great job.
If you find that you are losing more followers than you are gaining, you might be making some common content creation mistakes. I will talk about some common mistakes so that you can hopefully avoid them.
Tweet Frequency
Not tweeting often enough is one of the most common mistakes people make. They tweet a lot for a period of time, and then they disappear for months. This is a common way creators lose followers.
Tweeting too often can also lead to losing followers, especially if you are not following your strategy and tweeting random content that doesn’t fit into your niche.
No one will unfollow a content creator if they are providing value and tweeting useful information too often, but creating this much useful content is not sustainable.
I generally recommend people to tweet up to twice a day (not including replies). You can tweet even less than twice a day and as long as your tweets are value-packed, your account will continue to grow.
After a while, you might also discover the best times for posting by analyzing when users tend to engage most with your content. This might also correlate with the most common time zones of your followers.
Not Engaging with Your Audience
Not engaging with your audience in tweet replies is one of the most common mistakes content creators make. This not only makes your followers feel like you are not listening, but it can make your account appear robotic or automated by a third-party tool.
Engaging with your audience is key to making you appear more human, and also retaining your followers. Followers are much less likely to unfollow you if you engage with them and connect on a more personal level.
Staying Positive
Try to stay as positive as you can when tweeting. Although epic rants tend to generate a lot of buzz and engagement on rare occasions, staying positive is much more effective when it comes to growing your account and using it for marketing purposes.
Overusing Hashtags
How many viral tweets have you seen that use hashtags? Hardly any.
Hashtags were all the rage when social media platforms first introduced them. They were a great way to categorize content and get people to discover them that were interested in those topics.
Lately, however, they have been abused by spammers and no longer have the same effect as they once did. In fact, I recommend not using hashtags at all unless you are deliberately using them to participate in a chat or some other engagement initiative. Even then, I would limit the use of hashtags to 2 so that your tweets don’t appear spammy.
Not Sticking To Your Niche
Not sticking to your niche is one of the most impactful mistakes you can make as a content creator.
Unless you’re a celebrity, people most likely followed you for a certain type of content that fits into one of their interests. Tweeting unrelated content can confuse your audience and the Twitter algorithm, and cause to people unfollow you because they won’t remember why they followed you in the first place.
Some niches are related, as I mentioned previously, so crossing over can be useful and can help you expand your audience. When you’re starting out, stick to one niche and establish yourself in that area to get traction.
Most Important Aspects of Growing Your Following
The most important aspects of growing your following on Twitter and other social media platforms are to stick to your niche, provide value, and be consistent. If you do these three things well, you will definitely grow your following in no time.
While following this strategy can lead to a lot of new followers, make sure that you continue to have fun, engage with your audience, and give back to the community if you can.
Giveaways are an awesome way to not only give back to the community but also to grow your account and promote your services. If you can’t afford monetary giveaways, you can also volunteer your time or you can think of other creative ways to engage with your audience. Early in my content creation days, I used giveaways as a way to grow my following significantly.
But remember, striving to get thousands of followers shouldn't be your initial goal. Having a high engagement should. If your posts have a high engagement, the algorithms are also more likely to recommend them to new audiences, which subsequently leads to gaining more followers.
Summary
I hope that you enjoyed reading about my experience in growing my social media following. The advice in this article can help you succeed on Twitter as a web agency owner and help you acquire more business.
To recap, here are the key takeaways from this article:
- Social media can become one of your most effective marketing vehicles. Once you build a larger following, a lot more opportunities will open up.
- Creating and consistently executing your strategy is critical.
- Pick a niche, optimize your profile, and start creating content that’s either educational, entertaining, or challenging and thought-provoking. Try to incorporate all 3 in order to get the maximum effect.
- Stay positive, cancel out the noise, and reap the rewards.
If you follow this advice and perform these steps consistently, you are sure to grow your following and generate new leads. For more content such as this, you can follow me on Twitter, or check out my website, Clio Websites.
