Accord­ing to data from Twit­ter, there are more than 288 mil­lion month­ly active users con­tribut­ing to the esti­mat­ed 500 mil­lion tweets sent out per day. Let’s put those num­bers in per­spec­tive: when Twit­ter launched, it took the plat­form three years to reach 1 bil­lion tweets – today there are more than 1 bil­lion tweets every two days. With that type of vol­ume, how can you break through the noise and tell a mem­o­rable sto­ry, and all in only 140 char­ac­ters?

Do Make Use Of Your Real Estate

140 char­ac­ters is not a lot of space in which to have a deep con­ver­sa­tion or tell your brand sto­ry, so use the real estate you have wise­ly. One good tip along these lines: don’t tweet head­lines. Sure, a quick auto-gen­er­at­ed head­line tweet can work when you’re in a pinch, but you should take the time to cus­tomize mes­sages to have max­i­mum impact with your audi­ence.

For exam­ple: Dunkin’ Donuts pub­lished this blog post with recipes for treats to pair with three Baskin-Rob­bins Iced Cof­fee fla­vors. Instead of just link­ing to the post, the Dunkin’ team whipped up a tasty tweet and even popped in a mouth-water­ing pho­to.

PB&J + choco­late chips + Munchkins. Need we say more? Recipe here: http://t.co/9tfGqYVPN6 pic.twitter.com/95QQdqYZza — Dunkin’ Donuts (@DunkinDonuts) April 16, 2015

Twitter’s inline images pro­vide promi­nence and up the appeal, so much so that it’s no won­der that tweets with images have been shown to increase engage­ment.

Don’t Stop Believing Tweeting

The shelf life of a tweet is short so don’t be afraid to say your mes­sage again (and again).

There are many ways to point back to and con­tin­ue to pro­mote the same con­tent with­out being over­ly redun­dant. Here’s a nice exam­ple from e‑tailer Ever­lane: they used a mix of videos and pho­tos  lead­ing up to and dur­ing a pop-up shop­ping event they host­ed in New York to build­ing excite­ment and dri­ve aware­ness of their event.

Do Think Globally

Anoth­er rea­son to keep the tweets com­ing? Time­zones.

If you’re oper­at­ing a com­pa­ny that spans mul­ti­ple time­zones, then don’t expect one tweet to reach every­one. And, if your oper­a­tions span the glob­al, con­sid­er if Eng­lish-only tweets make the most sense.

For some brands, it may make sense to set up mul­ti­ple in-lan­guage accounts in order to best tai­lor mes­sages for your audi­ence. But remem­ber, main­tain­ing mul­ti­ple account is a large com­mit­ment, so weigh your options and ensure you have the resources to keep the accounts you set up active.

Do Make Use Of Lists

Even if you’re audi­ence is spread out across the world and quite var­ied, lever­ag­ing lists is a great way to orga­nize and find com­mon­al­ties among your tar­gets. These lists can be great research tools to unearth con­tent ideas.

In addi­tion to curat­ing your own lists, take advan­tage of already cre­at­ed ones to tap into a mar­ket you may not know much about. From there, you’ll be able to more eas­i­ly iden­ti­fy influ­encers who bub­ble up to the top of con­ver­sa­tions and find what res­onates with them.

Do Be Timely

The beau­ty of Twit­ter is the real-time con­ver­sa­tions that can tran­spire. Active­ly mon­i­tor and respond to your account activ­i­ty.

If ques­tions or com­ments arise from con­sumers, be sure to reply in a time­ly man­ner, even if just to acknowl­edge that you’re on it. Then, there are gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to cap­i­tal­ize off cur­rent events and trends and pro­vide real-time com­men­tary.

Yes, we’ve seen some bril­liant moments here – Ore­os, Snick­ers, Arby’s all come to mind – but these are rare, unplanned occur­rences. Don’t sac­ri­fice build­ing your com­mu­ni­ty on a dai­ly basis by chas­ing a uni­corn and end up becom­ing a one-tweet won­der.

Do Think Before You Tweet

Some­times when we’re try­ing to cap­i­tal­ize off a time-sen­si­tive oppor­tu­ni­ty, there’s an impulse to be the first to chime in. Don’t for­feit your brand to be the first out of the gate with a wit­ty com­ment. Not every tweet can be a viral suc­cess and some­time the risks tak­en can be greater than the poten­tial reward of an on-point tweet.

Rec­og­nize that every tweet can’t accom­plish every objec­tive you have but that each indi­vid­ual post should add val­ue to your brand – whether that’s pro­mot­ing your lat­est prod­ucts or ser­vices, respond­ing to cus­tomer ser­vice inquiries, or com­ment­ing on the lat­est news­wor­thy hap­pen­ing.

Don’t get too caught up in the moment to not ask your­self about the val­ue you’re adding and the brand equi­ty you’re dri­ving with each tweet.

Do Deploy Tools To Help With Management

There are a lot of options to help you auto­mate and aggre­gate your Twit­ter activ­i­ty – sophis­ti­cat­ed all-in plat­forms and unique apps or exten­sions that can pro­vide help­ful, time-sav­ing solu­tions.

As you scale oper­a­tions, man­age­ment tools can help you han­dle mul­ti­ple accounts, allow for bet­ter col­lab­o­rate among your team, ampli­fy your mes­sages, more eas­i­ly ana­lyze activ­i­ty, and report back on progress. Check out this exten­sive list for some inspi­ra­tion.

Don’t Ignore Hashtags

Hash­tags are a great way to orga­nize and mon­i­tor Twit­ter con­ver­sa­tions. These search­able, save­able key­words can help brands track trends and top­ics impor­tant their cus­tomers (think event hash­tags such March Mad­ness or the Oscars).

Brands can also devel­op their own hash­tags to pro­mote spe­cif­ic cam­paigns and gen­er­ate buzz. A great exam­ple of this is with Taco Bell’s #break­fast­de­fec­tor. The hash­tag was cre­at­ed to help pro­mote Taco Bell’s newest break­fast menu ven­tures that are any­thing but bor­ing, typ­i­cal break­fast items, and includes an ele­ment of a con­test for con­sumers.

Mis­sion 3: Take a #Break­fast­De­fec­tor pho­to or video for the chance to win a #UNIF jack­et. http://t.co/ReaFPRahLe pic.twitter.com/mP5Yx0cUCP — Taco Bell (@tacobell) April 9, 2015

When exe­cut­ed suc­cess­ful­ly, these types of hash­tags can help a brand gain momen­tum and get the com­mu­ni­ty involved in cul­ti­vat­ing new con­tent.

But Don’t Overdo It

You don’t want to make your tweets an eye chart of hash­tags. Use them spar­ing­ly.

While at-men­tion­ing users and includ­ing hash­tags and links can be way to pro­mote impor­tant trends and reach influ­encers, using too many can dilute your mes­sage and cause click con­fu­sion. #just­sayin

This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true if you’re plan­ning on pro­mot­ing your tweets. As a best prac­tice, if the goal of your tweet is a click through on a link, then make the link the promi­nent call to action.

Don’t Be One Note

The best Twit­ter accounts offer vari­ety. They have per­son­al­i­ty and offer var­i­ous points of views; some­times they even have sev­er­al peo­ple con­tribut­ing con­tent.

Pro­vide guide­lines to help keep your account on brand but be flex­i­ble and open to explor­ing a new direc­tion to take your con­tent on Twit­ter.

What oth­er Twit­ter mar­ket­ing dos or don’ts would you add?