Twitter is one of the social media networks that truly allow you to marshal up an army of followers. As online influencers go, there have been more on Twitter than any other social media network. Boycotts and demonstrations have been organized from Twitter, as have big hoaxes such as the famous “Will Smith is dead” hoax. But it was funny to hear the Facebook hoax that had over 1 million people sending their condolences to Orlando Bloom. Getting more followers on Twitter is a matter of good business, so here are seven ways to do it.
1. Target the power tweeters.
This is another way of saying you should target the social media influencers, and Twitter is the biggest arena for influencers. The second biggest social networking site for influencers is YouTube. You should target them and try to get them on your side. You can sweet talk them, praise their tweets, retweet their stuff, or outright pay them to tweet nice things about you. The big Twitter influencers are paid by named brands to promote stuff anyway, so they are not outside a little bribery.
2. Be nice and be helpful to other Twitter users.
This means reading what others write and trying to be helpful to them. Try to make an impact and be genuinely helpful. Do not be the troll who takes a steamy yellow one over genuine questions. For example, one person said, “Are there any money cheats for Empire Total War yet?” To which a half-brained sludge replied, “If you need cheats then Empire Total War is not your game.” Now, if you cannot see the sheer idiocy and horridness of that reply, you too should not be on Twitter.
3. Send out tweets during the busy times.
Due to the way that Twitter works, if you want exposure from new people, you need to tweet then they are all on there. This is because if you tweet in the morning, it is long gone from the public side of Twitter before dinner time arrives. There is more competition during peak times, but there are also more people on Twitter to see your posts, so the benefits outweigh the negatives. Check out this awesome post on best time to tweet.
4. Follow other Twitter users.
There are two reasons for this. The first is because people do look at their followers. And when they do, they start to question whether they should follow you too. Some people take a look at your posts and your picture and decide there and then if they should follow. This means that following other people can be helpful and get you more followers. If they do not follow you, then just un-follow them in a few weeks. The other reason is because there are tools that make people auto-follow those who follow them. This means that testing the water and following a bunch of people may get you an instant follower back.
5. Cross promote on other social media networks.
This is underutilized because people are shortsighted. Social media profile owners want the traffic to jump from their profile to their website. The idea that people may go from one social media network to another is just pointless dancing around the issue. But think about it logically. If you could choose to have people follow you on Twitter and on Facebook, then wouldn’t you want that? And since the user may or may not visit your website anyway, what is there to lose by cross promoting your social media profiles?
6. Un-follow people selectively.
Do not follow people so that they follow back, but only for you to un-follow them. This is called follow spamming and it is dumb. If someone is following you because you follow them, just keep following. If you want to un-follow someone, un-follow the ones that are not following you.
7. Be an information resource.
In other words, on your Twitter profile, you should disseminate snippets of information that people really want to read. If you can get them to ask you questions, it just gives you more legitimate reason to tweet. And more tweeting means more followers, if your tweets are good. You do not even have to give out good information.
There are lots of websites that point out the mistakes in the Simpsons or flaws or callbacks or in-jokes. You can be a resource on information on that, and you may even find people asking you questions such as “When was Ned Flanders’ voice actor replaced?” or “Who is Gill a rip of?” (He is ripping off a character in the Glen Gary / Glen Ross movie).
