Did you know the average Twitter user follows at least five businesses and that 80% of all Twitter users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet?

It’s fair to say that Twitter is a powerful platform to increase your business’ online reach and if you’re looking at adding a Twitter profile to your brand’s social media strategy, we’re going to provide you with some simple steps to ensure you get the best out of this platform.

1. Research your competition

Twitter is the perfect tool to search for competitors and see what they’re up to. By researching and gathering information, you’ll be able to better build your own strategy. Are they doing something that you should be? What’s their community management like on the platform?

2. Audit your account

Ok, so we know the word ‘audit’ can sound a little boring, however we cannot stress enough how important it is to audit your own profile to check it’s up to standard. Some questions to ask whilst auditing your account should be: Who is your audience? What types of content are you posting? Which type of content does your audience engage with more? Is your posting consistent? When are your followers active?

3. Keep up to date with best practices

This is a no-brainer and one we’re all probably guilty of not following! It’s so important to keep up to date with the best practices on Twitter and any new features arriving, that can help keep your audience engaged and your impressions high.

Social Soda Top Tip: Keep up to date with our blogs and platform updates to find out what’s hot and what’s not in the world of social media!

4. Build a profile that stands out

By customising your Twitter profile, you’re setting yourself up for success!

Make sure you’re uploading compelling images for both your banner and profile pictures.

Keep updating your pinned Tweet. This could be an event coming up, a new product launch or an important company update. Whatever it is, it’s the first thing your audience will engage with, because it sits at the top of your feed.

5. Create engaging content

When creating content for your Twitter profile, always keep your buyer personas in mind. Make sure your content entertains, educates or inspires your audience, as without any of these three aspects, you’ll be Tweeting for Tweeting sake.

It’s important to remember the purpose of Twitter is to ‘connect and spark conversations.’ If your content isn’t inspiring a conversation with your followers, it’s not worth publishing.

6. Optimise your content

Now you’ve got some great, inspiring content you need to make sure your audience are seeing it. This is where hashtags come in handy.

Hashtags are an easy and common way to spread your content. To find out more about how to use hashtags, read our blog ‘It’s all about the hashtag #justsaying.’

7. Engage with your audience

This goes without saying. It’s absolutely critical that you are regularly engaging with your audience on Twitter. Whether this is through tagging them in posts, responding to their comments, retweeting their Tweets or hosting competitions. Your strategy should ensure that your aiming o get the audience involved.

8. Measure results

When you have goals and objectives in place, it’s important you’re measuring the results of your performance to ensure you are achieving what you set out to do. This is also a valuable tool to check if something isn’t working, as the results will show this.

Twitter analytics are a great starting point and are easy to find and use.

When checking analytics, try to focus less on vanity metrics like number of followers or impressions, which look good on paper; and focus more on how many people clicked a link you Tweeted, or how many people interacted and engaged with you out of your total audience number; as this provides a firmer understanding of which type of content your audiences are engaging with, which in turn will translate to the highest number of leads.

If your business has been on Twitter for a long time and you’re feeling a little uninspired with your results; take a step back and look at what it is you’re currently doing vs what you could be doing.

It may be that you need a complete overhaul of your strategy and content or maybe you simply just need to freshen up your profile.

If you need help with your Twitter business page, why not drop us a line to see what ideas we could bring to your profile. Email us at hello@socialsoda.co.uk