“We have a rule at our dealership – no more than 3 social media posts a day. Yes, Twitter is included.”

It’s not a secret. Those who follow me on Twitter know that I post 40-50 times a day. I’m a guy who has been sucked into social media and it works for me. It definitely wouldn’t work for a business. With that said, the infrequent way that the car dealers I monitor handle their Twitter is simply not enough. You need to Tweet more.

The notion that people will unfollow you if you post too much is still a reality… on Facebook. Twitter is different. Because of the way that the feed works in a chronological order rather than based on an algorithm the way Facebook and Google+ do it, each individual Tweet only reaches a tiny fraction of your audience at any given time.  Some say that, depending on the quality of your following, the best that you can expect is still less than 1% per Tweet. That means that if you have 1000 followers, less than 10 people actually see your Tweet.

To Tweet infrequently means that you’re not reaching the audience. To Tweet too much means risking getting unfollowed. The middle ground: a dozen. If you post around a dozen Tweets a day, you’ll find that you can be successful and garner more engagement without making people leave you in droves.

The other challenge when looking at this number is the time necessary to make it happen. A dozen sounds like a lot. Done right, it should only take about 10-20 minutes a day. Here are some tips:

• Post 3-5 links. They can be to your blog, to a video you released, to industry news, to reviews of your products – the possibilities are limitless.
• Post 1-3 proactive engagement @replies. Send a Tweet towards other local businesses, local influencers, and others in the industry.
• Post pics – no limit here. If you’re a car dealer, you have plenty of things on your lot that can be sent as pictures. The new filter tools on Twitter mobile are excellent. Take advantage of them. Post pictures of cars!
• Respond accordingly. If you’re only getting a couple of interactions and retweets a day, respond to all of them. If you start getting more interactions, respond to the “manual” ones. Anyone who talks to you directly (in other words, not a retweet) should get a reply from you.
• Use your other social networks. Some people tie Facebook directly into their Twitter feed. I’m against this for several reasons that I won’t get into now, but you should definitely tie in Pinterest, Tumblr, and other social networks.

The most important thing to remember is to space out the frequency. You’ll run more risk of people unfollowing you by posting three or more Tweets one right after another (other than responses to others) than by posting a dozen a day spread out. Use tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to keep space between your posts.

Twitter is a great tool that so few are really using properly. Differentiate yourself from your competitors by having a vibrant Twitter feed.