We’re going to look at this as if you only use Twitter on its own, without any use of the Twitter management tools discussed in Part 3.

1. Plan your posts for the day

Plan what you’re going to say, what content you’re going to send out of your own and what content from others you’re going to send out. This can be determined ahead of time during a weekly sit-down and planning session.

The general rule to follow is that you should tweet out no more than 50% of your own content. When you send out your content, have a plan for what links will be in it (hopefully back to your website) and what hashtags you will use to link it with other conversations.

2. Share the content of other users

This doesn’t have to literally be sharing other people’s tweets all the time, although that should be an aspect of what you do. This can also be sharing research from knowledgable people in your industry; send out the link and make a comment. You can also talk about recent events that are related to your business; tweet out a link to a news article and get people talking.

The benefit of this is that when you tweet out content from other people, and give them a @mention, they are likely to retweet your message. You both with as this exposes you to more people who likely have similar interests and it gives them free content to share with their followers.

3. Address all messages sent to you via mentions or direct messages

People on Twitter expect quick replies. Twitter moves faster than any other social media platform. Start every day by answering your direct messages and mentions.

When you do this, try to be personal. Social media is about just that – being social. No one wants a robot response: express sympathy for problems, solve them as best as you can and get some good internet karma going your way.

4. Speak with your brand evangelists and get a conversation going

There will be a group of people who LOVE your business or product, and they will talk about you every chance they can. These are your brand evangelists, speak with them directly, give them a @mention and it will keep them interested, tweeting about you and singing your praises.

Something to think about: these people will be doing a large chunk of advertising for you, send them some insider information or a free giveaway when they really impress you.

5. Look for new followers

Even if you’re successful and getting all of the Twitter followers you want, you still have to look for new ones. You can find new ones by:

Asking your brand evangelists if they know people who are interested

Finding people who are in a similar industry and looking through their followers

Look through a hashtag that is within your industry and see who is using it

Tools such as Commun.it, Twellow.com and Hootsuite can help you by searching through keywords. Tools like this are covered in detail in Part 3

How you can get these followers is by following them. They’ll be notified of this, check you out, and give you a follow back if they are into you. Finding just five people a day to follow can result in around 150 new relationships that you could start every month.

6. Unfollow inactive users and spammers

With all of the following that you’ll do in the above step, and the inevitable moving on of users who no longer use Twitter or your services, it is good to purge your inactive users. Twitter is too big of a platform to waste your time and space with people who are not participating, or not participating appropriately.

Your Twitter plan should include a group of relevant followers that are engaged regularly with your content. Commun.it, mentioned above, is a great tool to use for the purpose of finding out who isn’t interested any more.