Twitter

I have two twitter accounts.

One is my normal one...I've had it for years. I don't have many peers with twitter accounts, so I have very few followers whom I know. Most everyone who follows me is a stranger.  And usually? I just post links to my blog and my instagram accounts. Every once in awhile I'll use it to thank a business for great service, or to thank an author for a great book - but I don't tweet daily.

My second twitter account is 'special'. It's my playground. It's where I'm totally anonymous and it doesn't link to any of my online properties (blog, instagram, facebook, etc.) I have a made up name. A made up gmail account. There is absolutely nothing about me or traceable to me in that account.

So.

I'm experimenting with it.

I started the week with NO followers.

And I post 4 - 5 tweets per day. Promotional tweets. Encouraging readers to attend a particular movie, watch a certain TV show or buy a recommended DVD. All week I 'promoted' (raised awareness of) the same three products. I personally wasn't selling anything. This wasn't about sales.

Day 1, I simply posted pics of the product (movie poster, for example) and linked to a trailer. And maybe hashtagged a star's name.

Day 2, my tweets included some pics from behind the scenes, or screen caps from the trailer. And I hashtagged 2 - 3 actors in the movie/show/DVD who had big fan bases.

Day 3, I still added pics, but I also looked up the twitter addresses of any actors, and instead of hashtagging them, I "@" them ... meaning they were notified that I'd tweeted about them.

Day 4, I got very creative in my use of 140 characters. In addition to photos of cast and photo of the product, and hashtagged names of actors, I said 'thanks' to the producer with an "@", so they would see the tweet.

Day 5, I posted quotes from the script along with professional, appealing (sexy) headshots and included lesser known cast members in the tweet with a "@".


The shows I was promoting/experimenting with are all small time shows, produced overseas. Very few North Americans in the productions. I know nobody and nobody knows me.


Want to know how what happened?

Not much.

At the end of 5 days, I gained 11 followers.
Total strangers from the other side of the world.

I followed them back.


On the first day, my 4 - 5 tweets were seen by maybe 50 people. When a tweet is 'seen' it is called making an 'impression', So Day 1, I had/made 50 impressions.

Engagement is when the user clicks on your tweet to check out a link, watch an embedded video, view a photo, follow at hashtag, favorite-it, reply to it or retweets it. My first day? No engagement.
From what I can tell in my research, having a 4 - 5% engagement rate is average. Certain times of day, certain times of year, bring in higher engagement rates than others.

That changed by the end of the week. This is the chart from Twitter Analytics: (click to enlarge, if you've even still reading this)

(Day 6 is Jan 20, Which started in Europe a few hours ago. This side of the Atlantic is mostly sleeping.)

But as of Monday, Jan 19? I had 4,100 impressions. (!) (I think that is deserving of an exclamation mark.)
And those tweets? Were averaging an engagement rate of 11%, with at least one tweet a day getting a 25% engagement rate. (!) Haha. What. The. Heck.


And?
The fan club folks want to chat with me about the upcoming movie/TV show. While the lesser know actors have replied to the tweets saying 'thanks'. And I've gotten to know (as much as you can know in 5 days and 140 characters), one of the star's best friends through private messages.


OH my goodness.
It's so addicting. And fun. And I JUST LOVE IT.

And so.
Twitter - my new hobby.
At least it was this week.

(And probably? In the grand scope of things? These numbers are pfffft. Nothing. But, boy howdy it was fun watching them rise each day.)

Next week?
Going to play around in Instagram.

I guess I still have a 'marketing' soul after all these years.

:)