Entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki said: "The truth is that there are only two types of Twitter users: those who want more followers and those who lie." Getting around the Twitter community doesn't require you to be a celebrity or have to come up with some kind of trick. You can increase the number of followers by becoming "attractive", increasing your visibility and using some established strategies. Start reading the article to get more information.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Becoming Palatable
Step 1. Work on your profile
It must be complete, with your photo and a good bio. It is important that people know who you are and what interests you.
- The simplest and most personal way to set up an avatar is to insert a photograph of your face, looking straight at the camera. Avoid particular angles or insert extraneous elements in the photo. Make it square, but don't make it smaller, so people can click on it and see the larger version.
- If you own a business and want to use your brand as an avatar, that's fine. Instead, using random graphics or images can give the impression of a fake account and is not recommended.
- Many people will read your Twitter bio before deciding whether to follow you or not. A well-written bio can help you get a lot more followers.
Step 2. Try to compose interesting, funny or inspiring tweets
Most potential followers will take a look at the most recent ones to see if they should follow you. Therefore it is obvious that the better your tweets are, the more followers you will gain.
- Add variety. Make sure you tweet about different topics and not just your personal thoughts or what you are doing at the moment. Talk about your hobbies and interests, share valuable advice, or post a particularly sparkling photo to get noticed.
- Be interesting, transparent and provocative. Share intimate news about your life. If you can build a good story, you could get readers who are attentive to the events of your daily life.
- Find interesting stories. Search the web for valuable news that can be translated into effective Twitter. Guy Kawasaki, who has over 100,000 supporters, pays employees to search online for stories worth posting on Twitter. There are many websites to scour for good material to tweet about.
- Publish multimedia material. By inserting images, videos and audio clips here and there you can make your posts more fun to follow.
Step 3. Tweet often and at the right times of the day
Nobody wants to follow someone who never tweets, so it's important to stay active on Twitter constantly. You should post one to two tweets a day to optimize your visibility levels.
- It's also important to post your tweets at a time of day or night when most people are active. No one will see your tweet or have the opportunity to follow you, if you always post when people are asleep. The best times are before going to work in the morning (hours before nine) and after finishing in the evening (around 6pm).
- Be sure, though, to take your time zone into consideration. Most Twitter users live in the United States, so you'll need to tailor your activities to East or West Coast times.
- On the other hand, it's important not to flood your followers with too many tweets, because you could be misunderstood as a spammer, causing them to stop following you.
Step 4. Use hashtags to make tweets visible
- Add hashtags to your tweets and create your own based on trends, which you can see on the left of the Twitter homepage. This will optimize the exposure of your tweet.
- However, like anything on Twitter, hashtags should be used in moderation. Just pick one or two that are relevant or funny, so they add quality to your tweet. There is no point in using them just for the sake of putting them on.
Step 5. Follow everyone who follows you
It might seem counterintuitive to do so when you're focused on gaining followers, but it's a good practice to keep people from getting off your follower list. Like other social media sites, Twitter is an exchange environment.
- Also, by the time you become a follower too, some people may publicly respond to you, highlighting you in the eyes of their supporters.
- If you are worried about not being able to keep up with so many people, you are right. When you follow more than 100 people, it's virtually impossible to read all of their updates. You will become more selective about who and what to read.
Part 2 of 3: Increase Your Visibility
Step 1. Direct people to your Twitter account
By placing a “Follow me on Twitter” link on your blog, emails and other social networking sites, you can direct more people to your Twitter account.
- That way, people who are already interested in what you're doing can easily find your Twitter profile and follow you.
- Using graphics, such as a button or a counter, can be very effective in grabbing attention and increasing followers.
Step 2. Try to get celebrities or famous people to follow you on Twitter
This will increase the chance that they will tweet one of your posts, increasing the visibility of your account.
- You can get a celebrity's attention on Twitter by sending her a @message. This is a direct message that you can send to anyone, whether you are following it or not.
