Picture the scene… you’ve signed up to Twitter and you’re regularly tweeting a range of fascinating and hilarious insights. 137 people are following and about 8 of these are actually listening. You know you’re witty and insightful, so how come the rest of Twitter hasn’t noticed it yet?
Sound familiar?
The trouble is, that although we all know the mantra ‘content is key’, there is no point in producing great content if there is no one there to read it. In the UK particularly we are a little bit British about blowing our own trumpets, but when it comes to getting more Twitter followers you can’t afford to be shy.
So how do you get more people to follow you on Twitter?
Follow more people
Yes yes, I know it’s might not seem cool, but the single most effective way to get more followers is to follow people. They might stay for your quirky take on lunch but they come in the first place because by following them you are effectively waving, saying ‘hey! Over here! Look at me!’
You don’t have to just follow random strangers mind, you can still keep it relevant, and I’m not talking hundreds of people every day. How about finding someone on Twitter that you admire or that has similar interests, and then following some of their followers? Chances are they will be interested in your tweets too. Plus the beauty of Twitter is that you can make random connections sometimes, and just be open to what might come of them.
Unfollow more people
Of course not everyone you follow is going to be as impressed with your pictures of your children looking cute as you are, so not everyone will follow you back. This is OK, but if you’ve given them a couple of weeks and heard nothing, you could just unfollow them. Nothing ventured and all that. That way too you don’t end up as one of those desperate looking people who has 89 followers but follows 1,897. The way I see Twitter, it’s about having a conversation, and conversation has to be a two way thing.
Follow people back
Unfollowing non-followers might seem a little rude, but essentially what they are saying is ‘that’s fine, I’m happy for you to listen to me, but I’m not prepared listen back’, and quite frankly that seems rude to me. With this in mind, I think it’s good practice to follow people back if they look interesting and relevant. This doesn’t mean everybody, but if they look like the sort of person you’d be happy to chat to at a wedding.
Set up your profile
No one wants to follow one of those egg heads do they? Set up your profile to include a nice little bit of information about yourself, and a link to your blog or website, so that people know what they are letting themselves in for. Include a clear profile picture of your face too rather than a logo or other image, as it is much more personal.
Talk to people
Twitter is about conversation right? Reply to people. Retweet other people’s content. Share interesting links. You know that though.
Use Twitter lists
Once you’ve got a decent following, keeping up with everyone can be tricky, so use lists to organise people into groups. If for example, you are a massive fan of crafts, have a list of craft bloggers and websites that you can refer to for ideas and conversation when you’re in a crafty mood.
Know the Twitter tricks
I’ve been using Twitter for a reasonable amount of time now, but it was only recently that I learnt that if you start your tweet with an ‘@’, it only shows in the feeds of people who follow you and the person you are @ing.
Dur.
This is fine when you’re having a long conversation with someone, but it’s not so great if you are doing a general shout out, bigging up a brand, or talking about something you want the whole world to see.
Stick to 120 characters too rather than 140 if you can – it makes it easier for people to retweet you.
Get organised
If all of this sounds like way too much faff, find a programme that will do it for you. There are loads of them, but I use one called Crowdfire, (formerly known as Justunfollow.) It has loads of cool features, including giving you a list of people who aren’t following you back so you can unfollow them if you want to, an option to view followers from other similar accounts for ideas for people to follow and a facility that lets you find and dump your inactive followers.
And that’s it! It’s not rocket science, so why not give it a go?
Do you have any Twitter tips and tricks you’d like to share?
These are great tips, Jo. I’ll have a play with Justunfollow, because I think a lot of people that I am following have stopped tweeting x
If you are using Twitter for your business think very carefully about who you are aiming your tweets at, target different groups, although there will be obvious overlaps which is a bonus!
Tweet about your passions in relation to your business as that will get a better response than bland info tweets.
Work hard at Twitter and it will reward you in ways you never imagined!!
Great tips Jane! I think your point about knowing your audience is really important. If you are tweeting for a business then yes you can have a personality, but you also have to keep it professional.
Fantastic tips. I keep telling myself I need to be more active on twitter but I find it is so time consuming and I get sucked in and loose too much time on there. Going to have a look at Justunfollow :)
Very helpful – must do the lists thing. I knew it was there, but haven’t got my head around it yet!
DM offers of sex don’t sound to bad to me! Certainly not if they were coming from some of the people I follow like Russell Brand or Brad Pitt!
Thanks for tips
X
@afieldsomewhere
Thank you! I didnt realised about the twitter trick!
I will try justunfollow, thank you for recommending it – there is so many different twitter-tools and choosing the right one is close to impossible!
Great tips Jo. I did try JustUnfollow but ended up using MangeFlitter and find it very handy – it shows you who’s not following back, who’s stopped tweeting etc and you can use it to unfollow up to 100 people a day.
Another tip which I find useful is to use something like Hootsuite to schedule tweets for the middle of the night, so that you catch followers in other time zones, or people who just happen to be up at 3am.
