Twitter remains one of the most powerful social networks in the world, with more than 66 million visitors every month. For small businesses, Twitter is a cost-effective way to market your products and connect with new customers and business partners, who may otherwise not know about your business, especially if you are a start-up. Learn how to develop the right connections on Twitter with the following four tips.

Balance business versus fun

If you want to hold on to and attract followers, you need to give people a reason to read your tweets. One way you can hold people's interest is to find the right balance between business and fun. For example, as well as tweeting details of new products and services, you can tweet about your knowledge and expertise. Share fun facts about some of the most popular flowers you sell, to give people an insight into your business.

It's always a good idea to encourage interaction, too. Why not run a competition? An example would be where you describe a particular bloom and your followers have to guess what it is, with a prize for the right answer. By building a suitable hashtag into the conversation, you can quickly increase your following and build engagement with your followers.

Show your generosity

Don't just use your Twitter account to promote your own business. Connect with other local businesses and organizations and share their tweets via your Twitter account, especially where there is a natural affinity between your two businesses.

For example, a local wedding planner is a great source of possible floristry referrals. Tweet details of their latest activities, and encourage the same reciprocity. Customers who want to plan their wedding will need a good florist after all. By showing your generosity and willingness to support other local businesses, you are more likely to encourage the same behavior.

Create excitement

Flowers come in and out of season. The most popular color choices change as the year progresses, and certain bouquet types come in and out of fashion. All these trends offer you a great opportunity to create excitement with your followers.

You could tweet details of:

• the latest in-season blooms to arrive
• your interpretation of new trends and fashions
• unusual bouquet designs you have developed

You can develop this excitement by connecting with other small businesses on Twitter, too. The local wedding planner example works here, too. If a wedding planner tweets an article about the latest color trends for fall weddings, you can retweet, adding a photo of a bouquet that you think would look particularly good in that setting.

Mix up the media you use

You can now post text, links, images, GIFs and videos on Twitter, and it's a good idea to experiment with all these media. Variety will help build engagement with different followers, and you can use each of these media in different ways.

For example, you could record a 'how-to' video to show customers how to arrange flowers in a vase, then share a GIF as a great, comical way to share your mood. Text and links can help you direct people to other websites or Twitter users. Images can bring your tweets to life. Why try to describe a bouquet in 140 characters or less when a high-definition color photo will do all the work for you?

Also, don't hesitate to experiment. You won't know what your followers like until you try something, so it's important to test different media. What's more, it may take time to see results. Your first video may not go viral, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try out this media again. Timing is everything on Twitter, so you'll need to mix things up if you want to see results.

Twitter is a powerful way for a small business to develop connections with customers and other businesses. Carefully consider how you can harness the power of this social network to grow your floristry business. For more information contact business start up connection resources.