Twitter has a reputation for being pretty simple. It sounds easy. Its not. Twitter still comes with some very useful Twitter features and functions that help you get more out of your 280-character conversations.
Knowing about these Twitter features and using them will allow you to get the most out of your efforts and help you grow an engaged following.
Here are 15 Twitter features you shouldn’t miss!
Twitter polls are a relatively new type of Twitter tweet released in 2015. Before Twitter polls, many people tried to poll by counting a like as a reply and a retweet as another, and then counting the votes. This was a back-end solution and not very satisfactory.
Today you can create a poll as a special type of Tweet. A survey can offer up to four answer options.
You can also choose who can answer your survey. You can choose between everyone, people you follow, or limit the survey to people you mention.
You can choose the duration of the survey up to seven days.
People can retweet your poll, which then still shows the original poll, the votes on the retweet counting for the poll. This is much more convenient than counting likes and retweets and presents a great opportunity to engage with your followers – or gain insights from your audience.
Poll results will only be shown to the poll initiator until the poll ends and to everyone who voted. Once the survey is completed, the results will be displayed to everyone.
Twitter polls are a great way to increase engagement on your Twitter account. Plus, you can get insight into the minds of your followers and create some great unique images for blog content.
There are endless possibilities for using Twitter polls in your social media routine, in case you need some inspiration, here are some ideas.
A while ago, I realized that not every Twitter user is aware that there are basically two options for your Twitter feed:
- You can see every tweet from the people you follow in chronological order
- Or you can see the “top tweets” in your feed as selected by a Twitter feed algorithm
The Twitter feed used to be all chronological. But today, if you open a Twitter account, by default, your account is set to use the main tweet feed.
You can switch between the two feed options by clicking on the little star icon at the top of your home feed.
If you’re only following a handful of views, you might want to opt for the chronological feed. If you’re following a large number of people, the main tweet feed can help you find the most interesting updates.
The main tweet feed is populated based on your preferences:
- the people you follow
- the topics you choose
- the people you interact with
Among all relevant tweets, the Twitter algorithm selects the top tweets based on engagement, the popularity of a tweet’s creator, the duration of a tweet, and other factors such as whether the tweet contains an image or other media wealthy.
You can increase the chances of your tweet appearing in your followers’ feed by using keywords and hashtags, increase engagement and interact with your followers.
You can learn more about the Twitter feed here.
We all search for something on Twitter from time to time. Usually, we just use the little search bar at the top right of your Twitter dashboard.
But are you aware that Twitter has a really powerful search? A search that lets you search for almost anything? Tweet within a specified time period and date. Tweets from specific users. Tweets that mention keywords. Tweets do NOT mention keywords. Twitter to a location or area around that location.
Want to search for something very specific? Twitter can do it.
How?
You must use Twitter’s advanced search: https://twitter.com/search-advanced
How can you get to this form? Type a word in the search bar and press return.
Now click on the three dots next to the search bar, select advanced search from the drop-down and the form will open.
Twitter Moments allow any Twitter user to group all tweets related to a topic, event, or other related tweet in any way into a “moment.”
Twitter Moments allow you to tell lasting stories. They’re a bit like Instagram story highlights – only for tweets.
With Twitter Moments you can save your tweets in topic-related containers for your followers to access at any convenient time.
Tweets are short. It used to be 140 characters, no you get 280 characters to tell the story.
But sometimes it just takes a few more words to tell the full story.
And that’s what Twitter threads are for.
Twitter threads allow you to link a series of tweets together to form a story.
You can create your link by starting a tweet – but before you post it, you click the little “+” sign next to the tweet button.
A second tweet will open – you can add more tweets to the thread. Once you’ve created all the tweets, you can post them all at once.
A thread will appear on a follower’s timeline as a series of tweets linked together by a vertical line:
Twitter Spaces are live audio chats on Twitter. They post the response on Instagram live to Twitter users.
Twitter Spaces is available on mobile and can be used by any Twitter user who has more than 600 followers.
If someone you follow starts a Twitter feed, that feed will appear at the top of your feed in your mobile app — just like you know from Instagram live videos.
