How I got 7000 Twitter followers
I've written before about how I reached the 5000 Twitter follower mark
. Today my main Twitter account hit 7000 followers! Thanks to everyone for following me.
This is a pretty good landmark, considering that:
a) my main Twitter feed links to my highly political, sometimes controversial blog, which means from the very start, approximately 50% of the general public won't be interested in what I have to say, and,
b) it took me a really long time to "get" Twitter.
(Actually, point "a)" isn't all that strange. One of the paradoxes of the internet is that grabbing and holding onto a niche subject is an outstanding way to build a large following. Your mother always said, "You can't please everyone" -- and she was right.
(Filter out uninterested or downright hostile visitors and followers by being upfront about who you are. Then you can build a robust, engaged following. Just google words like "narrowcasting" and "the long tail" and see how this focus on, well, focusing has become one of the "best practices" in internet marketing and communication.)
twitter followers
How I reached the 7000 Twitter follower mark
So how did I reach the 7000 Twitter follower number?
Quite simply, you have to provide great information, entertain people and engage with them.
Twitter is about conversations, not (just) broadcasting.
My main Twitter account is connected with the RSS feed for my blog, by using the RSS features MarketMeSuite.
As well, I use MarketMeSuite to hook the blog, and the Twitter account, directly to Ping.FM, where I've opened accounts with lots of social web communities like Posterous, Google Buzz, FriendFeed and many more.
Every time I update my blog or send out a tweet, it gets automatically picked up by these dozens of social web sites. This increases the chances that I'll be found, read and followed.
I keep MarketMeSuite open all day and monitor all my followers, a separate pane for "best friends", direct messages, retweets, search words connected to my topic, and mentions.
It takes just a few seconds to say "Thanks for the RT!" or "Have you ever tried doing XYZ?" or "Be sure to watch XYZ program tonight!"
Little by little, this engagement has established my Twitter feed as one that will appeal to a sizable yet concentrated group of followers out there.
(It probably helps that my Twitter avatar is a giant, red letter "K" [for my first initial] right now, and that I switch it around sometimes to keep people from getting avatar "blindness.")
Finally, I've used Tweet Adder to manage my follows and unfollows automatically.
A lot of people have problems with the new update, Tweet Adder 3. I haven't experienced these issues. When Tweet Adder acts up, I simply quit and then relaunch the program. I know that sounds very "1998" but old school fixes sometimes work best!
Using Tweet Adder to automatically follow back people who follow me, and searching out potential followers who are interested in the same subjects I am, has really made a difference in my number of followers and how quickly I've been able to add them.
I average about 30 new followers a day to my main Twitter account.
Is that a huge number? Nope. But slow and steady growth also keeps Twitter from closing your account for being a spammer.
Your number of followers matters, no matter what some "gurus" try to tell you. A large number provides social proof of your influence and competence.
People also judge you on the number of people you follow, too. If you have a ratio that's too far away from 1:1 followers/follows, you can look like you're just collecting followers but don't care about what anyone else has to say. That doesn't make a good impression, either.
And that first impression when people first visit your Twitter profile really matters.
Since you can't get thousands of followers instantly, start laying the foundations today, being patient and trying some of the methods that have worked for me.
How I got 7000 Twitter followers
By: Veronica Foster
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