My team has been working at Twitter very actively, with a little help from some great external tools, for more than a year, and we’ve seen some rather convincing followership growth and made some really great business friends and connections. It took us a while to get ramped up though – and we had to learn a variety of ins and outs with Twitter tricks and traps.

Based on our experiences and research (from the blogs of Twitter experts), we’ve compiled our best and actionable Twitter Tips & Tricks.

1. Statistics: Twitter users love data – directly tweeted or presented in an image accompanying a tweet. Try incorporating numbers, such as survey results, into your tweets and watch your followership and retweet measures increase!
2. Wit: Try injecting some humour and emoting words into your tweets to garner attention and encourage dialogue. It’s even OK to be provocative!
3. URLs: Always use shortened URL. They are easier to read and take up fewer characters in your tweet. Try to place your URL close to the beginning of your tweet when possible, so it can be more easily clicked.
4. Hashtags: A lot has been written about the number of hashtags to use per tweet, and the consensus is that two hashtags are best. Keep the hashtags focused.
5. Structure: Your tweets should not be too wordy – try to keep them under 100 characters, leaving room for RT text. A well-structured tweet begins with a short key message, followed by a URL, two hashtags and finally any “after thought” text.
6. Lists: If you aren’t already using Twitter lists, you should be. This is a simple way to categorize targets into small segments, plus bookmark users when you have reached a follower limit. You can also manually add yourself to existing lists.
7. Influencers: Pay attention to top influencers in your industry. You can segment them into a list, then target them by retweeting their articles. When you do retweet, add an insightful comment and pay credit to the original author.
8. Engagement: To encourage interaction and increase your followers count, be active. This includes replies, favourites, retweets, follows, mentions and replies – and not just automated. It is important to convey personal opinions and information to generate great conversation and realize outcomes like identifying potential partners, suppliers and clients.
9. Replies vs. Mentions: There is a difference between @replies and @mentions. Replies display only in the feeds of users who follow both parties in the conversation. Mentions, however, are visible to ALL followers of both parties. The difference is simple – replies use the “reply” function with the @username at the beginning of the tweet. To change your reply to a mention, add some text before the @username - or use our favourite simple adjustment – sneak in a period.