On June 24, 2015 Twitter and Hubspot held #TweetSmarter Webinar 2.0, highlighting best practices to promote businesses on Twitter. The seminar was led by Anne Mercogliano of Twitter SMB Marketing and Kipp Bodanar, VP of Marketing at Hubspot. Here are a few of my key takeaways from the webinar and, specifically, design's role in tweeting smarter.

1 Use photos taken with your smartphone for tweet images. We pretty much have a camera with us at all times these days they suggest using that to your advantage by posting more candid images. This is a great idea because a less staged photo feels more conversational and engaging to your audience, and more conversational equals more genuine. This way, anyone involved with a product or brand can contribute to imagery. Just make sure to have your designer review photos before posting because some color adjustment or creative cropping could help that candid photo become more engaging. Also, make sure you keep a balance in the images used. Keep consistent branding with designed professional images along with your candid images. Slide 17 is a good example of this.  

2 Respect the screenshot, seriously. Any designer who has been asked by a client to show a screenshot of their product or software has probably uttered a small, silent groan to themselves. No matter how good the UI design, it can't be as engaging as a good lifestyle image, right? Hubspot presented an example of one image using a stock looking photo vs an image showing a screenshot of their new CRM. What they found is the stock photo received 4x the retweets, but the screenshot received 130% more clicks. Pretty sure my clients would prefer the clicks. We've seen the statistics that people who follow brands on social media want engagement and information rather than being sold. I think that definitely plays into this. Take a look at slide 20 to see this example, (note that both images were designed with strong branding and are unmistakably from Hubspot).     

3 Keep tweets simple, no, even simpler. This one is more about copy than design, but any designer will tell you, you don't put three calls to action on an ad, so why put three clickable items in a tweet? You've probably spent time thinking of just the right # to include in a tweet. You may even go to ritetag.com to check what’s trending. Throw in a @ for a little more exposure, and you have two clickable items not related to your post call to action in your tweet. From Hubspot:
"Website cards that don't include an @ or # drive 23% more clicks"
It might be a tough habit to break leaving out #s and @s, but it's easy enough to experiment with and test.

4 Ask more questions. Tweets that ask a question get 25% more clicks.

5 Share success, positive reviews. It's okay to name drop (as long as you're not adding # or @), have a product featured in your local paper or used by a celebrity? Their research showed tooting your own horn does not turn turn people away. Add a smartphone photo of a Google review screen perhaps? See slide 46 for examples.

6 Twitter Analytics. If you're on Twitter and not aware of Twitter Analytics you need to check it out. It's already attached to your account and keeps track of top tweets by month, top followers, as well as statistics for each of your tweets. Find it here: analytics.twitter.com