These slides show my most successful tweets so far in 2016 and help to show ten general principles that I've identified which help to grow an engaged audience of Twitter followers.

You can see my Twitter account and explore my tweets at https://twitter.com/DrLancaster

These are the average number of tweets per day on a monthly basis in 2016.

The numbers were generally improving, although this also depended what events I was involved with.

April 2016 saw a dip mainly due to being on vacation.

I started a new job in May 2016 and was initially less active.

The number shows that my most popular tweet in January 2016 received 823 impressions.

This tweet was the link to a radio interview that I did for BBC Radio Kent on contract cheating, which is the research area that I'm known for and regularly speak about with the media. There were several other tweets building up to the interview.

A very popular tweet in February.

This tweet refers to a hackathon I organised for students with companies of various sizes as sponsors. This positive tweet got good engagement from the companies involved.

The hackathon took place on February 29 and March 1, providing many opportunities to tweet.

The most successful tweet was a success story, combining the winning team from the hackathon and two of the main sponsors. This also led to several other pieces of publicity and subsequent projects.

April 2016 coincided with vacation time (and fewer academic opportunities)

The tweet unrelated to my normal activities was a one-off, but well-received by the people mentioned, who were keen to get publicity themselves.

May 2016 was a successful month on many fronts.

This tweet mentioned a student success story, as well as a wider area of interest to me in entrepreneurship.

June 2016 is not yet complete, but has already been very successful, largely due to my involvement in an external event with an influential audience.

A key idea was quickly captured during an on-stage interview. The tweet related to financial issues, which were important to the delegates at this event.

I've analysed all of my tweets in 2016 so far that have had more than 2000 impressions to identify these nine strategies, which should be applicable to other Twitter users, including those just starting out.

Almost all of my tweets with 2000 impressions have had a photo included. Generally, these have been quick snaps on my camera phone, often showing a person or the contents of slide.

People like to see tweets that mention them in a positive light, associate them with a positive result or link them to a good idea. They'll retweet and like these, increasing the tweet exposure.

A similar strategy works well with companies, particularly those growing companies who understand social media. I had a positive experience doing this with companies sponsoring the hackathon programming competition that I arranged. The companies were keen to show their involvement. This has also helped to nurture a positive relationship that will be beneficial to all of us in the future.

Many of my most successful tweets have related directly to university Open Days. My current position involves recruiting students onto appropriate courses, so having a good reach of those tweets is important there. Tweets promoting other types of university events, unrelated to my marketing work, also tend to be well received.

This is a natural activity, as I like to celebrate the success of others, but I'm always happy to tweet when a student of mine has a positive outcome. Most students don't have a huge Twitter reach themselves (although student social media marketing is an important part of my teaching to help students with their employability), but other influential people also like to promote student success with me.

I have run many events, including workshops, conferences and hackathons and always generate and promote a hashtag. I also do this for modules that I'm teaching, although the success tends to vary depending on the group of students involved. A hashtag is an easy way to encourage engagement and to allow tweets on similar subjects to be collected together for easy review afterwards. Where a hashtag already exists, using this ensures that other Twitter users also engage with you.

Many of my most successful tweets have come as part of a longer series of tweets. For instance, if I'm delivering a presentation or keynote talk at an event, I try and presell the talk, so as to encourage attendance and also to discuss some of the points of interest that I'll be delivering. I will encourage participation during the talk itself. Then, after the talk, I will promote my slides, often accompanies by blog posts or video recordings. A similar strategy works well for other events and activities.

Retweeting is generally a win-win. At an event, it helps to grow the overall reach of the event and the chance for the event hashtag to trend. It also encourages reciprocity, where your own tweets are likely to be retweeted. It provides you with additional content for your Twitter account at a low cost and you can always add further comments. It also helps to curate interesting content for your followers, assuming that you've weeded out the less interesting tweets first.

My most successful tweet of the year so far formed part of a startup company conference I attended. Although many of the attendees were not active, or tweeted only to promote themselves, I made several tweets that generated discussed both inside the conference and beyond. Attending events is an excellent way to gain followers and increase Twitter engagement. The event organisers are also keen to promote these. It is also possible to use this strategy for events held online, or to engage with physical conferences at a distance purely by following the hashtag discussions.

Not strictly related to getting tweets with 2000 impressions, but it is important to develop a group of followers who are interested in your tweets and will engage with them. For instance, I know that there are certain subjects that I can tweet about which almost always get retweeted by a small group of people interested in that area. Regular tweeting needn't be a chore. This can include tweeting links to news stories, engaging in discussions with other people interested in similar areas to you (even if you do not know them) and you can promote interesting content of your own multiple times in different ways.

The analysis I carried out to prepare this presentation was useful to me, as it was surprising to see just which tweets were success. They weren't always the one that I expected.

The main research area that I'm known for is contract cheating, looking at students who have paid third parties to complete their work for them. This has generated interesting research studies and opened up many media and speaking opportunities for me and there is a small group of academics interested in this area. I regularly circulate stories related to the wider areas of student cheating and plagiarism. But, my most viewed tweet here had just 985 impressions and I had many tweets in this area with impressions in the high 100s, but this does show that I should consider an increased focus on other areas that have got results. I need to review how closely my tweets on contract cheating match the strategies that I have identified in this presentation.

Take a look at your Twitter statistics and they will give you an idea what's working for you. I'm available to consult and to help you to plan a Twitter campaign if you'd like help expanding your personal reach.

As a very experienced Twitter and social media user, I'm available to guide you on Twitter marketing and social media branding. I am particularly experienced working with small business and technology companies, students, academic staff, software engineers and entrepreneurs. As well as marketing consultancy, I also offer individual and group training in this area, suitable for both beginners and experienced Twitter users. You can connect with me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrLancaster.

Links to my blog and my other social media properties are available on my main website at http://thomaslancaster.co.uk.