6 steps to build a strong Twitter presence for startups

Tweet at regular intervals & maintain engagement

The bigger your brand, the more is the necessity to follow this rule. Remember, Twitter is about connecting with your fans on a more personal level. However, if you are tweeting more than 20 times a day on a daily basis, you are not engaging fans in conversations, you are shouting at them. It's best not to over tweet as well.

Make an informative profile

Other than personal engagement, Twitter is also a great medium to share brand information with your fans. You can talk about discounts, offers as well as product USPs, but you need to do it an innovative yet subtle manner.

Use short yet witty descriptions

People go through your profile every now and then; so give them a good reason to hit that 'follow' button. Use a good display picture and cover photo but never use poor grammar or wrong spelling as the brands credibility gets affected when you commit some silly errors like these.

Monitor keywords, hashtags and your competitor's activities

You can engage with tweeps (a person's followers on Twitter) who are in need of a certain something and are talking about it on Twitter. Or engage with tweeps who are unhappy with your rivals brands (but never overdo it), this way you can win new followers and thus potential customers. But over-indulgence and being too inquisitive about the fans and their lives questions the credibility of the brand as a whole.

Shout out to users who mention you

Nothing makes a tweeps day than being retweeted or being mentioned by their favourite brand. However, only boasting about your brand and features makes your profile boring. Rather mention your product features and talk about how your brand can help people in innovative ways (but do it in a delicate manner).

Don't take too long to reply

The best of brands' twitter profiles reply to their fans and their queries and concerns as soon as possible. The faster you reply, the greater engagement you create.

(Rais is the founder & CEO of Mindshift Interactive, a digital media agency. As told to Techcircle.in's Nikita Peer)

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)