Ok, show of hands.
Who else wants to get more Twitter followers?
And I mean, the kind of followers who actually care about your company.
The type of followers who engage with your brand, visit your site and even buy your products.
I know I do.
That’s why I interviewed 38 of the most prolific entrepreneurs in the industry and asked them one question:
If you could only do 3 things to get more Twitter followers, what 3 things would be?
With the information I collected, I created an 8-Step Checklist you should follow to grow much faster.
Here you go:
Focus On These 8 Things And You’ll Get More Twitter Followers (According to 38 Experts)
When you interview so many experts, opinions are bound to differ. However, if you pay close attention to what they said, you’ll find patterns in their responses.
In simpler words, the experts shared almost the same tips. They just used different words.
Of course, you’ll find a variety of ideas and some of them contradict each other, but the point here is to focus on the things the experts agreed on. This way, you’ll have an actionable strategy you can follow and get results.
Here are the 8 key elements I found based on the 38 contributions I received:
1) Content is Key
I’ve made a word cloud from this post. Guess what’s the word experts said the most?
If you said “content,” you guessed right.
If you want to get more Twitter followers, share more relevant content.
Almost all the experts agreed on that the content you share has a direct correlation with the number of followers you have. That’s why you need to focus on creating (or curating) the best content you can, and when I say “best”, I mean content your audience will truly benefit from.
Below you can find some of the most comprehensive guides about sharing the right content. I highly recommend that you read them before starting.
- 100 Killer Ideas For Your Social Media Content | Forbes
- The Essential Guide to Content Sharing | Razor Social
- A Guide to High Quality Social Media Sharing: What, When and How to Share | Buffer
- How to Identify the Right Content to Share on Social Media | Ahrefs
- How to Share Content That Readers Will Want to Re-Share | kissmetrics
2) Be Human – Engage Your Community
Seriously guys, we are human, not robots. People don’t follow people that are not real.
- Why Being Human on Social Media Is the Best Strategy You’ll Ever Have | Entrepreneur
- Connecting With People: How to Be Human With Your Social Marketing | Social Media Examiner
- Being a Human on Social Media Pays Off | Inc
3) Spend Some Time Following Relevant People Every Day
If you spend 10-15 minutes of your day following relevant people, you’ll grow your account much faster.
The question is:
How can you find the right people?
The guides below have you covered:
- How To Find The Right People To Follow On Twitter | Search Engine Land
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists | Mashable
- The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Advanced Search | Zapier
4) Use Visual Content
I don’t need to explain how powerful visual content is. Many sources have demonstrated that our brains are wired to process visual information much faster than plain text, so it’s not surprising that many experts agreed on this one.
The guides below will show you how to integrate visual content into your strategy, the right way:
- Visual Content Strategy: The New ‘Black’ for Content Marketers | Content Marketing Institute
- A Complete Guide to Visual Content: The Science, Tools and Strategy of Creating Killer Images | Buffer
5) Use Paid Methods to Boost Your Reach
In words of Larry Kim:
“This a paid social media world. We’re just living in it.”
Yes, you can definitely get more followers without spending a dime, but if you want to do it faster, you should consider putting a budget behind your strategy.
Here are three excellent guides that will get you on the right path:
- 5 Unusual Ways to Benefit from Twitter Ads | Social Media Examiner
- How to Set Up Twitter Advertising to Build Awareness for Your Business | kissmetrics
- 2 Key Ways to Advertise on Twitter Without Spending a Fortune | Jeff Bullas
6) Use The Right Hashtags (But Not Too Many)
Hashtags must play a crucial role in your Twitter strategy. Why? Two reasons:
- Hashtags allow you to find the right people
- Hashtags allow you to be found by the right people
In the guides below, you’ll learn everything from how to use the right hashtags, when to use them, and even advanced hashtag strategies to market your business.
- How To Use Hashtags on Twitter | Social Quant
- The Do’s and Don’ts of How to Use Hashtags | Hoot Suite
- 3 Key Hashtag Strategies: How to Market your Business & Content | Wishpond
7) Tweet More Often (But Do It This Way)
Buffer states that you should focus on tweeting 3-5 tweets per day. However, many experts told me to tweet more often. For instance, Jeff Bullas say he tweets every 15 minutes, which is 96 tweets per day, and I can say Jeff is someone who really gets engagement.
