Get Rid of Ineffective Twitter Profiles Once and For All

Social media has been able to connect millions of people worldwide to their favorite brands, celebrities, artists, and more. I am no exception. With my fondness of social media and decent experience using the bigger platforms, I decided to take a social media course to learn more about social media and to practice good social media techniques. For this, I audited Adidas and Adidas Originals on Twitter. Even though I love Adidas sneakers, shirts, and sweatpants, they could do a much better job following best practices on social media. Here are three mistakes that other companies on social media should avoid:

1. Utilize Twitter’s Built-In Features and Personalize Your Profile

I began my audit by looking at what Adidas and Adidas Originals had on their respective Twitter profiles. Neither account had any URLs within their biography nor any specific information about the brands. According to Sprout Social’s “How to Get Traffic from Twitter that Converts,” a way to generate more traffic onto Twitter is to add URLs to a profile. Having a link on Twitter will give any brand or person more recognition and views on their respective website.

Adidas Originals does not have any links on their profile, so having a direct link to Adidas Originals or to whichever promotion is going on will be more convenient for the user. In addition, in order for tweets to be seen, you need to Tweet consistently. This is the key to using Twitter successfully and driving traffic to your site. Since people tweet often, a user’s home feed moves quickly. In fact, the average lifespan of a tweet is around 15-20 minutes. If a user wants to stay visible, they need to tweet often as well. Adidas Originals does not tweet often at a rate of twice per week on average. In order for them to be seen more often, they will need to tweet a little more even though they are a world-renowned company.

2. Post Often and During Peak Hours

I also noticed that both accounts would tweet at seemingly random hours during the day. It seemed like there was not any consistency when they would post. According to Sprout Social’s “Best Times to Post on Social Media for 2019,” the best times to post on Twitter are on Wednesday at 9 am and Friday at 9 am and the most consistent engagement is from Monday through Friday from 8-4 pm. The best days to post on Twitter are on Tuesday and Wednesday and the least engagement is on Saturday. 

During the week that I tracked Adidas’ and Adidas Originals’ posts, I found it intriguing that the day with the most amount of likes was on January 17, which was a Friday since they posted it at 8:01 pm and there is lower engagement at that time compared to Friday morning, where it is shown that one of the best times to post on Twitter is at 9 am.

The time that they are tweeting is also very unusual, as they are tweeting at 4:42 am EST. They sent this out incredibly early and their United States headquarters are in Portland, Oregon, which is in PST. Therefore, they are sending that tweet at 1:42 am PST, which is incredibly early for the Western Hemisphere. If they used a program like Hootsuite or Planoly to schedule their tweets, they would get more consistent interaction.

3. Being More Interactive to Customers

Even though most major brands do not reply to comments on Twitter or other social media platforms, they would have a support or help profile to address consumer questions or complaints. According to Sprout Social’s “5 Social Media Best Practices Every Marketer Must Follow,” a way to generate more traffic onto Twitter is to ask engagement-driven questions. It is considered one of the best and easiest ways to garner a response from an audience. As long as the questions are thorough, thoughtful, and the account is present, the response will be much better than if not asking a question. 

Adidas Originals does not normally tweet out questions on their profile. Instead, they mostly post about their upcoming collaborations and releases. If they asked a question about an upcoming “hyped” release and what colors look good on the release, for example, they would get an enormous amount of responses. Through this, they can see what the more popular replies are with the number of likes on each reply. This would be fairly difficult to answer every single question as Adidas is the second-largest athleticwear company in the world, but they could state that their questions would be answered in a certain time frame via email or chat.

What Do You think?

It was fairly difficult to complete this audit due to the lack of tweets on both Adidas’ and Adidas Originals’ accounts. Their infrequent and seemingly random tweets and lack of engagement does not reflect what the brand is and its impact on the world. It makes me think about why there is such a disconnect between Twitter and other social media platforms. Taking tips from brands like Nike and Wendy’s could turn Adidas’ & Adidas Originals’ Twitters quickly. 

What other brands and companies do you think can use some improvements in their social media? How do you use each of these social media platforms (if at all)? Please feel free to share, like and leave a comment.

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