Twitter is only an effective tool for your business if people are actually reading your tweets — and ideally sharing those messages with friends. It’s easy to get frustrated when you find that your number of followers is still in the single digits after several months of being active on the popular social platform. Fortunately, there are five things you could be doing right now to make Twitter a more effective addition to your online marketing strategy.

1. Give a Shout Out to Authors

If you’re tweeting articles, give credit to the authors rather than the websites where you found the articles. Doing so gives you a chance to reach out to online influencers — people with a large online following based on credible, engaging content. By tagging authors, you’re more likely to be on their radar, which means more people will be directed to your Twitter page.

2. Be Picky with the Hashtags You Use

Just slapping a pound sign in front of a group of words doesn’t make it a hashtag that’s going to increase your audience. You want to use hashtags that are actually being used by large groups of people likely to be interested in the topics in your tweets. Sites like Hashtagify have free tools you can use to check the popularity of hashtags you want to use.

3. Time Your Tweets

The best time to send tweets in New York City isn’t going to be a good time to reach the same audience in Tokyo. Reduce the odds of getting lost in a sea of tweets by avoiding especially busy times for tweeting in your desired geographic area. Tools like SocialBro and Hootsuite Autoschedule can help you fine-tune the timing of your tweets.

4. Add Some Meat to Your Tweets

Tweets tend to get more attention if there’s more than just text. Boost your odds of effective engagement with relevant images, videos, and links. Twitter Cards can also be used to attach rich media to your tweets in a way that’s more convenient. Media rich tweets also take up more space on news feeds, which means more visibility.

5. Work Around What’s Popular

Check your news feeds to see what popular news stories you can spin in a way that’s somehow related to your brand. Obviously, there are some stories that aren’t appropriate to spin for your own marketing efforts, so use discretion with what you choose to use.

Regardless of which methods for boosting Twitter engagement you use, there will always be a need to know how well you are reaching your intended audience. There are plenty of free social media management tools (Hootsuite, TweetReach, Social Mention) you can use to track real-time results with your tweets to determine what’s working and what’s not, making it easier to make quick adjustments to your strategies.