Are you taking advantage of one of Twitter’s most powerful features – the pinned Tweet?
If not, you could be losing out on valuable promotional opportunities.
Pinning a tweet does more than just bump a post to the top of your profile; it saves a quality tweet from otherwise being lost in the fast-moving stream and, as the top post in your feed, it shares a message, idea or link that best represents your brand with those visiting for the first time.
Any tweet you’ve sent in the past can be pinned to the top of your profile and will stay there until you unpin it or pin a different tweet. All new tweets will appear below it and won’t interfere with its visibility.
How to pin a tweet
Pinning a tweet is easy on both desktop and mobile and takes just three quick steps:
1. Find the tweet you’d like to pin.
2. Click the downward facing arrow beside the tweet.
3. Click “Pin to your profile page”.
Pinning a tweet does not repost the original tweet; it simply places it at the top of your profile feed. When a tweet is pinned, it does not reappear in your follower’s feed since it’s not new. Only one tweet can be pinned at a time, so pinning a new tweet will remove the last one, though it will still be viewable in its original place within your timeline.
Why should you pin a tweet?
Depending on how you interact on Twitter, pinning a tweet can be used in a number of different ways. The main value in a pinned tweet is its high-profile visibility, so it’s primarily used to do things like promote a time-sensitive campaign, make an announcement, provide a mission statement or simply keep an older-yet-valuable tweet that you think deserves to be seen again. Tweets containing links are ideal candidates for pinning; it’s a great way to drive traffic to your content outside of Twitter. Ensure you can track use of that link, for example by using a link shortener such as bit.ly or even better, a UTM parameter (a tag that you add to a URL – when your link is clicked the tags are sent back to Google Analytics for tracking).
I recommend updating the pinned Tweet regularly. As the date of the Tweet is on display at first glance it can look like you haven’t for a while. I find it distracting to see a pinned Tweet that’s a few weeks let alone months or years old. If you want to keep the same message in place, simply post a new Tweet and then pin that.
If I’m actively building my audience with some volume of following activity I’ll make sure my pinned Tweet is relevant to the audience I’m targeting, in addition to maximising the power of the 160 characters in my bio, a pinned Tweet can help to make a great first impression. I also find that a pinned Tweet gains more likes and retweets than my regular stream of Tweets.
Do it now – log in to your Twitter account and pin a Tweet!