All social media works in the same way. Twitter is no exception. If you want algorithms to show you to more people, you have to have good initial engagement. Getting engagement is hard, especially in the beginning, but not impossible. In this article we’re going to explore 3 techniques that will help you boost engagement on your Twitter’s content.
Engaging with others
The first and obvious technique to boost engagement is to engage with others. After you leave several comments under someone else’s tweets they’ll start engaging with you. This obviously depends on the size of the account, but we will work on that later.
The best way to engage with others is to find people from your niche and engage with them. We already wrote an extensive article about how to boost your Twitter growth with engagement.
Depending on the size of the account you can have two goals:
- You want them to comment on your tweets
- You want them to answer your comment on their tweet
The first goal is much harder to achieve, especially with bigger accounts. The second goal is really about how interesting your comment is. If you commented with emojis only, don’t expect any answer from any account, of any size. Except for maybe friends.
Let’s see the pros and cons of different sizes of the accounts you engage with. Keep in mind that the size of your account and the frequency of your engagement with them also bear some weight.
Big profiles
This is one of the most frequent pieces of advice you’ll find in Twitter handbooks and courses. But you have to be careful.
Commenting on big accounts gives you more exposure, probably, than you have on your own profile. Again, this highly depends on the size of your profile. But this exposure means nothing if you don’t use it well.
Always try, with those comments, to spark new conversations. Don’t leave comments that are conversations enders. Good and interesting comments are the only way to attract their attention. And not only the attention of that big account, but also the attention of their followers.
The first goal with those accounts should be to “make” them answer you on your comment. Even the smallest answer is good in the beginning. Then, start slowly building from that. Also, you have to be consistent and persistent. You want to comment on each of their tweets. That way, you’ll attract attention to yourself.
The first few comments they’ll not even be going to “like” it. But the more you write the more they’re going to react.
After you get them to comment on your comment, you know you’re on the right track. At this point, even if they only answer to your comment, you’ll get great exposure.
Other accounts will see that they’ve reacted to you and those other accounts, especially smaller ones, want to be part of that successful pack. So they will, most likely, also put some comments there, or even start to follow you.
Small profiles
Even though rarely anyone says that you should engage with small profiles, it is a quite good technique to boost engagement on your own content.
The reason for this is simple and logical. Every small account wants to be recognized by other accounts (that’s why we’re reading this article, right?). When you comment on their posts they’re far more likely to answer you and engage with your content.
Also, if you engage with small accounts a few times, they will probably follow you. This way you’ll boost your metrics, but you will also have an engaged audience. Which is a win-win situation.
The algorithm will recognize that you’re getting some friction on your content and it will reward you by showing that very content to more people. Basically, the algorithm will help you boost engagement on your content. The more people interact with it the longer you’ll go “trending”. In the essence, this is what a viral post is.
Boost engagement with DMs
DMs are so underrated when it comes to growing your audience and boosting engagement.
The reason behind this is that most people don’t really understand how DMs work. We won’t go into detail here, we will make article about it, but we will explain in short.
Imagine a real-world coffee shop. Everyone is talking and commenting on something. That’s Twitter. Then imagine in all that mess someone turns to you and starts talking, that’s DMs.
When someone turns to you personally you’re far more likely to react to their comments in the crowd, right? Why? Because you have already made a personal connection with them.
But, in the real world, also you won’t just start talking to them. First, you’ll comment on something that they’ve said, then they’ll comment on something you’ve said, and so on. Only after one of you feels it’s the right time to start a private conversation, you’ll start it.
Meaning, DMs will solidify your relationship with that person, and they’re far more likely to engage with you even more. But you will DM them, only after you have made several comments on their content and they responded.
Otherwise, most people will never answer you. Or worse, they’ll think that you’re a freak. It’s like you just started talking to some stranger in the middle of the street out of nowhere.
Write smart, not hard
This is actually another obvious concept, yet a lot of people are not using it pretty well.
In our article about engagement, we talk about how to engage and how not to engage. One of the tricks we mentioned is asking questions.
That’s an excellent way to boost engagement on your Twitter content. End your tweets with questions.
People love to share their opinion, to show their knowledge, to present their expertise, to be seen as competent. Use that fact and ask questions. Especially those where your audience can talk about themselves. Like “What are you working on?”, “How do you do this?”, “What’s your opinion on that?”
Those types of questions will definitely yield a positive answer.
If you have a small number of followers, this is actually an excellent way to boost clicks on your profile. How? Ask questions in the comments. People will be interested in who you are and they’re more likely to click on your profile.
You don’t have to use questions in each and every one of your tweets. Sometimes it’s enough to have answer-provoking tweets. Something that will “divide the room” or spark conversation, or even jokes. E.g. a lot of programmers find funny pictures on the internet and they share them on Twitter with a “Rate my setup” caption. This usually ends in salves of funny comments.
TL;DR
Most of the rules on social media revolve around having high-quality content or engaging with others. Because, honestly, that’s what social media really is. But sometimes even that is not enough. You have to use “tricks” to maximize your influence.
In order to boost engagement on your own profile, first start by engaging with others. That will attract them to your profile.
Use DMs. DMs create a personal relationship with that person and they “feel obligated” to interact with you in the wild 
Ask questions, or write answer-provoking tweets. That will really boost engagement on your own content because people love to share their POV.
All this engagement can be really time-consuming and hard to maintain. That’s why we have created Engagement Builder. Click here and try it for 7 days for FREE. If you need to find out more about Engagement Builder you can contact us on Twitter.