Twitter works as a great tool for businesses to reach and engage consumers in a casual environment. For a business, engaging with a target audience offers a lot of appeal, as it helps to build brand awareness and create a positive reputation, while also increasing sales. However, many businesses can spend a lot of time and effort trying to connect and cultivate an audience, only to receive very little engagement from their followers through social media. To maximize the impact Twitter has when building your business’ target audience, keep in mind these techniques.

Be Interesting

Developing an engaging Twitter presence means knowing your audience and executing a well-designed strategy. Your followers will stay intrigued if you post content that they will find compelling and interesting. Tweeting links, videos and images has proven to be the most effective way of engaging an audience. By sharing content your target audience will find relevant, your business takes an important first step towards building an interactive audience.

Tweet When Your Audience is Online

It’s important to understand when your audience is online and using social media platforms. The best time to tweet will depend on what audience you’re trying to reach and your brand. Twitter and various third party developers offer a number of tools – some even free – that can suggest the best times of day to tweet out content in order to reach the largest audience possible. You can also try posting content throughout the day and review the analytic Twitter data frequently to find what times have the most engagement.

Twitter recently made its analytics tool available to all users. Previously only available to users who advertised, businesses and individual users can now examine detailed reports about their feed and follower interaction at analytics.twitter.com. Look at the impressions and engagement rate of the types of content you post to get a better idea of what’s more popular and then alter your strategy accordingly to improve results.

Create a Community

The sense of community that exists within social media offers a great advantage for brands that understand how to join in. You can amplify community engagement by participating in ongoing discussions within different groups, usually by using popular hashtags. This helps expand your company’s message to a wider audience that already has shown interest in similar content. Examine which hashtags are trending at any given time that connects to your brand to engage in these types of conversation or to create your own.

Engage, Don’t Talk At

Regardless of the platform, communication with an audience should always be give and take. Take the time to respond or acknowledge to all of the mentions you receive. Businesses that have the reputation of being friendly and responsive have an easier time getting Twitter users to engage and promote their brand. Add a personal touch to your engagement on Twitter and followers will feel more comfortable connecting.

Spark Discussion

Not all audiences frequently engage through Twitter, making it possible that your target audience will require the need for a more direct approach. If your followers don’t take the initiative to talk with you, start a conversation of your own by asking your audience a question. Encourage feedback from your audience and add a call to action to your tweets. In the end, these conversation show that your brand is open to two-way communication, which is the essence of social media after all.