Increase Your Twitter Followers, the Fast and Fun Way
Twitter, the largest social networking service today, has indeed hit the world by storm. Everyone is in it – students, young professionals, entrepreneurs, moms, businesses, non-profit organizations, celebrities and government officials. Basically everyone and their grandmothers are Twitter users. Everyone is talking about it – major broadsheets, entertainment magazines, business magazines, CNN and Oprah.
Twitter enables you to follow their family and friends’ activities. But it is more than that. Twitter also enables you to connect with like-minded people and businesses. Twitter can help you solve some problems, answer a need or just simply have a good time.
But it’s not simply signing up for the service and off you go. Before you can have the real fun that Twitter brings, you need to have people with whom you can interact. You need to follow people, and you also need people to follow you back.
Today, let me share with you the fast and fun way to increase your Twitter followers.
Follow People
There would be no sense in having a Twitter account if you don’t have anyone with whom you can tweet. Actually, when you create an account, one of the first things that Twitter will suggest is for you to follow current users. You will be shown active Twitter users whom you can follow. You can also invite your friends over. From there you can join in the conversations and get the feel of how the community works.
But there is a better for you to follow a particular group or demographic. If you are a mom, you might want to add fellow moms. If you are a teacher, you would sure benefit from following fellow mentors and maybe even parents. If you are on twitter on behalf of a business, it is a must that you have a specific target demographic – your current and prospective customers.
How do you follow your target audience? Use the Twitter search function. You can search for your topic, niche, interests or product brand. Twitter will then give you a list of the most recent tweets which has your search term. From there, you will be able to find like-minded people with whom you can connect and who would be instrumental to your success in Twitter.
You may wonder, why follow other people when you want it the other way around? Well, here’s the thing – following people and contributing to their discussions is a great way for you to expose yourself to their community. This is especially effective if the discussions you participate in it related to your interests, niche or product brand.
Provide Valuable Information
In line with following people and actively participating in conversations, providing valuable information is very important. Keep in mind that replies of “Yes, I agree” and “Oh, absolutely!” will not get you anywhere. If you are replying to someone else’s tweet, keep the conversation going by adding your own opinions, or offering a different perspective on the topic at hand.
When you start your own discussion, make it relevant and informative. It is also good to provide backup information on your statements – provide links to relevant data whenever possible. This boosts your credibility and you will surely be seen as an authority on your niche. Remember, everyone is looking to fill a particular need, and when you provide the answer or a way to answer that need, people will find you relevant and will definitely follow you and look forward to more of your tweets.
Re-tweet and Be Re-tweeted
Promote your followers to your other followers. Re-tweet and share the information given by another Twitter user. Don’t be hesitant to promote other people. When you re-tweet, the original poster will surely be thankful for your gesture, and might just return the favor by promoting you to his or her own community.
On the other hand, if you have a tweet that you think will be helpful to people and would want to have the tweet exposed to people other than your community, you can ask your followers to please re-tweet your message. A simple “Please RT” at the end of your post will work wonders.
Remember, getting re-tweeted is a great exposure beyond your community, and will get you more followers.
Be Yourself
Excessive self-promotion and tweeting only links to your blog is a major turn-off with fellow Twitter users. People hate hard-selling and in-your-face promotion. But you know what? Even if you are Tweeting for your business or in behalf of your company, you can still maximize your use of Twitter without sending your followers away. How? By being yourself!
Share a part of yourself with your followers, build genuine connections. When other users see and relate with the person behind the Twitter username, they are more likely to engage you in conversation. Be a real person, not a walking promotional ad.
Have fun!
Don’t forget to have fun and enjoy the conversations. This is why Twitter is the most successful microblogging platform – it allows its users to be many things at once. You can be your company’s CEO in one tweet, be a basketball fan in one, and be a parent in another. In the end, your Twitter account is you. And when you present yourself as a likeable, fun, informative, helpful and real person, you will definitely attract more followers and you will be able to build a successful community.