You can join a space as a speaker or listener. If you join a space as a listener, you can react to what’s happening in the space with emojis — or you can ask to upgrade to a speaker. As a speaker, you can also link tweets in space.
Image source: I tweet
As the creator of a space you are in control:
- you can decide who can be the speaker
- you can mute the speakers
- you can remove people from space
- you can invite people to join the space via DM
Mentioning another Twitter account in a tweet can have a tremendous impact on getting a pin.
A tweet that mentions one or more Twitter accounts will appear in the notifications tab of those accounts. If you misuse this, you can easily be considered a spammer. But it also posts a ton of marketing power.
You can use @mentions to gain retweets, engagement and likes. But you need a reason to mention a Twitter account.
For example, if you create a blog post about the most important Twitter accounts from our niche — you can tweet this post and mention some of the accounts involved. This will often get you likes and retweets.
You can also ask a question and reach out to a specific Twitter account to get an answer. This can help immensely to increase engagement on your Twitter account.
One exception to how @mentions are handled on Twitter are replies. If you reply to a tweet, that tweet mentions the Twitter handle of the Twitter account you’re replying to at the beginning of the tweet.
This tweet will only be shown to the people in the chat plus the Twitter accounts that both chat participants follow.
Did you know you can put a tweet at the top of your Twitter profile? You may be familiar with Facebook Pinned Posts, where you can pin an update to the top of your Fanpage.
On Twitter, pinned tweets work in a similar way. They are especially interesting if you have a lot of visitors to your Twitter profile and a particular tweet that you want to get some extra attention.
Personally, I believe that Twitter lists are one of the most important features for a growing Twitter account. Once you follow more than a handful of active Twitter accounts you feed, you’ll get crowded and you’re likely to miss at least some of the incoming tweets.
If you now have several Twitter accounts from which you don’t want to miss a single tweet, you can use Twitter lists: Add all the accounts you want to follow to a list. You can even use lists to sort your followers into different categories or topics. You can now go to the list feed directly on Twitter, or you can set up feeds for the different lists in your Tweetdeck account.
You can even follow lists that other Twitter users have created, saving you time searching for the best accounts on a topic.
Twitter’s direct messages are perhaps one of the most controversial features in the social media realm. However, while you are right that many direct messages are promotional spam, they still provide a great tool to reach your followers.
It’s up to you to find a message that speaks to your audience. And the open secret is that promotions or sales messages are usually not your best option. Direct messages done right hold a lot of potential.
There are tools that allow you to send automated direct messages to your followers – before you spam your hard-earned followers, think about what kind of direct messages you would read and react to.
There are several places on Twitter where you should work with images:
- Upload an avatar
- Create and upload a header image for your profile
- Use images in your tweets
Don’t underestimate the power of images on Twitter!
Nobody likes to chase eggs, plus an avatar makes you stand out and stand out. You can use the header on your Twitter profile to give a little more information about what you do and what people can expect if they follow you.
Tweets with images get approximately 18% more clicks and over 80% more favorites and approximately 150% more retweets – do you really want to miss that? One reason for these statistics is simply that in the crowded feed an image stands a lot longer than a 140 character text.
Twitter Cards are a special form of a tweet where you can attach rich photos, videos or media to drive more traffic to your website. You need to add a few lines of HTML to your website, tweets with links to your website will then automatically have a “card” added to their tweets, which will be displayed to followers theirs.
There are different types of cards such as summary cards, player cards and application cards. You’ll need to choose a machine type, add the appropriate meta tags to your page, and once approved, you can see the card appear below your tweets.
More information on Twitter cards can be found at Blog on Twitter.
Now, that doesn’t sound like a Twitter feature you might have missed, does it? However, many Twitter users do not fully utilize their profiles.
It is important to complete your Twitter profile by mentioning the right keywords. Many people search Twitter accounts for certain topics, you can ensure that you will rank in the right niche by paying a little more attention to your Twitter profile.
Also, the Twitter profile can be used to promote yourself or a product in an unobtrusive way. Mention your blog or a featured product and link back.
You may find additional Twitter features you had no idea existed in this article.
An earlier version of this post appeared on The Social Ms blog.
