If you’re feeling overwhelmed by Twitter, following are some tips to improve engagement with your audience.

Twitter news feeds move quickly when you’re following a lot of people. That means that when you share a new post, it is only likely being seen by a fraction of your following—or those who happen to be viewing Twitter around the same time. Because of this, I recommend repeating tweets. For example, if you share a link to a new blog post, schedule it to post again the next day, again a week later, and so on. For my own articles and content, I often schedule them to post on Twitter up to ten times over the next three months. Remember, Twitter is a platform for content so repeating interesting posts actually benefits you and your audience.

Get in the habit of scheduling posts on Twitter. I keep a spreadsheet handy to check off times of the day when I have posts scheduled. You can download a free copy here: http://businessinfoguide.com/wp-content/uploads/twitter-schedule.pdf. Note that though I’m an advocate of scheduling some of your posts, do not automate all of your activity on Twitter! You still need to have a human presence there.

Share new content on Twitter as often as possible. Ideally, I’d recommend a minimum of six times per day—though more is better. Again, not everyone is on Twitter at the same time. The more often you post, the better your chances of being seen by your audience.

Leave room for others to retweet your posts. As much as possible, keep your posts to 120 characters or less, otherwise it’s harder to forward along.

Follow those who follow you. This is a topic of some debate in social media land. I personally choose to follow back anyone who follows me. Following someone on Twitter is a form of social currency. By following back, I repay that currency for each of my followers and let them know they matter to me.

Respond to those who reach out to you or share your content. Get involved.

Retweet often. Forwarding someone else’s content along benefits your audience and the person you’ve just featured.

Fall in love with Twitter. I personally love it because I learn a lot from following people and companies on Twitter that share content I’m interested in. It’s a pleasure to log on many times each day to see what’s new. Once you really start to enjoy it, you will begin to find your groove and your following will grow as a result.

Use Tweetdeck and Hootsuite (or another social media tool) to manage your Twitter activity. I use Tweetdeck for day-to-day activity and monitoring those I follow and I use Hootsuite for scheduling posts.