10 ways to increase your Twitter audience
Twitter has grown in popularity as a social information network over the past couple of years, and increasingly more brands and businesses, as well as individuals, see it as an effective marketing platform. However, as people flock to Twitter to exchange ideas and experiences, it is not given that they will follow you despite constantly updating your status.
There are of course those who will have an instant large following on Twitter due to being famous or well-known for reasons other than Twitter. However, most of us have to work towards building an audience. To help you, here are ten tips on how to increase your volume of Twitter followers.
1. Join the conversation
Twitter is by nature a social platform where people share ideas and finds with others across personal interests and occupation, so you need to be social. Based around short status updates that act as a conversational and networking tool, it is important to not think of Twitter as a one-way broadcasting platform; simply pushing out information is not very social, and unless you are a well-known personality, this will not encourage people to follow you. Get involved in the conversation, as interaction between people will have greater effect.
2. Target power tweeters
Target respected and well-known individuals in your industry with your tweets. Follow their Twitter feeds and look to develop relationships with them. Grabbing their attention can dramatically increase your audience number, as more people become aware of your profile and are more likely to follow you if they see you talking to people they already follow. Also pay attention to the type of content these power tweeters send out and how they address their audiences.
3. Link your online presence
Do not expect people to automatically find you. Put links to your Twitter profile where possible. Ensure to link it on your Facebook fan page, LinkedIn, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you have a presence online.
4. Be a resource and an expert
As the number of Twitter accounts increases you need to look at how you can stand out from the crowd. Become a resource to people by providing them with high quality and interesting updates that will make them want to follow your Twitter feed. Establishing yourself as an expert in your field could also increase your following. Do a quick search for a topic relevant to you, e.g. ‘branded content'. Then make it your role to answer people's questions about this topic and engage in the conversation surrounding it. Not only are people more likely to follow you, but also to retweet your posts, giving you additional exposure.
5. Monitor your Twitter feed
Becoming an expert requires you to monitor topics relevant to you in order to respond to queries quickly. A useful tool for this is Tweetdeck, which allows you to easily create and manage Twitter lists to follow conversations and monitor specific search terms or hashtags across multiple Twitter accounts.
6. Use # hashtags
Combine quality content with an easy way to find it by using hash tags. If people enjoy similar content in which you have posted on, they might follow you for additional updates. For example, during the International Content Summit last month the APA used #Content2010 to ensure anyone interested in following the conversation on Twitter was able to do so.
7. Follow others
Some brands and companies may be hesitant to follow other Twitter users. However, following other people can lead to you gaining more followers. Not only does following others within your industry put you on their radar, it increases your exposure. This is not to say that you ought to follow everyone. Look at their profile bio, existing friends, what they tweet about to determine if you wish to return the follow.
8. Share media
In addition to photos, share links to videos and interesting articles. Not only are people more likely to engage with you if you add media to your status updates, it is a simple method to drive traffic to other websites.
9. Think about when you tweet and retweet
Studies show that top Twitter activity usually takes place between 10am and 4pm. Tweeting during these hours means you will have greater visibility in your followers feeds. If you are targeting people across time zones, keep in mind what time they will be online. If this is the case you may wish to schedule tweets using services like cotweet. Also, post your most interesting tweets a couple of times, six to twelve hours apart. Most people are not on Twitter all day, so will probably not notice any repeated tweets.
10. Add personality
Do not be afraid to add personality to your tweets. People use Twitter to be social and discover new things, so adding character to a company or brand twitter feed will be seen as positive. Letting people know there is someone behind the updates, that someone will respond if they tweet @ you, is likely to increase interaction and following.
It is important to remember that Twitter, like any other social networks, is an on-going activity and that gaining followers may take time. Just as your website or blog, it needs to be updated with quality content regularly, but with perseverance and using the tips outlined above you should be able to see your Twitter audience grow.
The APA has been active on Twitter for over one year now and recently surpassed the 1,000 followers mark. If you are not following us already, do add us and say hi.
