3 Ways Tax Professionals Can Boost Their Twitter Profile

Twitter is different from other social media platforms in that your posts have to be brief. You only have 280 characters to get your point across, which can be a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with being precise and succinct with what you say in the professional world. Plus, the life span of a tweet is only 18 minutes, which means you won’t get much engagement from it after that. However, those 18 minutes can add a lot of value to your social media strategy if you keep a few tips in mind.

Post at the Best Times

The best times to post on Twitter are 12pm, 3pm, 5pm, and 6pm. 5pm and 6pm are especially great because Twitter users are 181% more likely to use Twitter during their commute.

The best day to post in general is Wednesday, but that can depend on who your audience is. If you are marketing to business owners, posts shared during business hours perform 16% better. On the other hand, if you’re marketing to clients who aren’t business owners, weekend posts perform 17% better.

Make Your Account Public

Don’t protect your tweets. Protecting your tweets means you only allow your followers to see what you’re posting, and every new follower will need your approval before they can see anything you post. It’s up to you to choose the privacy settings for your account, but putting up a barrier to connecting with you is not good for gaining potential clients. If you’re trying to expand your client base, keeping new followers out is not the way to go.

To make your tweets visible to everyone, navigate to your “Privacy and safety” settings and uncheck the box that says, “Protect my tweets.”

Going along with making your account more accessible to new clients, you should also enable direct messages (DMs). It makes it difficult for someone to reach out to you with questions or concerns if they can’t send you a private message. Most people don’t want to tweet their personal questions. To enable DMs, navigate again to your “Privacy and safety” settings and scroll down to the “Direct Messages” section. Then select the box that says “Receive Direct Messages from anyone.”

Keep in mind, when you have a public account, virtually all of your activity is visible—what you’re liking and retweeting, even who you’re following. Don’t like, retweet, or follow any account that you wouldn’t want potential or current clients associating with your practice.

Double Check Hashtags

If you avoid being spammy with hashtags, hashtags can add a lot of value to your Twitter strategy. Using 1-2 hashtags on a post boosts engagement by 21%. However, if you use more than 3 hashtags, engagement goes down by 17%.

Once you pick a hashtag you want to use, be sure to check the context of what the hashtag means. Trending hashtags are often centered around events or movements. Many businesses have made the mistake of using a trending hashtag in a way that’s offensive because they didn’t double check what the hashtag meant. Doing this will quickly turn into a PR nightmare. Checking the context of all hashtags you use is a good idea for other social platforms as well, but it’s especially important for Twitter because of the popularity of trending hashtags.

Want more tips for boosting your social media marketing strategy? Download our free ebook How to Create a Social Media Presence for Your Tax Practice.