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Twitter has quickly become an important channel for any business looking to further its online exposure.  Building out social assets (Twitter feed, YouTube channel, Facebook group etc) with branded content is a great way of seeding your content on platforms that masses of people frequent.  This increases the likelihood of them coming into contact with your content/company – engaging the individual where they like to hang-out – as opposed to leaving all your content ‘siloed’ on your website.

There are many guides and lists of tips on how to maximise your use of Twitter.  I want to focus on a few things out there which can really work for you.

Twitter – Followers

Increasing your number of followers is high up on the agenda of most users.  If this is important to you it’s likely you are a small to medium business, blogger or an individual covering a niche area.  As big advertising budget is probably not available, a good way to increase your followers lies in participation within the Twitter-sphere.  For example, finding and following others who share your interests is an excellent option – since they are likely follow you back (no really, they are).

Here’s a few key ways to approach this;

• Use ‘Twitter – Find People’ to search for keywords that relate to your business, for example, ‘media’- this search will show you everybody who mentions ‘media’ in their bio/username
• Find large existing players in your industry and follow their followers
• Use a product like TweetAdder to help automate the process of finding relevant people and adding them – the demo is free and it’ll significantly cut down on the time it takes to follow people

If you’re a larger player in your field and have a large audience, perhaps through website traffic or email distribution numbers, then this enables you to be less granular in your approach.  Instead you can take advantage of a (your) large audience by adding a ‘Follow Me’ message on your;

• Website – a prominent position is necessary
• Email send out – go for more than just a non-descript line in your signature to see strong results
• Facebook page
• LinkedIn Profile/Group – new to LinkedIn
• When you leave a comment on a blog
• Etc

This will allow you to reach a significant percentage of your potential target audience, enough to gain you a great number of followers.  Even if you don’t have a large existing ‘fan-base’ advertising your Twitter feed in this way is still very much advisable.

Twitter – Tweets

The viral nature of Twitter offers more potential for increasing follower numbers, so facilitating this is always a good idea – i.e. writing your tweets in a way which encourages retweets.

• Incorporate photos, by using apps such as TwitPic or for mobile uploads use Tweetie or Twitterific.  Photos are often heavily retweeted and people can comment on them
• If you have an event coming up make sure you hash tag the name of the event.  Hash tags work by creating trending topics, so this approach may give you additional exposure in the trending topics list on the homepage
• Tweeting passwords or offer codes is great for maximising retweet potential

Increasing your exposure on Twitter involves a concerted effort and there are many thoughts on best practise.  Try the tips above for an immediate impact, after that it’s all about engaging, regular tweets… and remember, encouraging engagement is the key to success.