As any professional marketer knows, testing is the key to success.

The beauty of the web is there’s so much data for you to analyze. There’s really no excuse to not know what you’re doing.

By analyzing your Google Analytics and Twitter analytics data to see whether followers are clicking through to your site, buying your products, or sharing your Tweets, you can get a feel for what’s working and what’s not.

Find a posting formula that your audience likes, and stick to it.

We all have that friend that fills her posts with every hashtag she can think of.

But hashtags were never meant to be used as commentaries. They were meant to connect conversations.

By using focused hashtags in a timed manner to connect with the world around you, you can grow your following overnight.

Best of all, when you involve yourself in hot conversations, your Tweets are likely to be shared, liked and favorited countless times.

The web has given us more information than we could ever consume. But despite this, there’s still very little knowledge floating around out there.

If you focus on offering your followers knowledge that they can apply to their own lives, you’ll instantly set yourself apart from the millions of other businesses in your niche.

Asserting yourself as an authority goes beyond your Tweets, though. It includes the way you carry yourself online. Respect your Twitter account, and make sure you surround yourself with others that offer value to the web.
Don’t trade follows with people for the sake of it. Take pride in your online presence.

We’ve all heard the cliché that’s it’s who you know in life that counts.

On Twitter, if you’re able to connect with real influencers, those who already have an established web presence, you’ll be able to grow your own presence just by being associated with them.

Once your content is on their accounts, your exposure is going to skyrocket.

You can’t cheat this step. The only way influencers are going to take any notice of you is if you add value to your industry. A word of wisdom, a great link, an explanation of a process that’s clearer than anybody else’s – these are all good enough to get you attention from those who matter.

Why not take a look at a few influencers’ Twitter accounts after reading this? What kind of content are they liking, sharing and Retweeting?

Success on Twitter can happen so fast that it makes your head spin. Other times it can be painfully slow.

There’s nothing wrong with being tempted to cheat the system a little. But really, you won’t gain anything in the long run. The secret to being a success on social media is to invest in your overall presence.

If you want to invest money, you can speed the growth process. Twitter ads are effective, and, if you plan them properly, don’t cost masses of money to run. Spending $5-10 a day on Twitter ads can return you many high-quality followers.

If you don’t want to invest money, or don’t have $5-10 to invest every day, then time is the next best thing to invest. Use Twitter in the way it was intended. Talk to and engage with your followers and you’re likely to find that they’ll do a lot of the promotional work for you.