How to become a Twitter master (in five minutes)

In the words of Rousseau, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” These words probably apply to Twitter like no other social platform; success most likely won’t come over night and if you’re trying to build up a loyal, deep and devoted following then time will be a key ingredient. But there are still some best-practice rules to help you on your way.

1. Keep it short and sweet
Twitter already limits you to 140 characters, but you don’t have to use them all. Follow Occam’s razor and it might pay off: research commissioned by Buddy Media reveals that Tweets shorter than 100 characters get 17% more response than their longer counterparts.

2. Tweet with a punch
Be sure to include links, pictures, videos and even sound. It’s obvious advice, but easy to forget: the more exciting your tweets, the more your audience will click and re-tweet you.

3. Nice and often
According to Twitter’s own sage advice, you should tweet three to five times per day. To some people that may not sound very much; others might balk at the challenge. If you fall into the first camp, then you can self-edit: simply fillet the things that are most important to your audience and stick to that. However, if you struggle to find anything interesting to say then perhaps you could create a tweeting plan, setting out the tweets you’ll make over the coming week.

4. Check your fire power
It’s worth finding out where you stand in social media. The likes of Klout.com, Peerindex.com and Kred.com are indispensable at letting you know the potency of your tweets. The greater your score, the more influential and relevant you will appear to others.

5. Jump in bed…
with anyone! Not quite. Try to engage with other relevant Twitter users by using replies and mentions. The @reply doodad makes chatting to your followers easy, without being intrusive. The key is to be intelligent and even funny in your replies, without appearing as though you’re just going through the motions. If you’re selective about what you re-tweet then you’ll find that people don’t ‘silence’ you in their feeds.

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