Twitter is busy – just try to imagine more than 313 million active users generating more than 400 million tweets every day.

How do you stand out in a crowded digital party? What makes a good tweet anyway? Why do some people become influential and earn a solid following at a steady pace, while others don’t get any traction at all?

Having good content to share is of course one of the key ingredients, but you also need to craft your tweets carefully to resonate with your target audience. This is a bit of an art, but eventually you’ll get the hang of it.

If you want to supercharge your marketing campaign a bit, you can also buy followers and other engagement signals. This will help you appear more credible, encouraging people to come see what’s up.

In this article, however, we’ll take a look at some tactics you can use to write more attractive, engaging tweets that people will naturally gravitate to. Time to get popular!

1. Think of your Followers

Construct your tweets while thinking about the kind of followers you’re looking for – if you’re working on a marketing campaign, that would be people who will eventually become paying customers.

You need to use language that will resonate with them, showing them that you have similar concerns. Talk with your followers and not at them, keeping it conversational.

If you want to take it to the next level, try constructing a detailed buyer persona. Then you can craft your tweets as if you’re talking to that person in particular, and you’ll be speaking effectively to your target audience.

2. 100 Characters Hits the Spot

Research done by Track Social found that tweets of between 70-110 characters have the most engagement. This gives you enough space to make your point, while still giving some room for retweeters to add their own commentary.

Generally, tweets of about 100 characters are recommended. It may seem counterintuitive, but maximizing this space isn’t the best idea.

Unlike Facebook, very short and punchy statements don’t work so well on Twitter. Aim for the middle. As often as possible, finish your tweet before you reach the 140 character limit.

Check out this perfect tweet from Leo DiCaprio after winning his first Oscar:

3. Use Viral Words and Phrases

Dan Zarella of Hubspot collected the most common words and phrases from random tweets and retweets, isolating the ones that get the most engagement in the form of retweets. From this, he was able to come up with a list of the Top 20 Most ReTweetable Words and Phrases:

Zarella did the same thing for words that are the least likely to be retweeted. Comparing these two lists, it’s clear that Twitter users care about relevant, valuable content, rather than mundane reactions that don’t really help anyone.

4. Choose the Right Hashtags

Use hashtags that are short, easy to recognize, and allow users to easily follow along.

When using trending hashtags, make sure that they’re related to your content and add value to the conversation. Nobody likes to see someone trying to jump on a trend just for popularity, so be sure to bring something to the conversation.

According to a study by Salesforce, the number of hashtags you use is important as well. Using one or two hashtags can increase your engagement by up to twice as much than tweets without hashtags.

Using more than two hashtags, however, actually decreases your engagement levels. Focus on the ones that will add the most value for your followers.

5. Use Photos and Videos

One of the best ways to make your tweets more appealing is to add visual content. A picture can be worth a thousand retweets.

According to Buffer, tweets with an image receive 150% more retweets, 89% more favorites, and 18% more click-throughs.

6. Use Promoted Tweets

Did you know that almost 80% of marketers in the U.S. have used promoted tweets in their ad campaigns?

According to a Nielsen Study, promoted tweets increase engagement by 22%, which translates to 30% more brand favorability and 53% higher purchase intent.

There are a few different ways to use promoted tweets. Mainly, you can use them to encourage more engagement with your followers, making it easier for them to click through to your product or service.

7. Tweet at the Right Time

Tweets on Saturdays and Sundays tend to have a higher engagement rate, when people are not busy with work and have more time for social media.

That’s true for businesses too, which see 17% higher engagement on the weekends compared to weekdays, according to a Salesforce study.

Tweets that are published during the day, between 8am to 7pm, have a 30% greater engagement rate than tweets during the other half of the day. Different industries also have different prime times:

• Clothing and Fashion: Weekends
• Entertainment: Sunday and Monday
• Publishing: Saturday
• Sports: Weekends, when big games are on

According to KISSMetrics, retweets are highest at 5 PM (Eastern Time Zone). If you are looking for a higher clickthrough rate for your tweets, the best times to pick would be noon and 6 PM.

8. Tweet Regularly, Tweet More

The frequency of how many times you tweet per day is important as well. Your followers should know that you provide regular updates, giving you a reputation for consistency.

The more you post, the more engagement you can get, but you have to make sure it adds value to the conversation

A study of 100 brands on Twitter by Track Social found that as brands tweet more, they get more retweets, up to a limit. They found the optimal number of tweets per day to be 4 to 5; after that, engagement goes down.

The more valuable content you have to share, the more quickly you’ll establish yourself as an authority in the Twitter community. When you tweet more, you create more opportunities to engage with your followers.

9. Use a Content Calendar

One of the best ways to get and sustain engagement on Twitter is by using a content calendar.

This will help you organize your strategy, giving you a simple way to develop and create content that will add value to your marketing campaign.

You can create a theme per day, for example:

• Monday: Promoted Tweets
• Tuesday: A day in your life, or your business
• Wednesday: Tips or Trivia
• Thursday: Retweet from an influencer or industry related news
• Friday: Tweet Photos

Scheduling ahead will help you allocate your resources wisely, and will ensure that you can publish quality tweets consistently – and that’s crucial.

There are quite a few online services to help you plan your social media posts, like Buffer, Hootsuite, TweetDeck, and SproutSocial.

10. Analyze your Analytics

Track your progress and growth on Twitter. Start by setting goals of what you want to achieve.

Turn on Twitter Analytics, and get to know the interface. You can keep an eye on a few different metrics to measure your progress:

• Followers: The number of followers you get daily, weekly, or monthly
• Quality and Engagement: How many users actually interact with you, what value do they bring
• Reach of your tweets: How many users favorite, reply to, or retweet your tweets

Measure and track your growth, so you can identify the tactics that work and the tactics that don’t. Over time your strategy will get better and better.

Ready to be a Twitter Star?

You can use the strategies above to help you create high-quality tweets that will provide real value for your audience. Keep it up consistently, and your follower count will definitely be on the rise.

Remember that you can speed up the growth process by purchasing high-quality followers and other signals of engagement. Of course, this is just one way to get the ball rolling, and you’ll need to incorporate it into your overall strategy.

For a real win, combine bought followers with the tips above to craft awesome tweets. You’ll have all the credibility and authority you need, and you’ll be putting out valuable content that will attract authentic users.

Invest some time working on the strategies above, and you’ll be well on your way to Twitter fame!