At any given time, there are thousands of conversations happening on Twitter. I’m not referring to the back-and-forth banter between two or three people — I’m talking about the real-time discussions around particular topics, often denoted by a hashtag (such as #sxsw). Joining conversations that are relevant to your company or your personal interests can be a great way to gain awareness for your brand, add new followers, and network with people who share similar tastes.

But as hashtags have become more popular, they’ve also become a vehicle for spam. Most savvy Twitter business users already know not to use a hashtag on an unrelated tweet, or append popular hashtags to a tweet with the sole purpose of appearing in Twitter search results. Beyond being poor etiquette, it simply turns people off.

So what’s the best — and most authentic — way to participate in a trending Twitter conversation to build awareness, connect with influencers and grow your follower count? Here are four tips for tapping into the real-time stream.

1. Anticipate Conversations

The first step in participating in Twitter conversations is to anticipate which ones are coming down the pike. While it’s impossible to predict that something like #youevernotice will become a trending topic, it’s a pretty safe bet that #NCAAfinals or #adtechsf will have a large group of people following the hashtag before, during, and shortly after each event.

Consider what kinds of content you could build around relevant conversations that take advantage of current events. For example, indie fashion site Moxsie.com timed a Twitter-based “Fashion Police” contest around the #Oscars conversation. Thomson Reuters’ peHUB times its VC roundtable series around relevant industry event conversations such as #CTIA.

Think about which events, pop culture happenings or news are coming up that have a relevant tie-in to your interests, and be ready to participate.

2. Don’t Just Post – Engage

You can certainly drop your tweet into the fray and hope people will retweet it, but to truly participate in the conversation, you should actively engage — retweeting good content, following interesting people, replying to questions and posting more than just links to your brand content — so the community recognizes you and values your contribution.

For example, social media marketing consultant Amber Osborne tapped the conversation around #fakesxsw, a good-natured send-up of the SXSW conference, to network with other people who couldn’t make it to Austin this year. Starting off as just a few funny posts, #fakesxsw spiraled into a full-blown phenomenon that even spawned its own website and Twitter fan page and generated more than 3,300 tweets.

Amber truly engaged in the conversation — posting clever fake panel topics, fake after-party announcements and other funny tweets. She also followed other participants, retweeted their posts, and got into numerous side conversations. In fact, she was the most active tweeter in the conversation. After five days of activity, she’d added over 200 new followers, made several new business contacts, and connected with a good number of influential professionals.

Because Amber had taken the time to become a trusted member of the #fakesxsw conversation, she also felt comfortable dropping in a few tweets about her client, Bruce’s Yams. The oddity of the product fit well with the parody theme of #fakesxsw, and very quickly Amber’s yam tweets were picked up by the other #fakesxsw participants. To her surprise, she didn’t have to say “Go and buy yams!” Because of her natural engagement, people were telling her that they were going out to buy yams — one even commented they would be filling a bathtub with them!

3. Move Fast

You can prep all you want for upcoming events, but to take advantage of unexpected conversations such as #fakesxsw or breaking news, you have to move quickly — the conversation might not last more than a day or two. Be ready to generate content that will give you entry into the discussion, whether it’s a blog post, a video or even a relevant contest.

A good example of being able to move fast comes from online video ad platform Jivox. The marketing director at Jivox watches relevant trade publications to see when large brands are changing agencies, knowing there will be a short burst of Twitter conversation around a big account win, and thus, an opportunity to engage with agencies and brands. He then uses Jivox’s DIY ad builder to convert one of the brand’s recent TV commercials into an interactive video ad to showcase Jivox’s features. When the ad transformation is done, he posts it to the Jivox blog and tweets it out.

For example: “Congrats to #Carat on the Smucker account win! Here’s an idea for turning their TV spots into interactive video ads: www.jivox.com/blog.”

Although it can be tricky to catch breaking news or a viral hit on the rise, once you do, be prepared to move!

4. Be Relevant

Going back to the point about not spamming the hashtag, the most important thing to remember is that your contribution should always be relevant to the conversation.

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