Recent statistics show Twitter now has approximately 187 million monetizable daily active users across the globe. So, if your business has yet to tweet, now might be the time to start.
If your business is ready to build a strong brand presence on Twitter, here are 7 tips that can help you to succeed:
1. Choose an On-Brand Username
The first step in creating a strong professional presence on Twitter is to choose a username or “handle” that reflects your brand. On Twitter, your handle can only be a maximum of 15 characters, and many handles are already taken, so you might have to get creative – still, you want a handle that people will easily associate with your brand.
2. Follow Other Prominent Brands in Your Industry
If you want to connect with relevant users and start to build a worthwhile following, it’s a good idea to begin by following as many people in your industry as you can.
Pay attention to how other brands that are active in your niche utilize Twitter, and you may get some good ideas and even build on the followings they’ve already created.
3. Engage with Your Ideal Customers
Twitter shouldn’t just be a platform where you post announcements about yourself and your efforts. If you want to maximize Twitter’s potential to develop a following, you need to start engaging with users and their interests and activities.
Be sure to comment on others’ posts and threads. Make yourself a part of the conversation that is already happening. One good strategy is to share others’ tweets – hopefully they’ll turn around and return the favor.
4. Do More Than Just Promote Offers
Many businesses end up only tweeting when they have an offer to promote. Unfortunately, this doesn’t create much of an opportunity to build an engaged audience that will be excited for that offer.
Right now, there really isn’t any kind of true “marketplace” on Twitter. Instead, Twitter is best used as a platform for engaging with audiences and generating leads.
So, instead of pushing for a hard sell, use Twitter to provide reasons why people should want to get to know and love your brand.
5. Limit Your Number of Hashtags 
Hashtags can be an effective way to get your posts in front of new, relevant users as they help target existing active conversations. However, if your post has too many hashtags, it just dilutes its appropriateness to each topic and makes that post harder to read.
Research indicated that the ideal number of hashtags to maximize engagement is two per tweet. So, do your research to find the most relevant hashtags and use them strategically.
6. Limit Your Automation
Running a business requires a lot of time and effort, so you might be tempted to take advantage of automation tools to keep your Twitter account active. Just be sure not to automate too much.
You’ll get the most value out of Twitter by engaging with other users and spending time on the platform to see what’s working now in your industry. So, while automation can ultimately amplify your efforts, it should never be a full replacement for your actual presence.
7. Incorporate Rich Media
Tweets are short. But the most effective short messages also incorporate visual, audio, and video media to get and keep people’s attention.
In fact, Twitter’s own research suggests that tweets with photos get on average 35% more retweets. Best of all, you can attach images without it impacting the numbers of characters you’re allowed.
Are you ready to try out Twitter as part of your brand’s social media strategy? To learn how you can maximize your social media marketing effort across multiple platforms, reach out to our expert team at JXT Group by calling 718-690-730 or submitting our online form.
