This is a guest post written by Nikki Peters, community manager of MarketMeSuite. MarketMeSuite has thousands of users and a fast-growing global customer base of small businesses and consultants.

Getting your information and ideas out to your target audience(s) is what social media marketing is all about. But is anyone reading what you have to say?

In such a fast-paced, tweet-saturated social network like Twitter, it's often difficult to make your content stand out from the rest. Use the following 5 tips to help give your content more exposure on Twitter.

1. Schedule Tweets

Scheduling tweets and updates is a fantastic way to make sure you are getting valuable content out to your audience around the clock -- even when you're sleeping!

Using third-party tools like MarketMeSuite allows you to schedule your tweets for specific dates and times so you can improve your chances of getting your tweets seen by the people who matter most at the right times. It's not always possible to be at your computer or to tweet via your phone, so scheduling tweets to publish automatically can really help you stay on top of your social media content promotion.

Scheduling tweets can also be helpful if your business extends to a global audience. Use scheduling to publish tweets in accordance with other time zones you're targeting. This will prevent your Twitter stream from going silent during times when you're asleep but your prospects on the other side of the world are awake, making it more effective for a global audience. There's even research to back it up. Bufferapp.com recently published a study that showed carefully selected times for scheduling tweets increased click rates by 200%.

Use TweetWhen.com to help you determine the best times to tweet.

2. Analyze Your Data

There is no better way of knowing whether your tweets are being read than by analyzing your data. Use a third-party application to monitor your Twitter presence and understand how people are engaging with your tweets. This way, you can determine if your tweets are getting seen and provoking conversations and discussions. What trends do you notice? Is one type of tweet getting retweeted or generating more clicks and discussion than others?

To track a particular marketing campaign you're running, create and promote a particular hashtag. Using hashtags allows tweets about a particular subject to be more searchable by users. After the campaign is over, marketers can search for the hashtag and identify how effective it was in promoting the campaign and generating more tweets.

In addition, monitoring your retweets is also a very effective way to see not only who has read your tweets, but also who found them interesting enough to retweet them. Learn from your analytics, and create more tweets like the ones that are successful for better exposure.

3. Connect Your Blog to Your Twitter Account

Connecting your blog's RSS feed to your Twitter account will allow your Twitter followers to receive tweets about your newest blog content automatically. These feeds encourage maximum exposure and save you the time of manually promoting your blog content to your Twitter followers. Just be sure your Twitter feed doesn't turn into an automated stream with no Twitter interaction. Participate in the conversation that evolves from the content you're tweeting, and always make sure your Twitter account is about more than just content promotion.

4. Tweet Questions

This is such a simple idea that it is often too easily forgotten and overlooked. By tweeting questions, you'll be inviting followers and other Twitter users to interact, converse, and engage with you and your brand. And the more engaging and valuable you make your Twitter stream, the more followers you'll generate. Something as simple and easy as asking "What do you think of ABC?" or adding, "We would love to know your thoughts about XYZ" at the end of an update will encourage responses. Conversely, remember that if someone asks you a question in real life, you tend to respond it automatically. Think like a human being when you tweet, and be responsive, too.

5. Be Personal, React, and Engage!

As we mentioned earlier, it's extremely important to make sure your followers know there is a real human behind your tweet. If you tweet like a robot with no level of personal engagement with your audience, your Twitter account will look like spam, and your followers will get bored with your messages.

Use personal touches in your tweets now and then. As long as you keep your Twitter stream relevant and valuable over all, there's nothing wrong with tweeting things like, "What a lovely day here in the office!" or "Happy Friday -- hope you're all well!" The more you engage with your followers on a personal level, the more they'll understand you care about, and the more willing they'll be to connect with you and build a relationship. As a result, they'll grow to trust you, listen to what you have to say, and be more receptive to your marketing messages.

In what other ways can you give your content more exposure on Twitter?

Image credit: Twitter Mosaic