Admit it, size matters. Your Twitter followers have become as big a question as “What’s your number?” People look at your followers and make judgements, it’s only natural. So what can you do to increase your volume of Twitter followers?
There are many ideas out there, and I am sure you have seen your fair share of ‘Top Twitter Tools’ posts, but I have realised there is a need to bring these together and really explore how these tools can help. So, let’s focus on 10 ideas to increase your Twitter followers and the tools that can help you.
1. Target Power Tweeters
Begin to target well respected and widely known figures within your industry through your tweets. Grabbing the attention of these figures and developing relationships with them can dramatically effect how many people become aware of your profile and if they like what you say (which of course they will…) and see you talking to people they follow, they will follow you.
Tweet o Clock lets you know the best time to contact a particular Tweeter and displays their most active timeframes – http://tweetoclock.com
2. Utilise Good Karma
Create a list of power tweeters who you want to follow you. Select one a week to monitor and listen to what they have to say, and then be as helpful as you can. It is similar to whoring yourself but the rewards can justify your self loathing and the dirty feeling you have afterwards.
Tweet Deck allows you to create and manage Twitter lists. You can easily create a list of people who you want to monitor that week in order to reply to any cries for help – http://www.tweetdeck.com
3. Tweet During Rush Hour
Ok, well not literally rush hour, but throughout peak times. Studies show that top Twitter activity usually takes place between 10:00 and 16:00pm. Tweeting during those hours will mean you greater visibility on your feed. However, the most active hour for people engaging in the twittersphere is between 1pm and 2pm every day, so put down your sandwich and think of something interesting to say…. and no not about what sandwich filling you have gone for today.
Twaitter is a very useful tool for scheduling tweets. This will allow you to send informative tweets throughout the day, every day without having to worry – http://www.twaitter.com
*Edit
via @LisaDMyers I have been informed that there is a better tool than Twaitter to schedule tweets, its name is…. drum roll please… http://cotweet.com/ If I didn’t work for her I would have sworn Lisa works for Co Tweet but I have witnessed it and the userface is very easy to navigate.
4. Follow Other People
Yes you did read that right, following other people can lead to you gaining more followers. Following other people within your industry lets them know you exist and gives you a platform for them to hear your voice. It increases your exposure and if people like what you say then will follow. Similar to the Hollywood catchphrase “if you build it they will come”, “if you say it right they will follow.”
Who Should I Follow analyses your Twitter profile based on Bio, existing friends and Tweets and then generates a list of recommended people you should follow. You can alter the list based on location and popularity – http://www.whoshouldifollow.com
5. Interact with your Followers
Twitter is a social tool so you need to be social. Status updates are good but interaction between people will have a greater effect.
Tweet Beep is a very effective tool that sends you alerts for a range of specified keywords. This will ensure you never miss an opportunity to join or reply to a conversation - http://tweetbeep.com/
6. Be a Resource
If you really want people to follow and continue following you, make it impossible for them to leave by providing them with high quality and interesting updates. This can be via linking out to an informative article or by giving a thoughtful opinion in a wider discussion.
Twit Doc allows you to upload a document, image or video and share it across Twitter – http://www.twitdoc.com/
7. Follow other People with the same Interest
By following other people it lets them know you are online and it can initiate conversations. If you can begin to communicate with users who have a large following it will build up brand or (personal awareness) and their followers will start to follow you.
Twitterrel allows you to find people who have a similar interest as you – http://www.twitterel.com
8. Make people Aware
Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your blog, Facebook Fan Page, email signature, and everywhere else you have a presence online.
Selective Twitter Status will sync your tweet with your Facebook page every time you add #fb to the end of a tweet; this is handy for choosing which tweets show up in your Facebook status updates and a very useful application if you want to tweet away from the office on an iPhone or BlackBerry app - http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=115463795461&ref=appd
9. Utilise the Hash Tag
Utilise the #hash tag. Some people search twitter through categories, so if you tweet about ‘fashion advice’ use the hashtag #fashionadvice. If others enjoy similar content in which you have posted on they might follow you for more updates or even a conversation.
Twit Scoop displays in real-time the words which are buzzing right now on twitter so take advantage and utilise the hash key for relevant trending topics – http://www.twitscoop.com/
For all those literals out there, although building the number of followers has become one of the more important factors of having a twitter account, another point to consider is then getting those followers to promote your tweets and spread your voice. Your followers then become influencers, by retweeting the information you provide you are seen as an authority voice.
10. Florence, whose got the Love?
It is not just how many followers you have that matters, it’s how many times you get retweeted. Retweeting is often more powerful as it acts as an accreditation by other users, who are in turn recommending the tweet to their followers. For a visualisation imagine wild fire.
