If you have a company, a brand, a label, an idea, or anything else that you want to promote, Twitter is one of the best social media channels to use. It’s easy to quickly gain Twitter followers, and with more than 320 million monthly active users, it’s great for reaching new audiences.
But it takes more than having a basic profile to get a solid number of Twitter Followers. If you want more Twitter followers, there are several steps you must take.
Make your profile fascinating, succinct, and inspiring
Nobody wants to follow someone who is boring. You will appear boring if your profile lacks punch, thought, or creativity.
Twitter only gives you a bit of space for a bio and a photo, so make it count by writing a concise description of who you are, and what you do. Humor is OK too, as long as it’s tasteful. Don’t forget to add your Website or contact info. It never fails to amaze me when people don’t take advantage of this one front and center way to let people find out more about you and your business.
Upload a clear photo of yourself (nobody likes to follow a ghost), and make the most of your background photo. If you’re using Twitter to build your business, use the background photo to let your Twitter followers know what services or products your offer.
Find people you know
The first thing to do to get Twitter followers is to follow other people. It’s common courtesy to follow back those who follow you, making it super easy to make new connections.
If you’re targeting a certain demographic, use Twitter search to refine people, brands and businesses to follow:
Twitter will also suggest people to follow in the sidebar of your desktop app. On your smart phone or smart pad it will also make suggestions to follow when viewing your Twitter followers’ feeds.
Don’t be shy. This is the place where you don’t have to be friends or acquaintances with someone in order to follow them on Twitter.
Another easy way is to connect with people you already know. People who know you are most likely to follow you back.
How to do it:
Upload your email contacts by going to Account Settings>Find Friends> choose to upload from Gmail or Outlook.
Keep in mind if you have a lot of contacts, you won’t be able to add anymore followers the rest of the day as Twitter has a limit. You can’t follow more than a 1,000 accounts per day, nor aggressively follow people.
After uploading your contacts, use the people you already know to lead you to others who interest or intrigue you. Twitter will also start suggesting Twitter followers based on your contact list.
Learn how to use Twitter properly
You have a great-looking profile and you’ve followed people you know—now what should you do?
This is when you start tweeting like crazy. The best way to grow your Twitter community is by being an active participant. Tweet all the time. Tweet funny things or thoughts you have throughout the day. Tweet links to photos or posts you’ve written. Tweet links to articles you liked or found entertaining.
Studies show that users with more than 10,000 tweets usually have several thousand followers, while users with less than 1,000 tweets often have less than a hundred.
If you aren’t active on the site, why would anyone want to follow you? Get more Twitter followers by tweeting frequently.
Be a social butterfly
Now, there’s nothing wrong with tweeting all the time, or with promoting yourself.
But if you only log in to tweet something and then log back out, you’re missing out on a huge part of what makes Twitter special. Your Twitter followers want more from you than that. They need you to be present.
You should spend time every day scrolling your feed ‘liking’ ‘retweeting’ or ‘replying’ to tweets. Ask a question about a tweet, add a comment, or give a compliment.
You need to interact with those you follow in order to be noticed. And do you know what happens to people who ‘like’ ‘reply’ or ‘retweet’ posts? They typically get followers from those interactions.
People love feeling like they’re being given special attention, and they will usually reciprocate it.
So, be social. Read and respond to as many tweets as you can on your feed and you will see your number of Twitter followers increase greatly.
Slow and steady wins the race
Finally, don’t try to get thousands of followers overnight by trying shady tactics like buying followers or following others aggressively. Not only do these things not work in the long run, they leave you with a Twitter community that isn’t invested or interested in YOU.
It’s so much better to take the time to build relationships with others by tweeting, retweeting, replying and interacting with users on the site.
In Summary
Remember, your Twitter followers will increase in time as you seek out people who have similar interests to you, and as you tweet and actively engage with others.
In the end, the number of followers you have really doesn’t matter—but what does matter is how you interact with people.
If you encourage and inspire others, and provide valuable information they’ll want to follow you. Share with care and you’ll go far.