You have likely heard about the business benefits of a strong Twitter presence: competitive intelligence, increased brand awareness and customer engagement, to name just a few. However, if the Twitterverse is still foreign to you and your colleagues, check out these tips for starting and maintaining a meaningful dialogue:

• Have a clear goal/focus of your tweet(s).  What are you hoping to achieve and how will you measure your success? Will it be based on the number of people participating/retweeting, or on the nature of responses (i.e negative, positive or indifferent)? Remember, your social strategy should always align with larger business objectives.

• Be relevant. The word gets tossed around constantly in the digital marketing world, but what does real relevancy look like?  It involves understanding your followers and target markets. Use surveys, polls, Q&A to learn more about them. Follow topics of interest, trends and news that relate to them as well as your brand. When tweeting, avoid being overtly promotional – it’s a conversation, not ad copy!

• Listen and participate – don’t just lead. Make sure your efforts to initiate are matched by your efforts at joining existing conversations.  Engage with other businesses in your industry. Think of it this way: would you attend a networking event, give your presentation and then cower in the corner during breaktime? Be fearless.

• Build a schedule and stick to it.  Set reasonable, manageable goals and stick to them week over week. For example, instead of tweeting 10 times in one day and then staying silent for a week, try starting a conversation once or twice a week consistently,  leaving you enough time to let the chat grow before moving onto another topic.

• Don’t forget the experts!  If that consultant gave an earth-shattering presentation on the merits of Widget X, ask them to tweet about it. Conversations are nothing without people, and you want to associate your brand with industry thought leaders.

• Passion. Don’t leave home without it! There’s some truth to the age-old adage: if you love what you do, you will be good at it. Others will want to do it too.

Oh, I almost forgot: in the spirit of conversation, let me know if you have thoughts or any other tips to share!