5 Ways Your Company Can Become More Agile

Recent headlines have questioned Twitter’s strategic direction and bemoaned itsseemingly endless internal turmoil. But Mark Schaefer, author of newly-updated The Tao of Twitter, believes it’s still one of the most powerful tools for businesses to connect with customers and build their brands. I’ve previously written about how to dramatically increase your Twitter following. But once you’ve started to grow your base, how can you make the most of Twitter? Here are Schaefer’s top tips.

Understand what Twitter is good for. Most businesses don’t understand Twitter’s unique capabilities, says Schaefer. “Its open nature provides the best way to find and build a relevant social media audience,” he says. “Its real-time feed fuels the best free market research available anywhere. It has become the go-to place for customer service. It is the de facto ‘second screen’ for TV viewing. Its advertising platforms provide granular demographics at a rate less expensive than other paid online options.” In short, he says, “Twitter provides an unparalleled platform for business networking and for customer discovery.” If those attributes appeal, you should probably get serious about Twitter.

Make the platform your own. A great deal of ink has been spilled about the purported decline of Twitter and the fact that it seems to be shifting from its conversational roots to more of a broadcast platform. To a certain extent, Schaefer says that’s true: “Like every social media platform, once it became popular, big companies started taking over and it has become much more of an advertising and broadcasting channel than it was.” But that doesn’t have to become destiny, he says. “The beauty of Twitter is that you are in complete control of your experience. If your audience becomes boring, find new people to follow, tune the annoying people out, discover the athletes, artists, writers, and other heroes you love and tap into their lives through Twitter to make it fun again.”

Understand its role in your business cycle. A large Twitter following doesn’t automatically equate to instant sales, Schaefer cautions. “One common mistake is that businesses misjudge Twitter’s role in the marketing mix and over-estimate the value of Twitter followers,” he says. “Twitter opens the door to new opportunities but these connections are normally weak links that you need to build into stronger, actionable relationships through other marketing channels. It helps you generate leads, not necessarily sales, in many cases.”

Listen to the right people. The concept of “social listening” is now in vogue. But for Schaefer, that simply means it’s worth making the time to connect with your ideal audience. One of his favorite ways to find them is by ‘mining lists.’ He explains, “People organize descriptive lists of their favorite people, customers, leads, competitors, etc. Most of these lists are public. In essence, individuals and businesses are curating groups of potential leads for you if you can find the right lists.”

Post at the right times. The most important element of Twitter is the fact that you can connect with others on a human, conversational level. But to do that, you have to reach them when they’re actually awake. “The best research I have seen indicates that the prime posting time is within the business hours of your target audience,” says Schaefer, who notes that, “If you’re a global company, that might mean you are posting all day long!” In general, he says, “It’s ideal to leave at least 30 to 60 minutes between tweets, but of course if you get into a great conversation, that rule goes right out the door.” On Twitter, you should always leave room for connections and serendipity.

At this point, Twitter simply doesn’t have broad-based appeal that Facebook does, and it’s easy to understand why, says Schaefer. “Twitter is not as easy to use as the other social media platforms. It can seem like a big wall of noise. The key to driving higher adoption rates is easy to grasp – Twitter has to make the experience more user-friendly.” For now, it’s still a great way to reach opinion leaders and other influencers, who are disproportionately represented on the service. But its long-term success will depend on its ability to execute the goal – recently laid out by management – of making Twitter more intuitive and accessible. But in the interim, it pays for every executive and entrepreneur to get active on the service, because Schaefer believes its importance will endure.

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is the author of Reinventing You and Stand Out, and you can receive her free Stand Out Self-Assessment Workbook.