Just wondering if we can open the discussion back up about how to get relevant Twitter followers (and possibly Facebook, too).
Not necessarily the best thing to have quantity over quality when you’re trying to promote something.
I’ve found that a great way to get more relevant Twitter followers is to first research the best terms/keywords/phrases related to your industry and then do a search for those keywords on Twitter and see who is talking about that specific topic. Then, manually go through and follow or request to follow those people.
You can also use bitly to shorten links and track how many people are clicking on it to find out the most popular topics you’re posting so you know to keep posting more about that topic so you keep people interested and engaged …
I’m not sure about using any kind of autobot to automatically follow people for you. I used to do that back in the Myspace days and they started banning them and would limit how many people you could add per day anyways - I wonder if FB or Twitter are doing that now?
I have utilized Tweetadder for my company account, not as a means to automate the process necessarily, but more as a tool to conduct better research. There are filters and searches on this platform that are not available if you just search through Twitter. As discussed here, quantity doesn’t have to be the main focus. Find tools that enhance your searching so you can reach a relevant audience.
The only way to do this organically is to tweet relevant keywords several times a day. (but not too much that you’ll look like a spammer.) OR, you can always create thousands of ghost accounts to follow you (which is a major bummer).
Creating ghost accounts to do what… fake a little credibility? You’d still need visibility to real accounts with content relevant enough for them to want to follow you back.
Shannon - Following relevant people in the hopes they follow back is certainly a common tactic but I wouldn’t consider it the ideal way grow your network as it lacks any actual social relevancy, scales poorly and really only works if you already have something compelling to follow back for.
Instead I’d suggest looking at your accounts from three angles
Content [what you create]. Much of social is people pushing the same content around and while this can be ok for supporting content, what gets big attention is creating the thoughts people are pushing. This means having regular content of your own be it videos, blogs, long form social posts, anything that makes a strong point.
While you want to avoid stunts, bold statements work better than repeated, or mild opinions. There’s a lot of research and best practices on how to use titles and subjects to push visibility of blog posts through social… this is why.
Engagement [what you reply about]. If you look at some of the top names out there, you’ll see that their broadcast counts are dwarfed by their reply counts meaning that for every tweet the send the world, several more are sent right to people.
These can range from affirming a point to asking a question – the idea of social is to be a two way dialogue and while much of Twitter really is pushing content, if you want someone to be interested in you, nothing beats giving them some validation… or answering an existing follower to help keep them around.
Shares [who sends your contributions along]. When it comes to influencing people in the area, both those who are direct and the more indirect people they connect too nothing beats the credibility of someone you already follow retweeting or mentioning an account. This weekend I caught a few Tweets from a social media heavy weight and chimed back with my thoughts… He had just followed me and now knows my style, that was good… two retweets was great and some DMs with other followers made it lasting.
By following #1 and #2 you up the odds of being the account people mention and over time that’s what builds much of the leading brand & influencer’s networks.
Now obviously your initial followers have to come from somewhere so yes, following out, linking from other properties and taking a more outbound approach is certainly appropriate… just don’t hang your hat on it for too long.
Autobots, auto DMs, auto messages, anything that says the word “auto” in it is bad. Not only do you run the risk of a ban but you’re not actually conversing and that’s a huge turn off to those using the network properly… leaving you with nothing but lurker followers.
Summing it all up: this post, both your question & the replies here will be my next tweet as it’s both new content and a good point for discussion with my network.
Thanks for the great info, Ted! Just found you on Twitter as well. Your reply is very helpful … I think maybe I just need to be patient … I have found that getting followers on Twitter hasn’t been as easy for me as on other social networking sites. Going to work on content and engagement and hopefully it will continue to build.
Don’t overly concern yourself with numbers… as interesting as counts are, they don’t tell the full picture so while I’m sure you want more, it’s better to – as you stated, focus on quality than quantity – especially when it comes to turning those numbers into actual results.
The best thing to do is tweet about stuff in your market vertical that people are interested in and tweet alot. Thats all you can do.
What your trying to accomplish is come up in peoples twitter clients for subjects there following. The more often you come up in people twitter clients with cool tweets the higher the chance people are going to follow you. The problem is, its harder than it sounds.
I like to use solid content and #hashtags. If important keywords are not in the title of the article, I will use #hashtags to add them. That way when folks are searching, they find my tweets. This brings organic twitter followers.
Ted has made an awesome point so as everyone up there. In addition, I suggest that one should consider these simple Twitter tips and Etiquette:
Interact and Connect with your followers. Retweet and respond.
If you must mass follow, then it’s your call. Just don’t unfollow once a follower starts following - that is downright nasty. Nor
should you unfollow after the person you follow doesn’t follow back after a couple of days!
Exclude personal communication as part of your tweets. That is what DM is for.
If you happen to have an issue with someone on twitter moments ago, take it elsewhere and don’t broadcast it over twitter. That’s just downright unprofessional!
Getting in conversation, a relevant information is very important. You need to keep your current followers hooked & that’s how you get new. Change the topic theme daily.
I would say pick a general theme, and tweet about it regularly, at least twice a day. You’ll get your share of random followers, but you’ll also get people interested in the theme. Of course, you have to carefully use hashtags to make sure this happens.