Jeff Bullas knows how to get engagement.
The bottom line is that you should test to find what number works best for you and get straight to it – every audience is different.
Anyways, rather than focusing on “how many” tweets you should tweet, I recommend that you focus on sharing the right tweets. This way, you’ll always get engagement.
The two guides below will help you write highly-effective tweets.
- How to Tweet on Twitter: 12 Templates to Get You Started | HubSpot
- A Scientific Guide to Writing Great Tweets: How To Get More Clicks, Retweets and Reach | Buffer
8) Be Relevant Outside Twitter
This is a no-brainer finding.
Peep Laja puts it very well:
“That’s how all the celebrities get followers. Bieber and Beyonce don’t follow “social media strategies”. They got followers because they are famous. My followers came mainly because of my blog, books, speaking engagements.”
Totally true. If you want more followers, you should focus on building authority outside Twitter. In the resources below, you’ll learn exactly how to do that:
- How to Build a Loyal Audience on the Web | Quicksprout
- How to REALLY Create a Popular Blog From Scratch | Traffic Generation Cafe
- 10 Ways to Build Authority as an Online Writer | Copyblogger
- 11 Ways to Use Content to Build Online Authority | HubSpot
- 25 Ways to Build Online Authority | imFORZA
Read on to discover each expert’s best 3 tips to get more followers on Twitter!
Guy Kawasaki, Jay Baer, Neil Patel, Jeff Bullas, Donna Moritz, Robert Rose, Sandi Krakowski, Lee Odden, Peep Laja, Larry Kim, Aaron Wall, Andreas Ostheimer, Elaine Fogel, Eve Mayer, David Meerman, Brian Carter, Arnie Kuenn, Brian Massey, Ron Sela, Bryan Eisenberg, Antonio Calero, Justine Jordan, Jordie Van Rijin, David Szetela, Corbett Barr, James Chartrand, Shelly Kramer, Tabitha Naylor, Tom Webster, Jane Goldman, Michael Brenner, Chad White, Tim Soulo, Rebekah Radice, Tommy Landry, Sean Si, Joanna Wiebe, Kim Clinkunbroomer
Guy Kawasaki
Chief Evangelist at Canva, Co-founder at Alltop
Response:
Tweet good shit.
Jay Baer
President, Social Media and Content Marketing Strategist at Convince & Convert
Post consistently, don’t waste people’s time, and phrase your tweets so that they are easily retweeted (short, with graphics, etc).
Neil Patel
Founder of kissmetrics, Crazy Egg and Hello Bar
Response:
1) Follow relevant people within my community each day. In essence, search for people that tweet about stuff related to what you care about and add them each day (try to do this with at least a few hundred people a day).
2) Unfollow the people who don’t follow you back after a few weeks. This way you aren’t following more people than the number of followers you have.
3) Participate in the community. From tweeting, helping people out, responding to direct messages, etc. You have to participate if you want to be popular on Twitter.
Jef Bullas
Social Media Marketing Blogger, Speaker and Strategist
Response:
Create great content, tweet that content often (I do it every 15 minutes with an automation tool) with the Tweepi app and spend 10 minutes every day following people in your niche.
This will build credibility, awareness and people will be compelled and attracted to follow you! Bonus tip: Make sure that your Twitter account profile displays social proof.”
Donna Moritz
Visual Social Media Expert, Social Media Speaker and Professional Blogger
Response:
1) Tweet more regularly on Twitter but make it content that you know is helpful and inspiring for your audience.
Don’t be afraid to Tweet more often… even hourly isn’t too often! If anyone has an issue with you tweeting too much, then they are on Twitter too much. Automation is ok for content but make sure you replace the time you save with time spent engaging with your mentions and RTs and chatting with followers.
2) Tweet more Images – Tweets with images get retweeted twice as often so make sure you include more images. It’s a super simple way to increase your engagement and, therefore, your followers. Remember too, that square shaped images will now show nicely on the Twitter feed so include them too!
