The question I’m asked most often is, “How did you grow your Twitter account to more than 47,000 followers?” So here’s my list of what I do every day to create a follow-worthy Twitter account.
Consistency, frequency, specificity, likability and careful monitoring will help you build a powerful Twitter presence.
Consistency and Frequency: Because the Twitter news stream is fast moving, getting your brand message noticed requires that you be present with new messages every single day and several times per day for best results. I try to post at least five times per day during peak user times. When I do this, my account increases by 50-75 users per day without any additional efforts on my part. I use a site called Hootsuite to schedule my posts so that even if I’m otherwise engaged during the day, my posts will still be present.
Specificity: I want to attract clients and customers who are interested in learning how to use social media to promote their brands. Some of those clients will hire me as a speaker and others will hire me as a consultant. Therefore, I focus the majority of my Twitter activity on education based marketing. In other words, I share what I know freely to demonstrate my knowledge and attract people who want to know what I know. I tweet about classes I’m teaching, speaking engagements I’ve done, social media tools I find useful, social media marketing strategies and digital gifts. I use the Twitter yellow pages, Twellow, to find new Twitter accounts to follow. I follow about 100-200 new accounts daily, carefully selecting accounts that use the same keywords that are of interest to me. In this way, I’m building a following of people interested in my area of expertise.
Monitor and respond: You’ll learn what your followers want to hear from you by monitoring your account for feedback. When you get no feedback at all, that’s a message. Change your output regularly until you hit upon that portion of your brand message that resonates with your followers. Check out the link called “Lists” on your Twitter profile. This will tell you a lot about who your followers think you are. After all, your brand is not what you think it is. Your brand is what your followers think it is. Every day I check the @replies on my Twitter account and respond to anyone who reaches out to me. I check DM’s as well. I follow anyone who follows me and I unfollow anyone who does not follow me back within a one month timeframe. I want my Twitter account to be actively engaged people, interested in conversing and sharing ideas, so I’m not afraid to trim the account and delete those who are not interested in a two-way conversation.
Likability: People do business with brands that they know, like and trust. So personality is very important in your social media outreach. I try to intersperse tweets that show who I am as a person, my sense of humor, my inquisitive nature, my pleasure in chatting with and helping others along with those education based tweets. The kind of client I am trying to attract will want to work with someone who is smart, fun and nice. I regularly mention people by name in my stream. If someone reaches out to me, I’ll reply with both their Twitter handle and their real name to let them know I’ve noticed them and appreciate their conversation.
Thought leader status is afforded to a brand who shares new information, links to sites that will be useful to followers, gives advice, discusses breakthroughs in their industry and provides information about live events that might be interesting or educational. If you do these things daily, your Twitter following will grow rapidly. How do you grow your Twitter account? Let’s share our ideas and tips with one another here.
Great insight!
It is difficult to understand that sometimes what you think your brand is, isn’t what others think your brand is. You have to realize that your followers’ perception of your brand is reality.
That’s so true Sarah. That’s why it’s so important to practice brand reputation monitoring. When your message has missed the mark, you can adjust the message and become more clear or if you’re message is being received as you intended it, you can accelerate that message even further.
Cindy, this is a really great article! Thank you for sharing. It has some new and unique insights that are very valuable. I am grateful to learn about different ways to connect on twitter and the resources you have shared to look for who to follow! Have a blissful holiday season:)
Cindy, what website or app do you use to unfollow those not following you? Thanks! Claudia
Claudia, I don’t mass auto unfollow but about once a month I go to Tweepi to search for those not following me back. Then I make a decision about whether or not to unfollow people who chose not to follow me back. I’ll continue to follow industry leaders who tweet info I like to share with my Twitter stream but I might unfollow people who don’t seem to have very active or helpful accounts. It’s a great site and I think it saves me tons of time.