Social media platforms, today, wield tremendous powers in terms of the number of people they attract and influence, the way they build and dispel consensus, the manner in which they shape electoral decisions and the way in which they form indispensable channels for marketers and advertisers to gain brand awareness and build consumer base. If recent statistics are anything to go by, twitter alone had 336 million active users as on March 2018.
The monumental number of active users on Twitter makes it important for businesses to deploy strategies that help add credibility to their product and company and help them reach untapped demographics. Here are seven ways in which businesses can increase their twitter engagement-

1. Timing your Tweets- Tweeting when your followers are most active during the day results in maximum engagement. Using apps like Tweriod can help you analyse your and your follower’s tweets, providing you the data about the peak hours in which you should ideally tweet to target your users directly. Tweeting on weekends can also help you gain maximum exposure and increase your reach.

2. Posting Images- It is a well-known fact that what we see leaves more lasting impression on our minds vis-à-vis what we read. Images make your tweet more interesting and arouse the curiosity of your followers. Try posting appealing and catchy images to boost engagement on your tweets.

3. Asking for Retweets- Make sure that you ask your followers to retweet your tweets as and when they find them relevant since retweets can increase the engagement on your posts. Adding images to your tweets can raise the chances of them getting retweeted by up to 4 times.

4. Using Hashtags- As marketers, we believe more is good! But, when it comes to using hashtags on twitter, remember less is more. If statistics are to be believed, tweets with one hashtag are 33% more likely to get retweeted when compared to tweets with no hashtags. However, tweets with more than one hashtag are 69% less likely to get retweeted.

5. Number your Tweets- Number of your tweets per day is an important factor in determining your audience engagement level. Ideally, 2-5 tweets per day are enough if you are looking to optimize your engagement per tweet.

6. Using concise and crisp language- The language you use in your tweets should be intriguing, concise and brewed for people to understand it easily. After all, it is the content and language of your tweets that stimulate people to follow you and retweet your tweets.

7. Ask questions, use polls and contests- Asking questions and conducting polls and contests make your tweets interactive and attractive, driving more user engagement. Virality of your tweets depends on what you offer your followers in terms of incentives and prizes.