Twitter has become a juggernaut in social media and networking in just a few short years.  Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, news outlets, and ordinary people have taken to the microblogging service to share opinions and information.  75% of all businesses use Twitter to drive revenue, provide customer service, and improve engagement with clients and prospects.

How is your business using Twitter?  Just maintaining a profile and responding to questions is a leg up on those who aren’t, but to really take advantage of the service, you’re going to want to bring on an expert that knows what drives engagement.

Knowing when to tweet is important in ensuring brand awareness and maximum exposure of your message.  Based on research by Twitter, the highest level of engagement happens on the weekends.  Saturday and Sunday offer you the best opportunity to have your message retweeted to your audience.

Time of day is also very important to ensure that eyeballs are catching your message.  Studies show that for most niches, the best time to put out a marketing tweet is 9:00am, noon, 3:00pm, and 6:00pm.  For local business, focus on your own time zone.  For national or international audiences, studies say that focusing on Eastern Standard Time is most effective in garnering attention.

Knowing when to tweet is pretty important, but knowing what to say can make or break your social media presence.  Experts at Twitter and other research fields that track such trends have found that the posts that get the most attention include the following:

Questions – asking questions serves two purposes.  First, it increases the likelihood that members of your audience will respond to your message.  Secondly, you can gain valuable insight as to what your audience thinks of your brand, or trends in your sector.

Links – sharing links with your tweets can increase engagement by sending people to your articles.  Content marketing is one of the most relevant forms of social media marketing, and anything that drives people to your articles is bound to help.

There are many more nuances and unwritten rules to increasing your Twitter following, which can convert to sales.  Consulting with an experienced social media manager is an effective way to implement a cohesive marketing strategy.

Twitter is a huge opportunity to gain new clients, increase social awareness, and promote your brand to nearly half of a billion people.  It’s your job to set yourself apart from the crowd.  Engage with your followers.  Be funny.  Put a human face to your company.  It can only do good things for building your brand.

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