Twitter is a powerful marketing tool and one that your business needs to embrace. When used correctly, it is a fantastic tool for building your online presence and engaging with your potential clients. You can use it to drive traffic to your website and ultimately increase sales.

This does not happen in one step. You will need to work hard at generating leads and solidifying your brand. However, none of this is possible if you simply have no followers on Twitter. You need a double-edged strategy. You need to build up your followers and then use the platform effectively as a marketing tool.

Here’s a strategy for how you can make Twitter a successful part of your marketing plan.

Increase your followers as quickly as you can

You have to start by building up a decent number of followers on Twitter. No-one is going to be impressed by you having 20 followers. It looks as if no-one else is interested in what you have to say so why should they be?

Start by finding the movers and shakers in your niche. This can take a bit of time and you may need to search using the hashtags. Play around with these as it can take a while to identify which ones are most popular in your niche.

Once you find them, follow them. As you do that, put together a Twitter list. This will enable you to go straight to their accounts and see what they are up to without having to scroll through thousands of tweets. Look at who they are interacting with on Twitter and follow them too.

Upload your email contacts to Twitter. These are people who you already know. Because these are people that already know you, they are more likely to follow you back.

Promote your Twitter account on your blog using https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/twitter/ this will enable anyone who likes what they read on your blog to follow you immediately without having to leave your site and look you up. The more convenient you make it for people, the more likely they are to do it!

Use your email subscriber list to promote your Twitter account. Send out an email dedicated to your Twitter account telling them why they need to follow you right now. Include incentives such as limited offers and special events that they can only find out about by following you on Twitter. Don’t forget that you can also promote your Twitter account on all your marketing materials. Let everyone know about your Twitter account on your business cards and brochures as well as on any physical signage associated with your business.

Use your other social media accounts to promote your Twitter account. Entice people to check out your Twitter account by dropping hints on Instagram of Facebook that some fascinating twitter discussions are going on about a subject that they are interested in!

Why not take part in a Follow Friday (#FF). Use this to regularly add new followers and suggest users that other tweeters could follow. Get noticed by the big guys and they will promote your account to others. Don’t be shy about directly asking for a retweet. The worst that can happen is that they will ignore you.

Create a killer profile and bio

When potential followers visit your profile, make sure that they are impressed by what they see. Choose a fabulous pic. A shot of your face works well unless you have a very powerful logo for your brand. Make it a close up, with very little in the background. A plain white background works best. Smile in your pic and try to look as positive and approachable as you can.

Make your Twitter bio as professional as you can. Summarize in a few concise sentences what you can do for your followers. Do you inform? Do you entertain? Do you provide a service or do you sell a product? They need to know this! Make sure that the tone reflects the culture and ethos of your business. Use keywords relevant to your niche in your bio so that you will rank highly in a Twitter search. If you want to attract local users it is important that you include your city or region in your bio.

Get creative with the background pic on your profile. This needs to say a lot about your brand. If you are feeling very creative you could make your own artwork or you could use a package to create a suitable design. Perhaps a high-quality photograph would suit best?

Use up all the space you can to get as much information out there as possible. Don’t forget that you can use a pinned tweet to extend this even more. This is a tweet that will be permanently just below your bio. Use it to showcase your best work and include a link to the web page that you want people to visit.

Engage with other Twitter users

You will never grow your Twitter followers in splendid isolation! You need to get out there are interact with people as much as you can.

Start by tagging people that you want to engage with in your tweets by using their @username. This sends a notification to them that you have mentioned them so it is harder for them to ignore you. Comment positively on something that they have shared and retweet it. Don’t do this too often to the same people as it can come across as a little creepy but handled carefully it can be very useful.

Put a hashtag in at least every other Tweet that you post. Tweets with hashtags get twice as much engagement than those that are not hashtagged and engagement means more exposure for your brand. Listen in on relevant conversations to identify who the movers and shakers in your niche are and take part in Twitter chats. These are a great way to get noticed.

Engaging means being polite. If someone retweets your content you should thank them. If they reply to your tweet you should answer them back. It is basic politeness and you will get a reputation for being friendly and approachable. That is always a good thing!

Share relevant and useful content

No-one is going to want to follow you if you do not bring some value to them. They must be entertained or informed by what you are putting out there.

Tweet links to your website. Think about what is topical and what is not and share what people will want to read at that time. It is perfectly acceptable to tweet the same content over and over again as long as it is broken up by other things. Tweets do not last for long. It is a low value/high volume platform. It is estimated that each tweet lasts for around 18 minutes. The chances are that most of your followers are not actually looking at Twitter at that exact time! Therefore, you need to repeat it.

Experiment with scheduling tweets for different times of the day. The morning and evening commute could be a good time. Apparently between 1 pm and 3 pm is the best time. If you want to catch your followers who are in different time zones you may need to schedule for the middle of the night.

It is best to spread out your tweets rather than do them all in one big burst. This works best for your engagement.

Use a scheduler to regularly share content on Twitter. Once it is loaded with content it will carry on indefinitely and keeps you in people’s Twitter feeds without you having to spend all day on Twitter. Get creative and include images with your tweets. This can increase engagement by as much as 20%.

Don’t just tweet links to your site. This can get a bit tedious and may make people unfollow you. Break it up with some motivational or inspirational quotes, some comments on current news stories or updates on what you are doing.

Help other people by pointing them in the direction of content that will help them, not just your own. This helps you to build a reputation as a leader in your niche and someone who is genuinely helpful to others without constantly promoting your own stuff.

Don’t forget that you are not the only person who can share your content. Embed a tweet button on your website and encourage users to share on Twitter. This gets your content out there without you having to do to any effort yourself.

After a few weeks, you will have a highly successful Twitter account that is helping your business achieve its goals.