3) Start Livestreaming on Periscope or Blab – Periscope is owned by Twitter and the native sharing to Periscope helps you to get noticed by more people, because shares from Periscope get tweeted on Twitter. More people find you. More people follow you. It’s simple!
Robert Rose
Content Marketing Strategist, Author & Speaker
Response:
The first thing I’d do is I wouldn’t focus on getting more –- I would focus on getting the right KIND of followers.
A smaller community of highly engaged followers is more valuable than a large following of unengaged egg profiles.
Then, my next three priorities would be to – create highly effective, and shareable content that creates value for those people, share and engage their content frequently, and occasionally use paid methods to promote tweets that are particularly resonant in order to attract new followers.
Michael Brenner
CEO, Marketing Insider Group and Author of The Content Formula
Response:
The best 3 things to gain more Twitter followers is to share great content, follow people relevant to your area of interests and expertise, and engage with your twitter community.
I’d also add one bonus tip: mix it up!
Every once in a while, I like to throw out a question to my audience. Or comment on a piece of marketing I really like. Or just share a picture I think is amazing. Variety is the spice of life.
Sandi Krakowski
Top 20 Social Media Marketer Faith at work influencer
Response:
1) Create a strategy. Don’t just randomly post. Be the ‘Go To’ source for something that others can rely on to get info, share great content, and turn to you for.
2) Interact! Biggest mistake people make on Twitter is they either use it like text messages with friends, randomly posting thoughts whenever they feel like it OR they use it like a billboard, only posting their pitches and focusing only on sales.
If you will interact with people, connect, show genuine interest and take the time to serve, sales will happen!
3) Build CULTURE. What are you and your brand about BEYOND your business and what you do for a living?
Culture is a group of people gathering together for a common purpose or interest.
This is where social media breaks away from traditional direct response marketing, driven by demographics only, and goes deep into psychographics – what motivates us, what we like or hate, what we dream about, want to talk about and brings us together.
Culture will make your Twitter platform the most valuable, so take time to strategically create the culture you want to ‘live in’ with your followers.
For me, it’s about faith, spirituality and life. I have been doing direct response marketing, copywriting and marketing for over 20 years.
But at the end of the day, I love people, opening doors to believe bigger, giving freedom for spirituality to flow at work.
Lee Odden
CEO at TopRank Marketing
Response:
Three things to get more Twitter followers:
1) Earn them: Curate visually engaging and interesting/useful information consistently. Interact with others by RTing, hearting, asking, answering, posting polls, participating in chats and by all means, give recognition to others.
2) Refer them: Include your Twitter handle everywhere your name is posted – especially in presentations at conferences and in your author bio in articles on blogs, medium, LinkedIn and industry websites. When people see you or your content away from Twitter, make it easy for them to be referred to your Twitter profile.
3) Buy them: Run targeted ads using info-training and provocative Tweets that will inspire Twitter users to follow you.
Peep Laja
Founder and Chief Conversion Architect at ConversionXL
Response:
Two tips:
1) Be relevant outside Twitter.
That’s how all the celebrities get followers.
Bieber and Beyonce don’t follow “social media strategies”. They got followers because they are famous. My followers came mainly because of my blog, books, speaking engagements.
2) Be a normal human being on Twitter, say interesting things. Curate the links you tweet out carefully. Don’t retweet everything.
Larry Kim
Founder of WordStream, Inc.
Response:
I would buy REAL Twitter followers by running Follower ad campaigns on Twitter.
Use remarketing and demographic/interest/behavioral and keyword filters to target exactly the types of people who would most likely be interested in your content.
If done correctly, it shouldn’t cost more than a few cents per real follower, and you’ll get tons of additional exposure from having run the ad campaigns.
Aaron Wall
Founder of SEObook.com
Response:
Integrate Twitter into your site design. You can include both Follow buttons, Tweet buttons, and with a bit more effort integrate recent tweets from your account like we do at the bottom of seobook.com.
If you write guest posts or columns for other sites, be sure to mention people can follow you there.
If you interview people who are popular on Twitter you can also give them the link when the interview is published & ask them if they would share it.
Follow people who write interesting things on Twitter, retweet some of their better posts & sometimes ask them questions specifically.
