By @allenwhite Who is most likely to follow you on Twitter? Well, other than SEO experts and work at home schemes? Where do you find those like-minded tweeps who are missing out on your conversation? Once you decide what topics you will tweet about (read more here), think about who else writes about your topic. More than likely people who are interested in their tweets will be interested in yours. For instance, on my @givefreshwater account, I follow the followers of @water@scottharrison@aftn@charitywater and similar. Folks who are interested in providing clean drinking water to the needy of the developing world are very interested in the work of Water of Life. Who else in your career field or area of interest tweets? Follow them, and then follow their followers. Many will become your followers before you know it. If they don’t, then after a week or so, unfollow them (here’s why). For other tips on increasing your Twitter followers, check out these articles.
By @allenwhite Part of gaining more followers is to be a tweep worth following. Be generous with your follow backs. Unless you are Justin Bieber or Ashton Kutcher or some other Twitter rock star, you will never have thousands more following you than who you follow. It’s okay. You’re still a likeable person. You’re just not a Twitter rock star. Your mother still loves you. Everyone on Twitter likes to be followed. Don’t believe me? Unfollow 10 people right now and see how long it takes for them to unfollow you. Now, follow 10 new people and see how quickly they will follow you back. It won’t work for every tweep out there, but you will get further by following others than waiting around for them to follow you.
If you want to increase your Twitter followers, you have to dump everyone who doesn’t follow you back. Everyone, even your mom.
“But, what if that hurts their feelings?”
Doesn’t it hurt your feelings that they’re not following you? Follow their tweets without following them. If there are some twitter “rock stars” you’d like to keep following, listthem, but unfollow them. You can read their tweets on the list in Hootsuite without following them. After you have 100,000 followers, then you can actually follow the rock stars out there. It doesn’t really matter. They won’t DM you anyway. Twitter has Follower to Following Ratios. If you follow 200 more people than follow you (or even five percent more), you will get stuck crossing Twitter’s thresholds. If you can’t get past 2,000, you know what I’m talking about. Cut the dead weight and move forward. No one likes one-sided relationships anyway.
By @allenwhite If you have several different businesses, themes or interests, create different Twitter accounts for each interest. I write about small group ministry and some personal stuff (@allenwhite). I sell used, rare and out-of-print books and write book reviews (@halfreadbooks). I write daily inspirational posts from the Bible (@galatians419). I support the work of Water of Life , a water mission to villages in West Africa and India (@givefreshwater). I try to earn a little money through affiliate referrals (@half_or_less). I think that’s it. If I forgot one, I’ll tell you later. My book people aren’t necessarily interested in my small group strategy posts. My bargain hunters might not be interested in daily inspiration. There might be a little crossover between these accounts, but different messages belong in different channels. If my mom were on Twitter, she would follow all five! But, not all of my followers will even be interested in this post. Now, while Twitter is not the primary focus of this blog, it holds enough potential influence that it merits a few posts. When the Twitter followers of my small group friends exceed my followers, then I’ll stop writing these Thursday posts. Until then, I will speak the twitter truth in love. What are you writing about? Who are you writing to? Are your topics on the right channel?