After years of being unable to see the point to Twitter, I have turned a corner.
Here's how & why Twitter has been an excellent resource for me, along with the steps I took so you can try it out yourself.
Twitter For Beginners
I no longer follow celebrities or worry too much about “what do I say?”.
Instead I've landed interviews & met countless people interested in the same topics as I am.
First, let's address a few misconceptions about how Twitter works:
Truth #1: Twitter is not like Facebook. There is no stigma attached to “un-friending” on Twitter. Following & unfollowing is a simple guilt-free task, so don't worry too much about the implications of adding or removing people you follow.
Truth #2: Limiting who YOU follow means limiting who can FOLLOW YOU. There are so many people on Twitter that you will 100% be lost in the masses. How do you stand out so people can find you? You follow them. Being very selective about who you follow means you are not giving people the opportunity to find & follow you.
Get Paid To Tweet!
These 10 companies will PAY you just for tweeting... Not pennies but SERIOUS cash (up to $50 per tweet).
With that cleared up, you are ready to take the steps needed to get more followers.
How to Increase Your Twitter Followers
Step 1: FOLLOW as many people as you can.
I hear what you're thinking… what good will it do me to follow a bunch of random people?
Now, you don't want to follow anyone & everyone – you only want to follow people you want to engage with.
Why? Because this a great way to get onto their radars – many of the people you want to talk to will follow you back & this is how you begin building a relationship with them.
When you're first starting out Twitter will limit how many people you can follow to 2,000.
Go ahead and follow 2,000 people.
If you follow them, you give them the opportunity to follow you back.
What To Do
- DO follow as many people as Twitter allows. As you approach 2,000 followers, Twitter will continue raising the bar of how many people you can follow. I don't know the exact rule, but it's something to do with the ratio of people you follow (following) to people who follow you (followers).
What Not To Do
- DON'T overthink it. You aren't marrying your followers, so don't spend too long agonizing over whether or not you want to follow someone.
- DON'T spend a lot of time selecting followers. They will not all follow you back, and in a later step you will be unfollowing people to make room to follow new people.
How to Get The Right Twitter Followers
If you use step 2 below, you will definitely be connecting with the right audience.
How do I know? This has been my strategy & here is my awesome Klout score.
Klout ranks online social influence – you already have a score whether you know it or not! Click here to learn more about Klout scores.
Notice the “Expert” rankings – for those I'm within the top 1%.
And all for the exact right categories I'm looking to have influence in!
Step 2: OK now that you know you should follow 2,000 people, you want to be sure you are following the right people.
Related: How To Get Paid To Tweet
Who are the right people? That depends on who you want to connect with online. Are you selling something to a certain group? Are you trying to build an audience for your blog? Are you looking to discuss a specific topic? Keep in mind the “purpose” of your twitter presence.
Where do you find the right people?
You look at their followers.
While you're looking around, identify individuals whose followers look like your “perfect” followers (“perfect” meaning you would want all of their followers to follow you too).
Maybe they are runners or dads or crafters or Disney obsessed. If they have followers interested in a topic similar to yours, their followers could be interested in you too!
I like to save these people to a Twitter list called “copy followers” that I mark as private (you can find out more about Twitter lists here).
And then I
FOLLOW
THEIR
FOLLOWERS.
That's it! Just go down their list of followers and start following each of them.
Start with Steps 1 & 2 and watch your Twitter followers grow.
Steps 3 & 4 below talk about unfollowing nonfollowers to make room to add new followings who will be potential new followers (it will all make sense soon!).
REMOVE! COPY! ADD!
Step 3: REMOVE People you follow who don't follow you back. Why? Once you are following 2,000, you only want to stay connected with the people who follow you back. Why? Then you have the opporutnity to follow new people who may want to build a relationship with you. You want to remove your Non Followers (the people who don't follow you).
Step 4: ADD Go back to Step 2 above & add more followers from your “perfect” match.
Bonus Tips!
Here are a couple extra tips & tools I recommend.
These will help you be more productive & maximize your time on Twitter… even tweeting for you when you can not be online!
Get Paid To Tweet!
These 10 companies will PAY you just for tweeting... Not pennies but SERIOUS cash (up to $50 per tweet).
This way, when you are tweeting live, you are free to really engage & connect with your target audience.
Bonus Tip: Statusbrew
Statusbrew has an awesome app that you can try for free on your iPhone.
The benefit to this tool is that you can QUICKLY remove non followers (step 3 above) and copy new followers of someone else's (steps 2 & 4 above).
You could perform these tasks using Twitter, but it will be a slow & distracting job.
If you want to grow your Twitter following, don't obsess over who to follow & unfollow. Just do it!
I ended up getting the upgraded version because:
- You'll be able to grow your following much more quickly without the daily limits put on the free version (you only need to use it 3-4 times a week to see huge results).
- They also have a feature where you can automatically send a welcome tweet to new followers. It's a great way to say THANK YOU to each & every new follower and share a little bit more about yourself. Ideally you would welcome every new follower one by one, but of course, that's impossible… without Statusbrew!
Let's connect!
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Excellent #Twitter growth strategy and #TwitterHacks. Go ahead & retweet!Click To Tweet
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