When you get followers on Twitter it becomes a powerful marketing tool. It amplifies your content marketing efforts, increases sharing, website traffic and search engine ranking. In this article, we will share what we learnt from getting over 1k followers on Twitter.
When starting out with few to no followers it can be easy to get discouraged. Remember, that after a few weeks of work you will have thousands of followers but before getting started make sure to complete and optimize your Twitter profile.
Develop a formula and schedule for marketing on Twitter, it is critical to your overall success. Create a daily Twitter schedule to keep yourself on track. Commit to spend at least 3 minutes to 2 hours a day on building your followers on Twitter. You want to make consistent progress and not miss out on opportunities to interact with your followers. Take a few minutes to write out a daily Twitter formula with your activities and goals to help keep your on track.
Example Twitter Formula
- Follow 15 New Experts and Potential Customers
- Post 3 Valuable Links, Tips, Advice, Quotes, Images
- ReTweet 2 tweets from Followers/Following
- See What Tweets from Yesterday are Most Popular
Twitter Followers Love Valuable Content
Share valuable content daily to consistently get new followers on Twitter. Everyone from marketing professionals to doctors use Twitter to share and discover information on topics ranging from Pinterst marketing to new medical procedures. By sharing new, relevant and valuable content everyday you will eventually become a trusted source of news and insight in your industry. This will help you consistently add new followers and get more retweets.
Follow industry leaders, influential bloggers and online magazines to quickly find valuable content to share with followers. Use Twitter’s list feature to make it easier to filter tweets and find the content that is most valuable. To get started create a Twitter list with a specific focus (ex: “Content Marketing Experts”) and add relevant Twitter users.
Share valuable content with Twitter followers daily. Every morning login to Twitter and check out your lists of experts, bloggers and online magazines. Look for the best content for that day and schedule it to be tweeted throughout the day.
When you share other people’s content make sure to give them credit and let them know. This is easy to do, just include them in the tweet using @username. Sharing other people’s content is a great way to build relationships and attract new followers .
Time Tweets to Reach Followers
Tweet timing and frequency has a big impact on retweets and getting new followers. With thousands upon thousands of new tweets every minute of the day it is easy for you to get lost in the sea of tweets. To increase the chance of your tweets being noticed increase your tweet frequency. Instead of tweeting 1-2 times per day consider tweeting every few hours. This is easier than it sounds thanks to free tweet scheduling tools like Hootsuite.
Focus on tweeting only the most valuable content possible. You want to become the best resource of news and insights in your niche. If you share content that is not great, you will get fewer new followers and retweets. Remember, it is ok to tweet a piece of content multiple times if it is very important or popular. Just make sure you don’t tweet it more than once every few hours.
Tweet your best content when followers are most active. The time of day you tweet has a big impact getting new followers.To discover the best times to tweet simply check your Twitter account at the end of every day to see what times you receive the most retweets, favorites, mentions and new followers. You can also use services like SocialBro, PeerIndex and Buffer to improve your tweet timing. If you are tweeting blog posts from you website and have Google Analytics set-up you can also monitor what times drive the most traffic. This is easy to access within Google Analytics by selecting Traffic Sources -> Sources -> All Traffic. You should see Twitter listed as one of the traffic source. To see the hourly breakdown of Twitter traffic for a given day select Twitter from the list and change the display to hourly.
Get Followers by Following People on Twitter
Get new follower on Twitter by following relevant people. Instead of waiting for people to follow you, take the initiative and follow Twitter users who look like they can be potential customers. They will get a notification from Twitter that you followed them accompanied with a link to your profile. If you have done a good job tweeting valuable content there is a good chance that they will follow you back. This type of a strategy carries a stigma because unscrupulous marketers and spammers have abused it over the last few years to build their Twitter accounts.
Despite the stigma, following potential customers on Twitter works. Just make sure to not get carried away with the number of people you follow. Due to the abuse make sure to not get carried away because following and unfollowing large numbers of Twitter users is a violation of the site’s rules and will get your account banned.
Focus on quality followers not quantity. Remember that Twitter is not about the number of people, it is about the quality. You want to build a following of Twitter users that will convert into customers or in the least have an interest in sharing your content.
Use Twitter’s search feature to find people talking about your niche and who live in your city. To restrict search results to users in a geographic region just use Twitter’s advanced search feature. Enter in the name of your city as well as search radius to get a list of tweets from Twitter users in your area. Another way to find new people to follow is to browse other Twitter users’ followers.
Twitter tools make it easier to find people to follow. One of our favorites is Listorious.com.Just type in a few keywords and Listorious will generate a list of the most influential Twitter users and the Twitter lists that best match your search. This information makes it easier to find Twitter users to follow and will help you identify experts in your niche. Another option is to use a Twitter tool like SocialBro, a free tool that is currently in beta. With SocialBro you can quickly and easily find for new Twitter followers using their advanced search feature and filters.
Engage Twitter Followers
Engage with people on Twitter everyday. The relationships you develop by engaging directly with people on Twitter will really pay off. It will help you attract brand champions and get more Twitter followers. Focus on engaging with your followers and influential Twitter users who you hope to add as new followers.
See who is retweeting your content and engage with them on Twitter. Give them a thank you tweet or find a blog post they wrote and share it with your followers. Just make sure to include them on the tweet with @username. Engaging with followers who retweet you frequently will help you get more Twitter followers and incentivize people to retweet your content.
Monitor what people are talking about and join the conversation. With the help of your Twitter lists your should get an idea of the hot topics people are discussing in your niche. Take a couple minutes to respond to tweets from a couple followers and experts participating in the conversation. You can also use Twitter’s search feature to find people talking about your niche. Focus on being helpful by sharing content, answering questions or adding to the conversation. This is a great way to get new followers and put youself at the center of the conversation.
Closing Thoughts
We hope this was article has provided you with a couple new tips for getting followers on Twitter. Just remember that building up Twitter followers takes time so don’t rush it. Focus on being a valuable, active member in your niche and the followers come!
Let us know your thoughts on the tips in this article. Have you tried any of these tips? Did they help get you new followers?