- Pick a celebrity or at least someone with a lot of followers to send an @message. It will appear on your profile page, so that anyone who sees it and can understand who you tweeted to.
- If you're really lucky, this celebrity might reply to your message, re-tweet it, or even become your follower. This could make your tweet visible to thousands or perhaps millions of people, allowing you to gain followers.
- While it doesn't happen often, it's worth sending a direct message or two every day, in the hope that it will be re-tweeted. Remember: the more original or funnier the tweet, the more likely the celebrity is to pay attention to it!
Step 3. Follow people with similar interests to yours and their followers as well
It might seem a little complicated to you, but it really isn't.
- For example, if you are a tarot fanatic, find another enthusiast who has many followers and follow them. If your passion is clear from your bio and tweets, they will be more likely to follow you.
- Be careful though: following too many people could potentially lead your followers elsewhere.
Step 4. Ask people to re-tweet you, as it gives you more exposure within the Twitter network
Simply add "Please retweet" or "Please RT" at the end of some of your posts, but not always, to remind your followers that you want to disclose your claims. Every now and then putting a link on how to re-tweet might help your readers.
Step 5. Repeat your most popular tweets
Do a search with your Twitter name and see which of your updates get the most replies and retweets. Repeat these updates a few times about 8 - 12 hours apart.
- This way you will reach more people because you will attract the attention of those who have missed your previous updates. People "tune in" to Twitter at different times of the day and night.
- If you get complaints for repeated tweets, you should limit this activity or just delete the complainant.
Part 3 of 3: Grow Your Followers Strategically
Step 1. Regularly stop following people with whom there is no reciprocity
This is particularly important to avoid running into some limitations. The first you will encounter will be after reaching 2,000 people. At that point it will be difficult for you to be followed by others.
- When this happens, you need to clean up your follower list by excluding those who don't follow you in turn. You will need to delete those who post tweets that you don't really care about or those who aren't active. You will not miss anything.
- However, as the list of people you are following grows, it will become more expensive to check who is not following you as well. Fortunately, there are services like Twidium and FriendorFollow that can clean up the list for you.
- When your list is cleared, you will be able to follow a new selection of Twitter users, and if you choose carefully, most of them should become your follower.
Step 2. Follow people who use automatic follow
Chances are good that Twitter "celebrities" - users with large numbers of followers and following - will automatically follow you.
- They will also be following tens of thousands of people, but, unlike spammers, they will have about the same number of followers.
- You may stumble upon such accounts during your "travels" on Twitter, but you can also search the Internet for "most popular Twitter accounts" or "popular tweeters".
- People who follow spammers risk becoming autofollowers. Maybe they follow more than 1000 people, but they only have a return of 5-150 users.
- Follow anyone who follows a spammer. They will probably be people who in turn will follow you to increase the number of their followers.
Step 3. Use keywords to find followers
A good technique is to search for keywords related to the topics of your interest.
- Suppose you are a metalhead. Look for who mentions your favorite bands. Reply to their tweets and then follow them. Your response will show them that you have something in common and they will be more likely to follow you back.
- Better yet, you could re-tweet them, if their content was good. Not only are you making good connections with other Twitter users, but you're also bringing good content to your followers.
Advice
- Make the effort to keep your followers. Many people review their Tweet List to find out if it is worth continuing to follow various users.
- Create another Twitter account to test. In fact, by focusing on increasing the number of followers, you could be considered a spammer and risk the suspension of your account. If you are using your real name or that of your brand, test with a dummy account.
Warnings
- Do not automatically send messages, or they will be considered spam and you will discourage people from following you.
- Twitter has a system that detects mass followers and unfollows. If it locates you, your tweets may be removed by the site's search engine.
- Don't stop following people right after you start being a follower. Wait at least five days before doing this, as they may indicate that you are a spammer, with a possible account blocker.
