So you’ve just started tweeting. Now what? The way I see it, Twitter is not simply a social networking web site — it’s a wonderful business tool for making connections, job seeking, marketing and broadcasting. Making Twitter work for you in these areas is not hard, and if you want to be smart, there are things you can do to quickly increase your visibility and attract quality followers who are interested in what you have to say and share an industry connection with you, and keep yourself off of sites like this one. Here are some tips and strategies:
I know it’s tempting when you’re just starting out, to only follow personal friends and maybe a small group of public figures of interest to you. And while it’s true that this will gain you a small initial following (of course your friends are going to follow you back), it’s not going to do much in giving you a broad forum for getting your message across. So what do you do? How do you get new followers?
I think the most important thing is to first begin tweeting. Don’t leave an empty or sparse feed for potential followers to see. Think about what you look for in someone to follow. Do they tweet often? Is what they have to say interesting? Do they share valuable articles and advice? Can they be funny at times? No one wants to follow a boring robot. And it may be hard to hear, but no one cares what you ate for dinner — unless it was a zebra steak while riding bareback on an elephant through the Serengeti. Think about your target audience and fill up your Twitter feed with tweets that will be of some value to them.
Now that you’ve filled up your feed with interesting tweets that pertain to your target audience and have also sprinkled in some humorous and personal thoughts, it’s time to attract more followers. Contrary to what many people think, it’s important to be proactive in earning followers at first. You can’t expect to sit around and tweet and miraculously garner a massive following. You and I know that everything you say is mesmerizing and inherently brilliant. But the problem is that no one else cares. Why? Because nobody knows who you are. Unless you’re John Mayer or someone who is well-known within your field, no one really has any idea who you are. So why would they seek you out and follow you? You have to go get them!
Start by making a list of companies and professionals in your industry who are of interest to you and whom you’d like to connect with if you haven’t been able to already. Most people and companies are using Twitter and if you find them and follow them, many will return the favor and follow you back.
Another strategy is to make a list of keywords that relate to your areas of interest and input them into Twitter’s internal search engine to find people you wish to follow. Again, many people will follow you back and even if they don’t initially, there are ways to sway them in the future that I’ll share with you next.
In order to get and keep valuable followers, your profile must contain your name or company’s name, a location and a web address, a photo and a custom background. Your feed must be interesting and it must be obvious that you are a normal human being who is actively connecting with others and utilizing Twitter in an appropriate way — not some robot who is only interested in spewing out marketing crap about his own brand to anyone within range.
And therein lies the easiest way to gain followers who initially did not follow you back. Interact with them! Retweet their most insightful messages and reply to them with an interesting question or remark. They may have just overlooked you the first time, and interacting with them periodically is a great way to earn their respect and get a follow-back. And most important: other potential followers will see that you are interacting with others and know that you’re a real person. But pay attention to detail when retweeting and replying — make sure you have the person’s @ Twitter name correct and also the original information you are retweeting. Attention to detail says a lot about you as a person and/or potential employee or business partner.
Once you’ve managed to get your first hundred or so followers, the rest will start to come on their own if you maintain a quality feed. Don’t be afraid to share stories and articles that are not written by you or are not from your personal blog or web site. Sharing is one of the most attractive things about the Twitter community, and no one wants to follow the guy who is clearly only interested in self-promotion. That way, when you do share your personal work, people will be more inclined to want to take a look, because you haven’t been in their face about it with every tweet.
Twitter is simple to use and fun, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist’s I.Q. to figure out that making it work for you can be one of the most valuable marketing weapons in your arsenal.
EDIT
Another tip: Don’t protect your tweets! People generally want to see what you’re tweeting about before making the decision to follow you back or not. Also, you want to make it as easy for them as possible to click and follow you back.
