Brands are missing out on big opportunities to engage with consumers on Twitter by tweeting at the wrong time or in the wrong way, according to an interesting study from Buddy Media.

The report, Strategies for Effective Tweeting: A Statistical Review, found that many brands aren’t using Twitter effectively and outlines the top strategies for engaging with consumers. Buddy Media looked at user engagement for the top 320 brands on Twitter between December 11, 2011 and February 23, 2012 to see how successful they were at getting @replies and retweets. Their engagement rates were also assessed to quantify the relationship between @replies and retweets based on their number of followers. 

Use these best practices and proven tactics to communicate effectively on Twitter:

1. Tweet on weekends

Twitter engagement rates for brands are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday vs. weekdays, but brands don’t leverage this trend. Only 19% of all brand tweets are published on weekends even though engagement is highest on these days. Tweets on Wednesdays and Thursdays are wasted because that’s when engagement is the lowest.

2. Best days to tweet by industry

Clothing and Fashion: Tweet on weekends

Engagement for clothing and fashion brands is 30% higher on weekends, but only 12% of the industry’s tweets are posted on Saturday and Sunday. Followers typically have more time for shopping on weekends, so this is when to communicate with them. Thursday produces the lowest engagement.

Entertainment: Tweet on Sunday and Monday when people are
looking for events to attend

Tweets published by entertainment brands on Sunday and Monday receive 23% more engagement than average, while Thursday receives the lowest engagement. Followers may be more engaged on these days because they’re looking for movies and other events to attend in the coming week.

Publishing: Tweet on Saturday when people catch up on reading

Publishers, including bloggers, are missing a big opportunity to engage with followers on Saturdays, when they’re catching up on news and current events. Engagement on Saturday is 29% higher than average, yet only 7% of publishing brands tweet on that day.

Sports: Tweet on weekends when big games are on

People are far more likely to engage with sports brands on Twitter during the weekend, which is no big surprise. Engagement rates are 52% higher on Saturday and Sunday than on weekdays, with Monday coming in third. Most major sporting events are held on weekends, and people like to discuss them on Monday. Only 9% of sports brands tweet on Saturday, so they’re missing an opportunity.

3. Tweet when people are busy to create more
     brand engagement

Tweets sent during busy hours (8am to 7pm) receive 30% more engagement than tweets posted at other times (8pm to 7am), including Saturday and Sunday. 64% of brands tweet during busy hours and take advantage of this trend.

4. Use different social networks so your conversation
     is always on

While Tweets during busy hours receive significantly more engagement, Facebook posts show the inverse results — posts during non-busy hours receive 17% more engagement on Facebook than those posted during busy hours. Facebook posts can remain at the top of a user’s News Feed based on their EdgeRank scores, even if they’re published while the user isn’t on Facebook. Tweets, on the other hand, are quickly pushed out of sight by newer tweets, making them more difficult to find when they’re published outside of busy hours.

5. Figure out how to pace your tweets throughout the day

Plan your tweet schedule according to the days your tweets perform best, and tweet more frequently on those days. But don’t overdo it — there’s an inverse relationship between tweet frequency and engagement, so the more you tweet per day, the less engaging your tweets may become.

6. Keep tweets short for best performance

Tweets that contain fewer than 100 characters receive 17% higher engagement than longer tweets. And leave some room in tweets — if you don’t use all 140 characters, followers can add their own text either before or after your content.

7. Use links in tweets to drive clicks and retweets

Links with short, tempting descriptions entice followers to click. Tweets that include links are retweeted 86% more than tweets with no links. Adding links drives a lot of traffic to desired destinations and magnifies your brand messages.

8. Make sure your links work

Ever see an interesting tweet with a link that you really want to click but can’t? We’re all familiar with that scenario. It’s often the result of a simple formatting error in the tweet — 92% of all linking errors are caused by not inserting a space before the actual link, which forces users to copy and paste the link into a browser. I don’t want to do that, do you?

9. Use hashtags increase engagement but don’t overdo it

Hashtags are a Twitter staple and a popular way to identify themes or topics in a tweet. Tweets with hashtags receive twice the engagement of those without hashtags, but only 24% of tweets contain them. It’s possible to overuse hashtags, though, and many brands do — tweets with one or two hashtags have 21% more engagement than those with three or more, which yield a 17% drop in engagement.

10. Tweet images 

Even though followers can’t see an image instantly on Twitter as they can on Facebook, regular publishing of images has a pronounced impact on Twitter performance. Tweets with image links (via yfrog, instagr.am, Twitpic, and other sites) have engagement rates 200% higher than those without. 

11. Ask for retweets

Don’t be afraid to ask people to retweet your posts — it can make a huge difference. Tweets that specifically ask followers to “retweet” or “RT” are retweeted 12 times more than those that do not, but fewer than 1% of brands actually implement this call to action. Asking followers to retweet is an easy and effective way to amplify your brand messaging.

The old cliché, “time is money” is particularly true for any professional writer—especially when you’re on deadline. The consequences of missing deadlines are lost money, work, and credibility.

As a former journalist (a.k.a hourly deadline writer) for more than a decade, I know that deadline writing is a skill that can be enhanced. Here are three unconventional tips I learned from the newsroom, which might just help you meet your next post deadline.

1. Treat every writing assignment as a project

Most of my journalism career was as a radio news anchor and TV reporter in Rochester, NY—the home city of five different Fortune 500 companies.

