Food truck operators constantly email me with questions on how they can improve their food truck tweets. What I usually explain is that they need to increase their “Twitter Traction”. That’s when things get quiet. Twitter Traction? The short explanation is this…it’s when your tweets get retweeted, favorited, or attracts new followers (ie…possible new customers).

As a mobile food business, Twitter traction something you need to learn how to achieve.  A common response question is, “Why?”, and within milliseconds I return the volley with, “the primary reason any food truck should have a social media presence is to gain more visibility for your brand. The more your tweets get circulated, the more people will view your mobile food business name and ultimately track your truck down to see what all the fuss is about.”

As someone who has spent the last 6 years inside the twitterverse, I have enjoyed figuring out what kind of food truck tweets get attention not just get tweeted out once, never to be read again. While in some cases it may just be that the author found the right receiver, the right Twitter member who appreciates the thoughts, sentiments or content of that particular tweet. But along the way I have discovered some great tricks for delivering your tweet message effectively- to get your food truck’s tweet noticed, to get it TRACTION.

3 Ways To Get Traction With Your Food Truck Tweets

HASHTAGS and MENTIONS

Starting with the most obvious and easiest to master- the art of the hashtag for food trucks is all about being topical within the mobile food industry, your target market or subjects relevant to your brand. If you hashtag your tweet, it becomes easily searched, and may find its way to the perfect re-tweeter.

Examples: #foodtruck, #foodcart,  #streetfood, #yourcity 

Mentioning other food trucks or businesses related to your tweet (by including @ followed by their twitter address) is a no-brainer in gaining twitter traction- because whomever you mention will likely retweet to increase their own brand visibility. This is of course far more effective when used authentically, positively, and with a clear purpose- for example, to thank a customer, a business partner, a supplier, or event promoter; respond to their idea, or share content specifically relevant to them.

FRONT LOAD

Tweets may be only 140 characters, but mobile food vendors are always in a hurry. Whenever possible, lead with the interesting information, feeling, opinion, or point of difference. This way, when scrolling down the trillion or so tweets on their screen, others in the twitterverse will be attracted to your tweet immediately, without having to read the entire message.

Again, positive food truck tweets seem to get more traction, and to create that immediate, positive tweet-attraction- you can start your tweet with engaging adjectives that invite fellow tweeters to keep reading:

Example: Helpful #Cookingtips: learn how to make our awesome <insert menu item here> at home! www.yourfoodtruckblog.com

This hits the topic of cooking tips and gives an opinion (helpful) in the first two words. Front-loading is effective for all scroll-feed social media.

SIMPLIFY + TOPICS = RETWEET

This is a great little trick for getting your content circulated and you brand retweeted- especially if you are linking an article, either a blog post on your own site or another great piece of content you have discovered that you feel is really on message for your food truck brand. Before the link, create a simple equation that will help readers quickly ascertain why this is a click-worthy link:

Example: #FoodTrucks + #Social Media = Low Cost #Marketing! (follow with link).

See how the hashtags are a natural fit as well?  You can even add a dash of humor to get even more traction:

Example: #QSR + #SocialMediaFail = #hilarious! (link to article). 

You can have some fun working with these tips but be sure to experiment.  See what helps get your food truck tweets the most traction.

RELATED: Brand Monitoring On Twitter For Food Truck Vendors 

Bonus Tip: GET TRENDING

One of the quickest ways to spread the word about your business is to get a hastag listed in Twitter’s trending topics column. Twitter keeps an updated list on the left side of the site that shares what hashtags or topics are trending the most. You can see what trending locally or nationally or if interested worldwide.

To get into that list, a large group of people need to be tweeting about that topic in a certain point of time. We have created a way food trucks can get their topic of choice trending. Social Surge is our new site offering that allows members of the mobile food industry to gather social media donations to shout out a tweet on a topic all at once.

How do you get traction for your your food truck Tweets? Share your ideas on social media. Facebook | Twitter