Increase Your Twitter Following
Twitter, like most social media platforms, is an excellent way of finding and engaging your business’ target audience. However, many first time users find the ‘Twittersphere’ challenging to navigate and ultimately utilize – especially when it comes to building a strong following.
Never fear, here are some simple yet actionable tips to help get your tweets noticed, your follower base growing and to achieve some serious Twitter street cred!
Get Noticed by Optimizing Your Profile
Twitter is just like any other digital platform, meaning that the main method of being found is through your keywords! To increase your Twitter following, be sure to optimise the bio in your Twitter profile and include keywords that clearly represent what you are about and who you’d like to follow you. Creativity is a must due to the limited number of characters you can use in this space. Also, don’t forget to note your location in your bio, as people often like to follow brands they are close to geographically and can connect with outside of social media.
Remember, people on Twitter do not just blindly follow any brand or business. The really smart ones look at your profile first, and their immediate impression will more often than not determine whether they tap the ‘Follow’ button.
Make Your Tweets Interesting
It’s not just a case of, ‘if you tweet, people will follow.’ There are plenty of tweets that sit idle and unloved without any interaction whatsoever. It is important to remember that whatever you tweet it should be important or related to your brand.
You may not have the Twitter following you desire because your tweets simply don’t appeal to your target audience. Or perhaps your content is repetitive or too salesy. Users want to view content they’re interested in and not just the content you believe is interesting.
Get creative with your posts. Tap into the hashtags that appear in the ‘Trends’ section on your Twitter home page. Finding ways to tap into the most-popular conversations that are trending on Twitter. Especially, if they relate your business or product. Is a great way to get noticed and build a following.
Inject some variety into your content to keep things interesting for your followers. Whilst staying true to your brand is important, try tweeting something funny or inspirational from time to time to mix things up. Entertaining and inspirational tweets definitely have a tendency to be retweeted. This is great for increasing your following organically.
Another top tip for improving your content and growing your following is to identify influential people in and around your topic or industry. See what they’re tweeting about and see if that resonates. Follow these accounts and engage with the conversations in a complimentary way. You’re sure to pick up a lot of great new content ideas the more you hang out in the Twittersphere and get involved.
Engage, Engage, Engage
Once you have followers, it becomes about how you keep them and attract more. Right?
The best way to nurture your Twitter followers is to respond to your audience. Show them that you are as interested in them as they are in you. Let them see your gratitude and engage as much as you can. This helps to establish a connection leading to an ongoing relationship. Even if you only reply to five or ten tweets a day, you are showing the rest of your followers. Also highlighting that you are a real person who is passionate and involved in your business.
Think big and practise responding to tweets from an account with millions of followers. This is a fantastic way to connect with bigger crowds. When you respond to a tweet such as this, your tweet is attached to their tweet and everyone else can see it. A great technique if you want to increase your followers globally!
Ready to step up?
If you’re ready to step it up a notch, participating in a ‘Twitter chat’ is another great engagement idea. Twitter chats are scheduled live events that usually focus on a particular topic or idea. They can be managed by an individual or a brand. By using a simple hashtag (dictated by the chat owner), people in the chat respond to the comments or questions coming from the moderator. Next time you see a ‘Twitter chat’ come up in an account you follow, jump in and check it out.
If growing a solid Twitter following is important to your brand or business, commit to putting in some effort and being social on Twitter using the steps above. If you stick at it, your followers are sure to increase organically, becoming fantastic brand ambassadors and in turn, spreading the word about you to their own followers.