Social Media is replete with headlines promising you an effortless way to grow your Twitter following. They use snappy headline titles which follow the Golden Rules. In short, these blog posts tick all the checkboxes for achieving that Holy Grail – a viral blog post. That’s useful to the article’s publisher – but not to you.
There’s a lot of snake-oil out there. You can pay for followers, or use an ever-growing number of “smart bots” which auto-Fave and Retweet on your behalf. But do these techniques build an engaged, attentive audience of Twitter Followers? I doubt it.
I’ve found that building an engaged audience on Twitter is no miracle or trade secret. Here’s what I did to get authentic Free Twitter Followers. Repeat these steps yourself to start building an engaged audience of your own:
1) Make your At-A-Glance timeline a “Can’t Miss” Proposition.
Do you still get those “Suggestions based on …” emails from Twitter, containing a list of new people to follow? Newsflash: lots of people click on those suggestions (even if you yourself don’t). If you appear as a suggestion in such an email, people will instantly get a glance at the last few tweets on your timeline. This is your chance to shine.
If your latest tweets are even vaguely relevant to this new visitor – SOLD. You’ve got an instant follow. What’s more, this isn’t some fly-by-follow. This person followed you because they liked what they saw in your most recent tweets. That spells Engagement. And that’s valuable – both to you and to them.
2) Share, Retweet and Favorite the most relevant content from your timeline
A key element to building that “Can’t Miss” timeline is having your own compelling content – blog articles, product pages, and so on. But at least as important is the content you share with your followers. This really ought to be the most useful content which was tweeted and shared by those you follow – and which therefore appeared on your timeline. The whole point of Twitter is sharing. Every timeline represents its owner’s curated view of the world as he or she sees it.
By Retweeting compelling content from people you follow, you’re providing a double-sided benefit. Firstly, the author gets exposure for their work. By retweeting, you lend them your audience. And we already know that your audience is an engaged audience, because you’re following the steps in this article … right? Secondly, your own audience stands to gain from that content – since you deemed it worthy to share with them in the first place.
When Sharing and Retweeting content, consider doing the following:
- i) Mention the author using a simple “via @TweetQureet” suffix. This gives due credit, and may lead to the author retweeting your share to their audience. This gets you even more exposure for your timeline, and its kind of a thank-you from the author who you just retweeted. Everybody wins – this is what Twitter is all about.
- ii) Briefly preface the tweet’s headline with your own opinion! For example:
"Surprising statistics: 'The decline of entrepreneurship in modern America'
http://foo.bar.com/12345... via @TweetQureet"This shows that you’ve taken the time to read the article being shared – which is an endorsement in and of itself. It also contributes to any discussion about the topic. It invites people to engage in a conversation – which they can easily do by replying to your tweet.
3) Follow Interesting People
Twitter is the Interest Graph writ large. Connections aren’t spawned from real-life friendships, but from shared interests. When you find someone tweeting about topics of interest to you, it’s a good idea to Follow them. Often, they’ll follow you back.
Bingo! You’ve just participated in a mutually beneficial growth of Twitter audience. This, of course, is the flip-side of point (1) above. Would you follow someone if the most recent tweets you saw on their timeline looked irrelevant? ‘Nuff said.
4) Follow People Back
If someone followed you, that means that (a) they are interested in you, or (b) they are trying to sell you something. For the (a)’s, its a great idea to follow them back. This signals to them that “yes, I see you”. This action is non-invasive, and it’s courteous at the same time.
But what about the (b)’s? It won’t take long to figure out which of your new followers is a Spammer. If you decline to follow back, then see that they’ve Unfollowed you after a couple of days … they were a prime (b).
[You can find out who has recently Unfollowed you by signing up with a useful service called JustUnfollow]
5) Keep sales pitches to a minimum.
I know, I know: when you have a big, engaged audience reading your tweets, the temptation to sell into that audience is strong. I get it. And I also think you should do it. But don’t overdo it. When it comes to pitching your own products or services, ensure that you make these sales pitches the exception to the rule. The majority of your timeline should be comprised of content which is of value to your audience – not to your revenue number.
What’s the rule? How much sales content can you include amongst the unmissable content you’re constantly sharing on the micro-blog that is your Twitter Timeline? A ratio of 1:10 is a good idea. For every 10 Retweets and Tweets sharing valuable content to your audience, perhaps throw in 1 tweet about your product.
Do you have other suggestions for sure-fire ways to build a Real Twitter Following? Please suggest them in the comments below.