The influence of social media on ecommerce is undoubtedly strong. One of the most prevailing platforms online sellers have always found useful is Twitter.

With over 115 million active monthly users and 135,000 users signing up everyday, you have to be crazy not to tap into this market to grow your market, web traffic and even your ROI.

If you’re in need of a little help, here are some of the best ways you can use Twitter to improve your ecommerce efforts.

1. Create a posting schedule.

While personal users can easily tweet just about anything at any given time, businesses need to be a bit more careful and organized.

For instance, dedicate Mondays to promoting exclusive deals and discounts and Tuesday for posting the latest news and updates surrounding your brand as well as your industry. This way, you’re posting a variety of content but at the same time, covering everything that needs to be covered.

Just remember that you are not limited to strict schedules. If anything comes up and you’re compelled to tweet something about it, then go right ahead. This just helps add a little framework to your campaign.

2. Interact and respond to your market.

Twitter is a great way to engage with your customers, especially when they’re directly tweeting at you for certain concerns or just simply compliments about your products and services.

Make sure you are constantly on the lookout to favorite, respond and retweet the posts you want to. Since Twitter is all about real time interaction, it helps to answer to the tweets as soon as you can.

3. Conduct timed contests.

Did you know that 94% of people following certain brands because of the possible exclusive deals they have to offer? So if you want to conduct contests especially during the best times of the year where people spend a lot, like Christmas season, then Twitter is a very reliable vehicle for it.

For example you’d like to give away a few gift checks to your customers. Tweet about the contest at the best time of the day, like during lunch breaks or weekends where more can get a hold of your post. Then, discuss the mechanics from there and conduct the contests every now and then just before the Christmas season ends.

This is a brilliant way to engage your customers as well as increase brand awareness and the growth of your market.  You may be giving away things and not directly earning but you are taking the opportunity to reap other benefits apart from earning.

4. Drive them to your online store.

Your social media visibility should always be tied up with your main ecommerce website. After all, the main purpose is to drive your market into your online store in order to see (and hopefully buy) your products and services.

Like for the contests you’re going to conduct. You should also add in a link of the specific products/services or even just to your site itself. This will lead your market to learning more about what you offer.

5. Keep it diverse to keep the market’s interest.

Twiiter’s Vine is a wonderful tool to use when you want to tease your customers about your newest products that are just about to come out or even a little behind the scenes. You could also upload photos relating to your brand or even customizable memes, which are such a hit now in the online world.

The fact is you should never be limited to just tweeting purely text-driven content. You could always experiment with visual content in order to keep your followers’ interest.

6. Remain relevant with hashtags.

Hashtags are one of the most powerful tools you can use to get inside your market’s heads. This is why you need to maximize its potential for your content, campaigns and other marketing strategies to be more targeted.

Incorporating unique hashtags of your brand will help make a mark on your market. You also need to research what hashtags your customers are using so you know what interests them. Moreover, you can also make use of these hashtags to snoop in on what people think about your brand.

Twitter will continue to be an essential tool for ecommerce practitioners. So if you want to grow your numbers and continuously flourish, then maximize Twitter to your advantage with these steps.