Andreas Ostheimer
Entrepreneur, Blogger & SEO Expert
Response:
1) Present relevant content from outside twitter and stay on topic and of course: don’t spam.
2) Try to connect to Twitter stars but stay on topic and don’t spam.
3) If you use automation for posting relevant content from high-quality sources you have to mix it up with handmade tweets which mentions others Twitterati using @-replies.
Elaine Fogel
Professional Speaker, Author, Customer-Oriented Marketer, Brand Evangelist
Response:
1) I tweet daily, Monday through Friday. Whenever I publish a blog post, I take short excerpts from it and tweet them about 3-5 times. On the off days, I retweet quality content from marketing thought leaders I follow or share articles I find valuable with my target audience.
2) I check Twitter sporadically throughout the day to engage, thank followers, and retweet content.
3) I use hashtags to attract people in my target audience.
Eve Mayer
CEO of Social Media Delivered
Response:
1) Tweet 8 to 10 times a day responding to all @replies at least twice a day.
2) Use The Social Media Business Equation(TM) to make sure my content is relevant.
3) Use picture and video uploaded directly to Twitter.
Rebekah Radice
Chief Marketing Officer at Post Planner
Response:
1) Tweet a ridiculous amount of valuable content (be a giver FIRST!)
2) Know your niche. Nothing kills credibility quicker than not knowing your sh$!
3) Join relevant Twitter chats to grow a community of loyal and engaged followers. (make the RIGHT connections with the right people)
Sean Si
CEO and Founder of SEO Hacker and Qeryz
Response:
Getting more Twitter followers is really not rocket science. You’re going to need to Tweet links that lead to great content that’s relevant to your Twitter crowd. So let’s break that down:
1) How do you find links that lead to great content?
Any blogs you follow daily? Weekly? Try getting the RSS and hook it up to your Buffer or SocialOomph so that you Tweet it automatically whenever that blog has something new to say.
2) How do you know it’s relevant to your Twitter crowd?
Make sure that the blog you’re following and tweeting out speaks to your audience. I follow a lot of SEO and CRO blogs that I love so I’m very confident that the Tweets I send out are always relevant. I also make sure to Tweet any SEO stuff I write about in the SEO Hacker blog.
3) How does all that turn into more followers?
My followers love my Tweets so they retweet it to their followers. More often than not, that results into more people following me. I don’t get hundreds of new followers in a day. Just a few handful. But overtime, it has built into a sweet sum.
David Meerman Scott
Leading Marketing and Sales Speaker for Companies and at Conferences Worldwide
Response:
It’s really simple:
Educate and inform instead of interrupt and sell. And respond to as many people as you can.
Tim Soulo
Head of Marketing at Ahrefs and Founder of BloggerJet
Response:
Actually, there are only 2 things you can do to grow your following on Twitter.
The first one is super hard to do, the second is pretty easy.
1. Be the kind of person that others want to hear from.
It’s no secret that people on Twitter mostly follow celebrities.
And there’s a “celebrity” in each niche.
In pop music that would be Lady Gaga; in marketing that would be Seth Godin; in SEO that would be Rand Fishkin.
The only way to get the same amount of NATURAL followers that these guys have is to get to their level.
Here’s what I mean by that.
Lady Gaga has 55M followers and Lana Del Rey only 6M.
These numbers correlate pretty accurately with the general popularity of these two ladies according to Google Trends:
So there’s no way for Lana Del Rey to get as much followers as Lady Gaga does, unless her music and performances will do the job for her.
Same applies to any niche.
You can’t make a person popular by “getting more Twitter followers”. It works the other way around – you become popular and your Twitter following grows naturally.
2. Expose your Twitter profile in front of your potential fans
Like I said, this one is super easy if you’re a prominent person in your niche.
All you have to do is let people know that you have an account on Twitter and you’ll get millions of followers overnight.
I mean, if Oprah invites you to share your story on her show – don’t forget to mention your Twitter username and invite people to follow you.
Here’s a less extreme example:
f you’re writing a guest post for a big publication, don’t forget to mention your twitter username in your author bio. If people will enjoy the read – they will follow you on Twitter to get more from you.
So yeah, “getting more followers on Twitter” is all about doing great things and exposing yourself in front of your target audience.
