Twitter sent me an email that I thought I would share. If you’re a small or medium-sized business, watch this video to learn how to generate sales from the conversations you have with followers on Twitter.

When you start tweeting, first focus on content that generates interactions with your followers in the form of Retweets and replies. Once you’ve established some rapport, mix in your direct offers. To help maintain a balanced content strategy, Twitter suggest an 80/20 approach — 80% of your content should aim to generate engagement and 20% should drive direct response actions such as website traffic and purchases.

Twitter’s latest video covers two tips to help write effective Tweets for this 20% of your content strategy:

Simplify your Tweets
Start with a compelling offer, and then draw attention to your desired action with a time sensitive call-to-action that links to your website.

Create demand with a Flock to Unlock promotion
Incentivize followers to spread your offer through Tweets and Retweets before it’s unlocked for everyone to redeem.

As you incorporate direct offers into your content strategy, try experimenting with different promotions to see which ones resonate most with your followers. At the end of your promotions, ask followers for their feedback and encourage them to tweet you about offers they’d like to see in the future.

Visit business.twitter.com/smallbiz for more information.