Simply tweeting your own content with hashtags you think are relevant is like standing alone in a soundproof room and yelling your thoughts aloud hoping those outside passing by will hear.

Simply tweeting your own content with hashtags you think are relevant is like standing alone in a soundproof room and yelling your thoughts aloud hoping those outside passing by will hear. Occasionally, those who poke their head in will catch a bit of what you have to say, but for the most part you’re just wasting your breath. Twitter’s layout may make it seem like an endless feed of people’s spur of the moment thoughts, but like all other social media platforms, Twitter is about creating communities and conversations. Although Google cutting ties with Twitter in 2011 put an end to real time indexing, according to Bloomberg Business Twitter has given Google access to the Firehose data system, so Google now has the ability to index tweets as they are posted. This presents a huge opportunity for brands to increase their Google ranking if they utilize their Twitter accounts correctly.

Use Targeted Keywords and Phrases

Your Twitter account presents you with many opportunities to push targeted keywords and phrases for search engine indexing. After you have done your research and selected a set of keywords and phrases make sure you have incorporated the selected keywords in your Twitter account’s bio section. Don’t hesitate to add one or two hashtags to your bio, but don’t overdo it.  Using too many hashtags not only wastes valuable character space, but it just looks messy. Next, focus on incorporating your selected keywords, phrases, and hashtags in as many of your tweets as possible. Tweets with hashtags are 33% more likely to be retweeted. Again, quality is better than quantity so make sure not to clutter your tweets with too many hashtags or appear to be only promoting your brand.

Encourage Engagement

There are almost 6,000 tweets per second being posted on Twitter, so cutting through the noise and being noticed can prove to be a difficult task, but by staying active, consistent, positive and giving back to your industry’s community can greatly improve your chances. Connecting with other influencers in your industry through retweets and mentions will likely initiate conversation and will at least get you noticed. Another method to encourage engagement is running Twitter competitions. Offer your followers the potential to win a product or service by simply retweeting a tweet containing targeted hashtags and a link to your website. Not only will this drive engagement to your website and twitter profile, but will also index a large amount of your targeted keywords.

Optimize Your Profile for Mobile

Making sure your profile is optimized for mobile devices is sure help you boost engagement. When uploading a header image to your profile make sure you view it from multiple devices to see if it looks how you want it. If you have any text make sure it is not to small or covered up by any other of the header elements.

Ongoing Management

Like any digital marketing channel, Twitter requires constant management. According to a study done by Buffer, brands should be tweeting 5 times a day for optimal engagement. This doesn’t include the number of times you should be joining in on conversations through retweets and commenting. There are SMM (social media management) platforms out there that make this easier (my favorite one is tweetdeck), but true Twitter distribution and engagement optimization is best executed by a team of professionals. If you’re interested in a free analysis of your current social media efforts click here.