Brian Carter
Author, Keynote Speaker, Digital Marketing & Advertising Consultant
Response:
1) If you want to grow more Twitter followers Create valuable content regularly (help your potential customer solve problems, at least one new blog post or video a week, though three would be better!).
2) Tweet that content automatically using buffer + the WordPress plugin “buffer old posts” (Edgar does a similar thing if you don’t have WordPress), and Follow people who would make good followers (find people you respect who have a lot of followers and follow their followers) using Tweepi.
3) The constant tweeting of valuable original content will earn you more followers, and many of those you follow will follow you back. This will attract valuable new Twitter followers every week.
Arnie Kuenn
CEO of Vertical Measures
Response:
1) Tweet more by setting up some automated tweets using RSS feeds from very respected publishers and by sending more updates about evergreen content on my website.
2) Engage with 10 more influencers in my market by sharing their content and retweeting their tweets.
3) But I would never buy any followers or set up programs looking for “auto follow back accounts”. Always earn your followers.
Brian Massey
Founder of Conversion Sciences and author of Your Customer Creation Equation
Response:
1) Start sooner. The best twitter followers are found slowly over time. These are ones that will share your content or buy your products and services. They cannot be bought or purchased in bulk.
2) Create better content to share. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many twitter followers you have if they aren’t interested in what your business sells. Be the answer to their questions and your prospects will start following you.
3) Share more of what others share. You can be part of the solution by sharing the good work of others on Twitter. This is building twitter Karma.
Joanna Wiebe
Copywriter & Founder at Copy Hackers
Response:
My goal with growing my Twitter following is to get people that actually like me to follow me – not just to get a big number under Followers. To that end, here are the 3 things I have done and would do again to get more [and better] Twitter followers:
1) Speak at conferences. Followers shoot up after conferences, largely due to all those great tweets attendees send out during talks.
2) Don’t be stingy with follow-backs. If a profile looks legit, I follow back – and then use Manage Flitter to unfollow my fake followers, inactive accounts and other problematic accounts.
3) Be your real self on Twitter. I tweet links to stuff that matters to me personally and in business. Some people may not want to hear that I’m a feminist, that I care about protecting animals or that I’m a total lefty liberal. But those people don’t actually like me then, so they shouldn’t follow me.
The people that like me like all of me (generally!), and they’ll like those personal sides of moi, too. 🙂
Ron Sela
B2B Content Marketing Strategist – Specializing in Influencer Marketing
Response:
If you are aiming to get more followers on Twitter, then follow these tips. These tips will help you whether you are using Twitter as a social platform to keep in touch with friends or family or are trying to promote your business. If you only do three things to get more Twitter followers then make it these three things.
1) Post great content
Writing interesting posts will help to increase the number of followers that you have on Twitter. Try and make your message catchy, this will make your readers more likely to read on. It will also make them want to share your posts.
Keeping your posts short and to the point will also make them more likely to be read to the end. Research shows that posts with photos are more likely to be shared; attach a great picture that is eye catching and relevant and you will be onto a winner.
2) Post frequently and consistently
Posting on a regular basis will keep your followers interested in what you are doing. It will also help to attract new followers. Aim to create hype and excitement on your Twitter site to encourage sharing of posts.
Try to consistently write posts in the same style or the same quality. For example, if you are writing humorous posts you need to do so on a regular basis to encourage repeat visits to your page.
3) Cross promote your Twitter profile with your profiles on other social media networks
Not everyone has a twitter account and in order to reach those people you need to link your Twitter profile to your other social media such as Facebook or Instagram. By having multiple social media sites, you can reach a much larger audience.
Bryan Eisenberg
Founder & CMO at IdealSpot
Response:
Be Human! Show that you care about the relationships, the content you share with your audience and engage appropriately.
Antonio Calero
User behavior management on Social Media. Consultant, multilingual keynote speaker, and blogger.
Response:
1) First and foremost, I will ENGAGE with my followers
Automation is good but, unfortunately, sometimes there’s too much (and I’m guilty of it). We cannot remember that social media is about being social; that is: about people connecting and engaging with other people.
Engaging with other users’ tweets, replying to their comments, etc. is the first pillar to having a successful and engaged Twitter audience.