Also if you are using Twitter in any kind of professional (or semi-professional) way, be aware of what you’re tweeting and don’t tweet drunk or get into too many arguments. Like you I do social media management professionally and I know that the clients who hired me looked at my Twitter feed before doing so. Many clients will not want to hire someone they perceive as being a bit of a loose cannon. You can still have a personality on Twitter, just make sure it’s not that of a belligerent arsehole.
oooo I didn’t know about the @ one!!! very handy tips thank you :) x
Thanks Slummy Single Mummy. Great post. I’m a newbie to Twitter and am glad to see I’m already doing a few of the things you mention so I’m not as clueless as I thought… the part about how many people are listening is really interesting. I have to be quite scheduled about my tweeting and usually do it morning, lunchtime and evening and I seem to catch the same people each time, especially in the morning. So I wonder how you reach those others? I realised yesterday I’m probably only interacting regularly with about 10!
Grateful for the JustUnFollow tip too. I was using it but found it annoying when it kept automatically tweeting my daily followers/unfollowers – I don’t think there is a way to avoid this thought except for deleting it?
Love the polka dots!
Hi Amy,
This is a great infographic if you’re thinking about timings. Basically school hours Monday to Thursday are best. http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2012/7/9/best-times-to-tweet-or-post-on-facebook.html
Jo
‘Tweriod’ is good for knowing the best time to tweet as well (http://www.tweriod.com).
Thank you for the tips. Time for a Twitter Springclean methinks :)
Hayey
how exactly do you use justunfollow?? sorry Im a bit thick ….
no you’re not, you are just a newbie like the rest of us!
No thick at all! You can use it to see who of the people you are following aren’t following you back, and you can choose to unfollow them if you want to. The ‘copy followers’ tool is also useful – you can put in a Twitter user who has similar interests for example and see who follows them, to see if you would like to follow them too.
I’d also recommend untweeps – it’s good for seeing (and then deciding if you want to unfollow) people who haven’t tweeted recently (http://untweeps.com)
I’d also add that the ‘120 character rule’ (for retweets) really depends on how long (or short) your Twitter user name is – you just need to know how many characters your user name is, then take that into account.
Yes, good point!
Thanks for the usefull tips ;)
Hey Jo, found you today via your follow on Twitter and I like what I see. What a great funky site and your are obviously working hard at what you do. Nice to meet you and proof that Twitter works!
Thanks Joan, great to meet you too, thanks for coming to have a read!
I found the Infographic really interesting. I would have thought more people would use social media outside of traditional work hours, and so I expected use to be high in evenings and weekends. How interesting that it is actually completely the opposite! Does make me wonder how much work time is being lost to social media though!
I shall certainly be rethinking the times that I share recent posts!
Thanks for the useful tips. Your site is looking great by the way. :-)
Great tips. Thank you. As a relative newbie to blogs and twitter this is really useful. How much if this can I do with my phone, and not having switch on the laptop?
Thanks for the tips, really informative and great help for a novice at tweeting like me. Will be following your advice and keeping tuned in to recap regularly.
If you start a tweet with .@username it will show up to everyone and not just be considered a reply which would only show up to people in the conversation. Putting that full stop first means the tweet will be seen by all your followers.
I also use MT (modified tweet) if you need to chop the original tweet down a bit to add a comment. And I use HT (heard through) a lot these days to acknowledge where I got whatever I’m tweeting from.
Excellent blog, one thing I’d add is to always hash tag something in each tweet, location might be good #Bristol
Thank you for the tips, I muchly appreciate this and have been looking more and more into networking!
Tammy
Very well said, nice and straight forward. :)
Very helpful…. Off I trot to do some Twitter cleaning :) x
Good tips thanks. Lists are a life saver! Once you go over a few thousand followers, your timeline is going to beside icily to keep up with. My favourite list is my ‘People’ one; people I’ve actually met in real life. Much easier to stay in touch! One tip I think missed is turn off alerts for everything except for people you really don’t want to miss. Your phone sounds a lot less like a fire engine at a rave and you can connect as soon as they tweet @moodybill :)
Author
I have a ‘people I actually know in real life’ list too Bill – it’s really handy :-)
Hi Jo
Wow this is great. I just used the website and unfollowed lots of people who are not following me back. It then said I’d hit my daily limit. Are you on the paid version or you just go back everyday? Thanks again for sharing this post with me, Liska x
Great tips! Hadn’t heard of the @ one!
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Great tips! Took me forever to learn not to start a tweet with an ‘@’. My tip is that any time you mention a brand in a positive way make sure you include their Twitter handle. If they reply (and even better if they retweet) it will point their followers, people who you have at least one interest in common with, in your direction.
Author
That’s another good one!
Fab post and lots of great tips thank you, its hard to keep up with twitter ? I am getting there but it has taken a while x
Really great post! You are definitely a #TwitterMaster :)