Most of the news in that market had a business focus, and I enrolled in business courses to help sharpen those skills. The course that most improved my ability to write to deadline was not a writing course at all—it was a Project Management class.

Every writing assignment should be viewed as a project with actionable tasks, milestones, resource needs, time management requirements, and a final deadline.

While each writing project plan will vary based on its specific needs, they all have some common steps to help organize your writing.

Steps such as developing timelines, identifying content experts, listing story dependencies, and task prioritization dramatically helped me become a more disciplined and deadline-driven writer.

2. Create an interview log

Eventually, every writer talks to another person or expert to gain information regarding a writing project. A digital recorder is a very useful time-saving tool in this regard.

The time-saving trick occurs when you jot down the time code, listed on the device’s display, each time your expert gives a great answer. That written interview log will save tons of time as you select quotes for the writing project.

Another tip is that, since every state has different wiretapping and recording laws, it’s useful to have your expert acknowledge the fact they’re being recorded on the actual recording itself before you start asking questions.

Also, when you’re up against a deadline, it’s useful to capture your own thoughts on the recorder since the average person can talk nearly three times as fast as they can type. Dictation while driving or standing in line helps transform “dead time” into “deadline-driven” time. You can then transcribe your recorded thoughts later, and create that post much more quickly.

3. Enhance your ability to focus

Your ability to focus is the single most important aspect of writing to deadline.

Every newsroom I’ve every worked in has a large bank of Bearcat-type scanners monitoring hundreds of specialized frequencies for police, fire, ambulance and rescue activity to track breaking-news emergencies. On top of that is the auditory barrage from the block of elevated TV screens to keep an eye on competing news outlets. Plus, there’s the obligatory newsroom noise from 20-30 reporters, editors and producers clattering on keyboards or chattering on phones working toward their respective deadlines.

The ability to focus and write meaningful content in that cacophony was a necessary skill for deadline writing that extends beyond the newsroom.

Even if you never set foot in a newsroom, you can practice your ability to focus.

Start by turning up the volume on your television to a distracting decibel, as well as a nearby radio, while someone is simultaneously vacuuming the living room. Do it, really.

Then give yourself 30 minutes or so—in the midst of that noise—to write a blog post that you fully intend to use, or some other writing project you’re working on.

If you do this focus-challenging exercise once a week your ability to focus, think, and write under extreme circumstances will improve—as will your ability to write to deadline.

Bottom-line: deadline

These deadline-driven tactics can result in real time-saving benefits for virtually any writing project or writing ability.

If you practice them, they could be the difference between making or missing your next deadline‚ and when it comes to blogging deadlines, the time and money you save is most often your own.

You only have a few seconds to convince your visitor to stay on your landing page. These seconds are critical and your landing page needs to do everything it can to make a great first impression. If you are looking to increase your lead generation efforts through conversion optimization techniques, check your pages for these must-have elements that make a great first impression.

4 Ways to Get More Conversions

1. A strong call-to-action

If you don’t ask for it, you probably won’t get it. When your landing page visitors get to your page they want to first know that they are in the right place, and then they want to know what to do next. Conversion optimization efforts start with a strong call-to-action. Don’t just tell visitors what to do, remind them of what they are going to gain by taking your conversion action.

2. Simple is better

While you definitely want to impress your landing page visitors, you don’t want to overwhelm them with too much information. You don’t need to discuss every award you’ve ever won, nor do your landing page visitors need to know every last detail about your business. Your landing page visitors just want to learn more about the offer in the ad that initially caught their attention. Limit the content on your landing page to only that which will help a visitor decide to take the next step and convert. Being able to edit your landing page down to only the most powerful, convincing elements is one thing that separates the best landing page programs from the rest. One big caveat: simple doesn’t mean boring or plain!

When you design your landing pages, be sure to keep it simple and look at these key areas:

• Landing page design – Keep it easily accessible and interesting so that it peaks interest.
• Keep the message consistent – Keep your brand messaging on target and don’t confuse your visitors.

2. Be trustworthy 

Let’s face it: people and even businesses buy more from those they trust. Visitors are not going to fill out a form and give you their personal information if they don’t trust your brand. To quickly improve your conversion optimization efforts, try building in some trust elements into your landing pages. Some examples of this, include:

• Testimonials – Have some of your clients write a short testimonial. Even better, make videos of customer testimonials!
• Privacy statements – Adding a clear privacy statement to your lead generation forms goes along way to ensure visitors that their information will be kept safe.
• Social signals – Incorporating social widgets can help show that your brand is real and reachable.

3. Tie your offer to your unique selling proposition 

It’s marketing 101 to know why you stand apart from your competition; make sure your landing page visitors know it too. To add more value and reasoning to why a visitor should choose you, tie your offering to your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Instead of creating another free report or software demo that says the same thing as your competitors; make it unique and tie in what makes your product or company unique too.

4. A good strategy to increase conversions

A good conversion optimization strategy has a set focus: to convert as many visitors into leads. The first step in increasing conversions is making it easier for your visitors to convert. Each of the four tips we discussed are focused on providing visitors with the information and confidence they need to convert quickly, without distractions or hesitations. Next time you are thinking of testing ideas or designing a new landing page, try thinking first about what page elements could help your visitors convert quickly.

Author: Jessica Collier     Jessica Collier on the Web Jessica Collier on Twitter Jessica Collier on LinkedIn Jessica Collier RSS Feed

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This article originally appeared on ion interactive blog and has been republished with permission.

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