2) Be different, don’t do as everyone else is doing, show that you can offer something fresh
In the good old days (which is just a couple of years ago), when Twitter was basically text, I started to increase my audience by including images in my tweets.
Now everyone is doing it, but back then seeing an image on your news feed was unusual, and one good reason to follow an account. So know what’s new and fresh, and integrate it in your content strategy.
Use hashtags effectively. Hashtags are a great way to generate inbound traffic and get found, however using too many (or the wrong ones) won’t work at all. Instead, select one or two that relate to the content you are tweeting about, and, if possible, integrate them as part of a sentence (instead of at the end of it).
If you keep showing up in search results to users looking for specific topics, chances are they’ll start following you.
3) Use hashtags effectively
Hashtags are a great way to generate inbound traffic and get found, however using too many (or the wrong ones) won’t work at all. Instead, select one or two that relate to the content you are tweeting about, and integrate them as part of a sentence (instead of at the end of it).
If you keep showing up in search results to users looking for specific topics, chances are they’ll start following you.
Justine Jordan
VP Marketing at Litmus
Response:
Tweet about topics that genuinely interest you, and share links and resources that you found valuable—others may find them valuable as well. Participate in Twitter chats and/or utilize hashtags that align with your interests and passions.
Engage! Rather than just pushing content “out,” contribute to a dialogue. Start a conversation with others in your field, reply to customers, and exchange commentary.
Jordie van Rijn
Independent email marketing and eCRM consultant
Response:
1) Add a Social Hook to promote your (Epic) Content
I like the idea of doing something that others would not even think about doing. That includes creating epic content. Epic content works, but it is a lot of work. So if you create some Epic Content, be sure to get the most out of it.
That means adding a Social Hook. For example my article: The ultimate marketing automation statistics.
It didn’t have any Call to Action to tweet / share before, but after some time I added a block and a “tweet this” to the top of the article. It is not a plug in, just a piece of text and a link. If you click on the link, the prewritten tweet has my twitter handle mentioned.
When tweeted, something interesting happens. Often there are new twitter followers, also I can retweet it or I would thank the original sender of the tweet and they would follow me too. The trick is to make the tweet itself worthy, not just a “share this article”, but an interesting piece of info.
2) Include social content in your email newsletter
Getting more twitter followers is great, but getting more newsletter signups is even better, cross-channel promotion works. But most of the “follow us on” links in footers of mails don’t get that many clicks, but actually showing the engagement does.
By using twitter content in your newsletter and tweeting about it, you will certainly catch some attention. You can even go all out and create a Kinetic Email that includes a Realtime External CSS Driven Twitter Feed right in your newsletter. Or keep it a bit simpler and do a twitter share contest with a #hashtag promoted through your newsletter.
Chad White
Author of ‘Email Marketing Rules’
Response:
I pay a lot of attention to my listed-to-followers ratio as a quality indicator, so a lot of what I do is about reaching the right people and building a person-to-person connection. Here are top 3:
1) I tweet and retweet tips, observations, and content that email and digital marketers will find useful
I try to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high by staying on topic and being thoughtful in my replies.
2) I favorite and follow people who are tweeting or retweeting my content
People who include @chadswhite or @litmusapp in their tweets make it super easy for me to see them and respond. But I also search for the headlines and titles of my content pieces so I can connect with people engaging with those.
3) I follow and engage with people using hashtags related to email marketing events
Conferences, webinars, and Twitter chats–especially those that Litmus hosts–are great ways to connect with people who are going to be interested in what I tweet about.
David Szetela
VP of Search Marketing Operations at Bruce Clay Inc.
Response:
1) Be a valued curator – tweet and retweet the best sources of information in your field/industry
2) Create a paper.li publication that summarizes your tweets once a day
3) Include your Twitter handle everywhere – blog posts, email signature, on the side of your house – everywhere!
Corbett Barr
Co-founder and CEO of FizzleCo
Response:
Engage people one-to-one, be interesting, tweet often.
James Chartrand
World-renowned founder of Men with Pens
Response:
Show up, hang out, and be real. There’s nothing more engaging or interesting than someone who is just fun to be around. So be that person, with no agenda or ulterior motive at all, and you’ll find that you become the person everyone wants to be friends with.
