Twitter for influencers
Becoming a Twitter influencer requires time, intention, strategy and stamina. Use the following information to review those who follow you, identify the influencers and assist with developing your Twitter strategy. This is essential to better position your Twitter account and to address the types of accounts you are following.
An influencer in the world of Twitter has the ability to influence other people’s opinions.
They can be either an individual or organisation and share several characteristics:
- occupy a niche or area of expertise
- have a large and enthusiastic following;
- the ability to create unique content and express an opinion;
- are either a hub or bridge influencer.
Hub influencers
Hub influencers are the people at the center of their conversational networks.
They create virality by starting movements, creating hashtags and generating trends. They tweet new information to a large network that retweets that information.
Information has to be noteworthy to warrant retweets and with only 140 characters to work with, this represents well-honed tweeting skills, a clear online personality and the ability to stay on message. You also need the right kind of connections and followers to gain retweets, most often generated by other active account holders or organisations.
The idea of “hub” implies there is a wheel or a sphere of influence. Influencers are the engine rooms: they know their audience and understand what can be achieved within their niche. They are highly familiar with the nuances, vocabulary, hashtags and personalities of Twitter and the other voices within the sphere of influence.
Hubs are aware that their dominance within their niche relies on the grace of their audience to share, retweet and comment on material, so tend to generate new content, present ideas and pose hypotheticals rather than doggedly pursuing a single point. Their accounts are often well researched, new and fresh. They tend to use Twitter for a wide range of communication needs and many don’t use email at all, preferring to direct message or connect publicly. Hubs are said to be worthy of Wikipedia, meaning they are acknowledged specialists in their field.
If you’re just getting started as a hub, you should follow the most significant people in your network. Most importantly, you should connect to “bridges”.
Bridge influencers
Bridge influencers create virality by sharing relative content and connecting related groups together.
Bridge influencers publicise content by sharing, commenting and repurposing hub information to make it relevant to their audiences. They pass information from group to group and are sometimes seen as the spokes of the wheel.
Their influence depends on their position. Bridges stand between two or more groups, connecting the thoughts and ideas of one group to another. This is often the point at which a message is seen to go viral.
Bridges link polarised networks and peripheral conversations with hub thinking, and often clarify reasoning behind issues. Bridge influencers are skilled at discerning what type of information is going to serve their niche and balance bridging tweets with general audience tweets and information.
To become a bridge influencer, position yourself by connecting to primary information (hubs) as well as accounts that can pass on your information.
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Thanks to Social Media Examiner from where some of this information was sourced.
socialmediaexaminer.com