4 reasons not to leave Twitter!

On the heels of its first-quarter earnings report, Twitter seems to be struggling to keep its users active. The social-media service added 14 million active users, up about 6 percent from the previous quarter, but not as much as some analysts would have liked.

Twitter now counts 255 million active users; Facebook has over 1 billion active users. Keep in mind that an active user as someone who logs into their account once a month, not someone who’s necessarily tweeting regularly.

So what to do if you are one of many that set up a Twitter account and abandoned it? Dust off that handle, and give it another try.

1. Be patient. Unless you’re Katy Perry or Starbucks, your brand probably doesn’t have a built-in following. Your first tweet isn’t going to get a lot of traction because no one knows you’re there. So start favoriting, retweeting and replying to content that interests you.

2. Follow more accounts. Find more accounts that are more relevant to your interests, but be selective. There are accounts that may have 100,000 followers, but they also follow 80,000. How in the world will that person ever see anything useful to them? At the same time, don’t feel bad for unfollowing.

3. Be diligent. Make a point to spend even five to ten minutes a day reading, favoriting and replying to tweets. Don’t be discouraged if your replies and tweets go unnoticed. The more you tweet, the sooner you will learn what works and what doesn’t.

4. Say something. Try not to go days between tweets. Whether it’s a discount code, information on sales or something fun, be active. That said, don’t tweet for the sake of tweeting.