Shelly Kramer
Digital marketing brand strategist and Co-founder of V3*Broadsuite
Response:
Be real, don’t sell, add value.
Tabitha Jean Naylor
Seasoned sales and marketing professional
Response:
1) Be Interesting! The days when people wanted to hear what you had for breakfast are gone.
2) Be Original! People are more likely to follow you if they read your tweet and think, “I haven’t heard it put like that before!”
3) Be Contrarian! Same old same old wins no followers. People like finding a new direction – be the one who sets it.
Tom Webster
Vice President at Edison Research
Response:
I find that my speaking engagements drive new followers as much as anything. I make my Twitter handle prominent in several places in my presentations, and encourage people to ask questions or follow up on my talk on Twitter. That usually sparks a chain reaction for me. I’m a big believer in offline actions 🙂
Jane Goldman
Creative Strategist and Professional Blogger
Response:
1) Share interesting things. I have sources for keeping up on the industry that help me curate content for tweets. But, having a point of view on what you share helps too.
2) Engage with people. I enjoy industry chats like @Brandchat and have met some great people that way. But, it’s also as simple as talking to the people you follow, even if you don’t know them. Join in the conversation.
3) Be real. No one wants to follow a bot.
Tommy Landry
Response:
There’s an art and a science to gaining followers on Twitter, and the key question is whether you want more followers, or better followers.
My goal with Twitter has always been to get more, but to make as many of those followers a good fit for my message, my personality, and my business.
Here are some tips for how to build it with a similar objective:
1) Be consistent: If you plan to use Twitter as a key point of contact, you need to stay on top of it.
Customers may choose to complain to you on Twitter, and there’s nothing worse than letting an angry customer stew and went for two days before responding.
If you aren’t consistent, you may very well lose not only the angry customer. They could scare others off as well.
2) Curate and share only the best content: I am a huge proponent of curating content to show thought leadership. But you can’t tweet just anything that includes a keyword which is relevant to your audience.
Anyone can do that.
Curate the very best content you can find. That way, you become an information source worth following. When you have your own content, it will be presented alongside best of breed ideas, which will help you build credibility with your audience.
3) Pay it forward: The old adage that “you have to give to get” rings very true on the social web. I’ve found that I can gain followers by retweeting others, mentioning people with kind words, and sharing their content.
Answer questions when someone is panicking about a problem you can help solve. Make referrals to others in the industry – that provides value to the prospect as well as the provider!
The more you do to help people without expecting anything in return, the faster you’ll build a reputation as a great resource and person worth following.
4) Stay engaged: Too many folks jump on Twitter, push out a flurry of activity, and check out for the day or week. Like I mentioned above, people expect you to be engaged on Twitter if you decide to include it in your media mix.
It’s okay to miss a day or two here when you’re off the grid, but most of the time, Twitter needs to be in the back of your mind as you go through the day.
It’s not a small commitment. Know what you’re getting into up front if you want to succeed.
5) Be patient: As with SEO, rewards come to those of us who exhibit patience in growing their online presence.
Sure, there are tricks and services that can accelerate the volume of followers, but how many of those will be engaged?
How many are actually in your target audience? You can’t buy engagement, but you can buy followers. What value with that provide? Do it right, take your time, put forth the effort, and the rewards will come.
Kim Clinkunbroomer
Partner & Executive Vice President of Paid Search at Philly Marketing Labs
Response:
1) Tune into your target audience. My target audience on Twitter does not care that my Grandma just turned 93. They are about content relevant to their interests.
2) Sometimes Less is More. Just because you get 140 characters does not mean you have to use them all. Sometimes less it more.
3) Google Indexes Tweets! What better way to gain more followers than to have your tweets show up in Google SERPs. Post often, be relevant, and think about what search queries a person may type into a search engine as you create content for your post.
You Ready?
Now that you have an actionable guide to getting more followers, it’s time to take action.
Most people will just forget this blog post and sit down to watch TV all day.
But those people won’t get results – they won’t grow.
Now you have all the information needed to succeed on Twitter.
It’s up to you to implement it.
If you’re someone who takes action, leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.
