Creating a strong voice for your brand on Twitter can be a great method to reach a large target audience. The social media platform is one of the most active, with more than 300 million monthly users. But do you ever feel like your tweets are only hitting sub par?

Getting your brand’s Twitter audience actively engaged can be tricky but rewarding. You have to be careful about what you say and when you say it. Follow these easy Twitter tips to begin creating an active voice for your brand and growing your audience’s engagement.

Keep it short and sweet
It can be difficult to say everything you want in just 140 characters; however, Twitter recently announced that it is developing a plan to change the character limit. Although longer posts will be available, studies have shown that less really is more. Tweets kept to around 110 characters get an increased 17 percent in engagement. If you post less text, it allows more room for your audience to join in on the conversation by retweeting and adding their own content to the post, and to add your own images and links!

Know when to tweet
An important part of gaining active engagement on Twitter is knowing the best opportunities for your content to be viewed. Did you know that Twitter receives its most activity during the daytime hours?

Instead of catching up after work in the evenings, people are checking Twitter throughout the day to stay updated. Posting between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. can increase your audience’s engagement by 30 percent. Now, most social media managing systems allow you to determine the most optimal time for posting a tweet. Depending on when your Twitter audience is most active, tweeting on the weekends might be the best choice. Schedule tweets for Saturday and Sunday to catch your audience while they are relaxing on the back porch or out shopping.

Get visual
Humans are visually perceptive and becoming more so every day. Not only does your audience want to hear your voice through text, but they want to see the face (or activities) of your brand. Photos are not just for Instagram. Posting images increases the likelihood that a follower will click on and share your tweet. Your engagement can increase by 150 percent by just snapping a photo and attaching it to a post. Keep in mind adding a picture to your tweet will take up 23 of your 140 characters!

Use hashtags
Hashtags are a fantastic way to increase engagement. They are versatile in the success they can bring. Not only are they their own call to action, but they can also start trending by region, city and country depending on your audience. You can also retweet your audience by searching your hashtag and create a relationship via the Twittersphere. If you create an effective hashtag for your brand that resonates with your audience, they can use it on their own without even retweeting your content. Don’t go overboard on hashtags though because they can become overwhelming. Use one to two hashtags max in your tweets.

Use Twitter to create meaningful relationships with your audience by actively engaging with them. Let your followers grow as a community, and they’ll quickly get your brand out there. Not to mention, it’s a free marketing tool!