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Gen Y And Associations: The Perfect Twitter Match

You’ve heard of Twitter. You may even use Twitter. But do you know how effective Twitter can be in engaging with a specific audience? I’m not writing this post to give you stats and industry trends. I’m writing this post to give you actionable steps to engage Gen Y using Twitter. Interested? Read on!

You’ve heard of Twitter. You may even use Twitter. But do you know how effective Twitter can be in engaging with a specific audience? I’m not writing this post to give you stats and industry trends. I’m writing this post to give you actionable steps to engage Gen Y using Twitter. Interested? Read on!

You are not a celebrity!

One of the unique aspects of Twitter vs. other social networks is you can follow whomever you want without their permission. And that’s the fundamental key to building an audience on Twitter – you must follow other people first. Oh sure, you may think that the content you post is incredibly compelling and everyone that sees it will share it, and you’ll be exposed to thousands of Twitter users that are just dying to connect with you, but rarely does content alone build a relevant Twitter audience – unless you’re a celebrity.

Audience matters

That leads us to the second point – quality over quantity. It’s actually a very simple concept that unfortunately gets lost with social media. So many people compete to have the most friends or followers regardless of who (or where) they are. What matters most for organizations is having followers that are interested in your content and can take the relevant actions you want them to take.

Follow these steps and your audience will grow

You want to engage and gain Gen Y followers, here’s how:

Step 1Build your Twitter profile. Make sure you use a good photo, write a compelling bio and link to your website. You can even customize your Twitter background.

Step 2Post some content. When people look at your Twitter profile, make sure they see you’re active and are posting content. Feel free to post all types of content: events, offers, awards, new hires, community involvement, etc. What matters most is being authentic!

Step 3Build your audience. We want to focus in on Gen Y. Since Twitter doesn’t track age we’ll have to get creative. Ask yourself this question, “What types of Twitter profiles would Gen Y follow?” Think about musicians, brands, Gen Y bloggers, etc. Once you find a Twitter profile you believe has Gen Y followers, click into it and look at the followers. Their picture, location and bio will tell you a lot about them and whether you want to follow them. Remember you need to follow them first and hope they follow you back. I would recommend you not follow more than 100 more people than are following you. It’s very important to keep your Twitter ratio of followers/following close to 1:1.

Step 4Audience Pruning. Ok, you’ve followed 100 new Gen Y’ers…now what? Let a couple days pass and you’ll see who has followed you back. Anyone that hasn’t followed you back you should unfollow. Again, you want to keep your follower/following ratio close to 1:1.  Once you’ve unfollowed those that didn’t follow you, find 100 more users to follow.

Step 5Audience Growth. This action of following and unfollowing is how you grow your audience. Of course continue to post compelling content and hopefully that will also get you new followers.

Make life easier with Twitter tools

Here is a short list of tools that will help you in your audience building efforts.

  1. Wefollow – follow people through popular tags

  2. Twello – user directory with location

  3. SMBtweet – audience building software (happy to provide free trial, simply contact me)

Well, there you have it…not glamorous, but effective. Your Twitter audience will grow by using the method above and while it does take some time, it’s well worth the effort when you’re engaging with Gen Y’ers that can sustain and positively impact your association for the foreseeable future.

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