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How to Get (and Keep) Followers on Twitter

February 2nd, 2009 · 36 Comments · Social Media, Twitter

follow-me-on-twitter.gifI made a New Year’s resolution this year to make a better effort at increasing my presence in the social media space (and Twitter in particular). And so far in my first month, my efforts and commitment seem to be paying off. On December 31, I had 446 followers on Twitter. Just 1 month later, I’m sitting at 2,176 followers (Update: As of March 8, I’m up to 9,389 followers). It’s taken a bit of effort to get there, but you can do it too. There are just a few simple things to do to start increasing your followers and your influence on Twitter.

STEP 1: FOLLOW OTHER PEOPLE

Follow as many people as you can that share your interests or are in your industry. That’s where it all starts.

Follow people you know: If you’re just starting out on Twitter, use the Find People Tool in Twitter to help you find people you already know. When you find them, follow them. Since they already know you, chances are they’ll follow you back.

Follow the big names and who they’re following: Find the big names in your industry or area of interest and follow them. And then, click on their Following list and start following the people they follow.

Use Twitter follow tools: Later this week I’ll cover this in detail, but use any one of a wide variety of tools to help you find good people to follow on Twitter.

Know your limits: Technically, there is no limit on how many people you can follow on Twitter. But know and understand that Twitter puts a flexible cap on how many people you can follow. You can initially only follow up to 2,000 people on Twitter. Once you are following 2,000 people, you must bring your Follower count to within 10% of 2,000 to follow more people. Once you pass the 2,000 limit, the number of people you follow must always be within 10% of the number of people who are following you. For example, if you have 4,000 Followers, you can follow up to 4,400 people. Twitter does this to help cut down on Follow Spam: Follow Spam is the act of following mass numbers of people, not because you’re actually interested in their tweets, but simply to gain attention.

Look for good followers: When considering who to follow, look at content first. You always want to follow interesting people. And pay attention to how many updates people make. Low updaters are probably lurkers and not likely to help you expand your network very much. Take a good look at their followers to following ratio too. You want to follow people who’ll follow you back. So, if someone has 5,000 followers but they are only only following 25 people, consider the value of their content to you versus the chances of them actually following you back. If their content is highly valuable, follow them. If not, you may not want to bother following. However, someone who has 800 followers and is following 950 people is much more likely to follow you back. And if their content is valuable to you, it’s a win-win.

Follow those who follow you: It’s all about the network, so follow the people who decide to follow you. That’s just common courtesy right? If you have a hard time keeping up with following people as they follow you, consider using an autofollow tool like SocialToo. (I’ll have a post later this week about more useful Twitter tools)

STEP 2: GET TWEETING

OK, so now you’ve got some people following you and you’re following others. That’s good for a start. So how do you continue to grow a good following that you can maintain. Simple: GET TWEETING! Well, maybe it’s not that simple, but if you’re not Tweeting, nobody is going to keep following you. My best advice: Tweet and Tweet often. It takes a bit of commitment. When I made my resolution, I resolved to Tweet at least 10-20 good Tweets a day. I often do much more depending on what I run across each day. But make sure your Tweets are good. Nobody cares that you just changed the litter in your kitty’s box (unless you found something funny in there).

Provide value: Make sure that your Tweets provide value to the rest of the Twitter community. If you’re producing content, make it worthwhile and Tweet about it. Or if you like to comb the web or read blogs, find the most interesting items and share them with the community. Interesting, valuable ideas and links get ReTweeted. ReTweets increase your exposure to people in your extended network who may not be following you already. The more ReTweets you get of your original Tweets, the more followers you’re likely to gain.

Have an opinion: If you have an opinion, people are interested. And everyone has an opinion right? So feel free to join in the conversation and offer your opinion where you can.

Be an expert: Set yourself up to be an expert in a particular area of interest. Engage in conversations about that area of interest with an air of expertise (and hopefully you actually have some expertise). You can use tools like TweetDeck to help you find and filter those conversations you’d like to be a part of.

Ask questions: Use Twitter to engage the community to help you answer questions. Ask good questions and encourage everyone to pipe in. And use common courtesy and be sure to thank everyone for their help. “Please” and “thank you” go a long way on Twitter.

Just be involved: In general, just be active and involved. Participate in conversations with others. That would be the SOCIAL part of social media and it’s what makes this all so interesting. If you’re a one-way broadcaster, people will tune you out after a while.

Be yourself: Let yourself shine through in your Tweets. A constant stream of overly personal or completely impersonal Tweets can be irritating. Keep a good mix of your personality in your Tweets and let others get to know you a bit. And if you can provide a little humor every now and then, that always works too.

STEP 3: THE LITTLE THINGS

Avatars: Have a decent avatar. Don’t use a cheesy avatar. People use social media because it’s SOCIAL. They want to “see” you. If you’re confused about what a “good” avatar is, check out Dan Schwabel’s excellent blog post “11 Rules for Best Personal Branding Results with Avatars“.

Just ask: Sometimes, if you really want someone in particular to follow you, just ask them to follow you. Worst case: They say no.

More than words: Make your content about more than words. Try using tools like Posterous to Tweet using multimedia.

AND REMEMBER, IT’S NOT A CONTEST

There is a little bit of “Follower Frenzy” going on with Twitter these days. Please don’t take this post to be an extension of that frenzy. One of the worst things you can do on Twitter is build a huge following of irrelevant followers. If the people who are following you are not reading your Tweets, they’re useless. You want followers that are engaged with you and your content. To that end, don’t go “autofollow hunting“. That is, don’t trawl Twitter looking for people who will automatically follow you back no matter what. Work hard on your content, be sincere, provide value and follow relevant people. That’s the basis to building a good, solid, stable Twitter following. You can do it. And if you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m at http://twitter.com/ChrisSpagnuolo

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