How to Use Twitter Video To Get More Engagement On Your Tweets

Gaining traction on social media in general can be difficult for businesses, but I’ve always found it to be a particularly monumental challenge on Twitter. People don’t always engage quite as much on Twitter as they do on other platforms, where tracking conversations is a little easier (and a little more visible).

This doesn’t mean that Twitter is out of the marketing game, however; if your audience is on Twitter, then it can still be a big part of your marketing strategy. You just need to know how to get the best results from the platform. And as it turns out, one of the best things you can do on Twitter to increase engagement on your Tweets is to use more video.

In this post, we’re going to look at why and how to use Twitter video to boost engagement and get more results on the platform.

The Benefits of Twitter Video

Every blog post you read about marketing is going to tell you to use more video, and that’s just as true on Twitter as it is on other platforms.

There are a lot of benefits to utilizing Twitter video, and reasons why it can give your engagement rates a helping hand. These include:

• Not being limited by a character count.
  
  Sure, we get up to 280 characters now, but that’s still not a whole lot. Unless you’re an expert copywriter, you’ll have a much easier time conveying more (including tone and style!) in a short video clip than in 280 characters.
• It stands out. If you’re scrolling through most feeds, you’ll see mostly text with a decent chunk of images splattered in. You might see one, maybe
  
  two videos. If you’re using them, this will help you stand out, and it’s easier to sink your claws into users before they can scroll past.
• People love video. This is just the reality of the world we live in now. People would rather watch a video
  
  than read about the same content in text format, and there are some things text just can’t quite capture, so give the people what they want!

7 Ways to Use Twitter Video To Increase Engagement

It’s all well and good to know that you should be using more video on Twitter, but it’s another thing altogether to understand exactly how to use it and what content to feature to get the results you want.

We want to demystify the process a bit, so test out these seven ways to add more video to your Tweets.

1. Announce new blog posts, press releases, or other business changes through a quick video. We use this strategy ourselves, using Shakr’s video templates to quickly put together short content that is guaranteed to grab a user’s eye.

3. Go live with Periscope.Periscope is Twitter’s sister app that allows users to broadcast live video in real time. These videos can be shared on Twitter and replayed long after the lives are over. Since live videos are inherently dynamic and give users a chance to interact with their favorite brands or influencers, it should be a priority on multiple platforms (including but definitely not limited to Twitter).

4. Make still images more interesting. Twitter doesn’t have those fancy multi-image posts like Instagram, so use tools like Shakr’s video templates

5. Share current events. Twitter is all about current events and breaking news; it’s what the platform was originally intended for. Use video content to weigh in quickly on breaking news, current events, or jump in on a relevant trending topic. The current events can be about your business exclusively, but you can also discuss how other events in the world may impact your customers or your industry.

Video on Twitter: The Basics

Before you run off to start making Twitter videos just based on topic alone, make sure you read this section and take a look at the best practices for creating, sharing, and monitoring your videos.

The technical:

• Your videos can’t be under 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
• Video files must be under 512MB
• MP4 video formats are accepted
• Minimum resolutions are 32×32
• Maximum resolutions are 1920×2000 (and 2000×1920)
• Maximum frame rate is 40fps

The strategic:

• You can use hashtags to increase the visibility of your hashtags, but remember not to go crazy like on Instagram; stick to one to three hashtags.
• Create different types of video content to keep your audience engaged and interested in what you’re doing next.
• Try to offer value in your videos where you can.
• Keep the video content as short as possible; Brevity is valued on Twitter.
• Monitor performance in their video analytics section.

Image source: Buffer

Conclusion

Twitter has more competition than ever before, but user engagement isn’t always keeping up with that competition. You have to use every trick in the book in order to make the platform work for you, and Twitter video is the best trick out there. Remember that each video doesn’t need to be groundbreaking, but adding even a quick, simple clip can do wonders for your engagement rates.