ReTweet Radar puts together a cloud of terms that are currently being retweeted, ranks most retweeted users of Twitter and ranks the links that are being retweeted. If a topic close to your industry is a tending topic to retweet, get involved in the action – http://www.retweetradar.com/
*Edit
One more way you can increase your Twitter followers is to make it to always make it easy for people to follow you. If you have to make people work and think about it, they most likely won’t. Which is why if you like this post you should follow me here: Sam Murray Twitter Profile
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Great Sam! Using the #SESNY hastag really boosted the State of Search twitteraccounts numbers last week. Especially when they made a list of most active tweeters at SES NY, so thats definitly a proven way!
Thanks Bas!
I personally like the the http://tweetoclock.com tool. It is a very handy tool to give you insight into when people actually tweet or are most active. Gives great results when you want to make sure you initiate communication.
Sam – Yet another great post!
I think one of the most important things to take away from this is the part about ‘influencers’. Targeting twitter users who could potentially build your profile for you by retweeting and mentionioning you is a step further to just building followers. Whilst the number of followers your profile has remains prevalent, targeting those you know will promote your tweets without much push is key to gaining an authority voice on twitter.
@Rebecca
Thank you and that is very true. Even though the post is about increasing your twitter followers I wanted to cover that topic as like yourself, I feel it is very important too.
That topic deserves a whole new blog post in itself!
If people have any further Twitter Tools they use or think are useful then please SHOUT…
Great post Sam, thankyou!
Whilst the convo has moved onto general tools for twitter, here’s one – Twitter Karma http://dossy.org/twitter/karma
It shows you who you’re following, which of those people follow you back, and also people that follow you but that you haven’t followed. Cool huh? Good for when you’re feeling like you need to perform a twitter cull – unfollowing folks that clutter your feed but don’t bring value, and maybe those that just won’t share the love. Reciprocity in relationships has to be the key in many cases, how do you feel when you religiously RT osomeone’s posts and they don’t even drop you a little @thanks from time to time? How about a little humility? Au revoir to them. Flipside is you can sometimes find that you’re not following someone that’s been engaging you in some banter and you can return the following favour. Karma? You get back what you put in
[...] 10 Ways to Increase your Twitter Followers & 10 Essential Tools to do it, http://www.stateofsearch.com [...]
A very good resource Sam, one of the best I’ve read on Twitter. I think one important thing to emphasize is that increasing followers requires lots of time and dedication, and a focus on not just yourself but on one’s followers….or so I think so. I don’t have too many followers…yet.
Cheers
@JeffreyRomano
[...] 10 Ways to Increase your Twitter Followers & 10 Essential Tools to do it – State of Search – [...]
A new web tool to “really” get what your followed people are sharing with you! Read Twitter streams as newspapers – quickly browse the hundreds of links people are sharing – view this content organized into topics (semantic analysis) – view multimedia – summaries of content – and tweets re-integrated into context…
http://paper.li
Ed
Great post – a really useful resource and I have included many of these in my arsenal.
With regards to point 6 “Be a resource”, I think this is a great way to share what you are learning in your field and therefore ties in nicely with points 2, 4, 5 and 7.
Thank you for the information, Sam! I want to add, Hootsuite is a great Twitter client that has features enabling many of your points to be enacted on.
Great article, I am trying to increase me and my wife’s twitter follower and these are really good ideas
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I think taking a very tasteful approach when it comes to communicating yourself on Twitter is very important. People tend to zone out from profiles that simply spam the wall with their services. Trying to communicate with the audience in front of you takes a very tasteful approach.
Thank you to everyone who has added a comment, a tool and for all the kind words.
I think @clairecarlile point is very apt in that reciprocity in relationships has to be the key in many cases. People should treat Twitter in the same way they treat people in real life, just because you are behind a screen doesn’t mean that human functions such as compassion, humour, appreciation shouldn’t be considered. Relationships are built in the very same way as offline!
There are a load more very useful tools out there, you just have to know how to utilise them effectively. Any more tools to share?
Awesome image
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Thanks for the useful tips!
Hi Sam,
I have to say I am not too impressed with Tweet O Clock.
It doesnt offer me information on when my customers are actually on Twitter. Instead, it gives information based on when customers respond to my Tweets.
If my customers are more active on Sundays, surely it would be better to suggest I should start posting on a Sunday?!
Thoughts?
David
[...] Sam Murray, State of Search (2010 [...]
[...] 10 Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers & Tools to do it – An informative article which helps you to take action to build the size of your Twitter following, size does matter! [...]