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How to Gain More Followers On Twitter

Surprisingly, The Most Powerful Social Media

By Darryl BrooksPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

I know many of you will bristle at that sub-title. Twitter? The most powerful? Are you kidding? In terms of raw numbers, depending on the statistics, it’s not in the top five, maybe not even the top ten. But in terms of easily attainable, global reach, especially for writers, I stand by my statement. Also, more than any other site, the strategic use of hashtags is king on Twitter.

What About the Other Guys?

Other sites, especially Facebook, has far more users, but can you reach them? Maybe. In my experience, it’s much harder to identify and reach your target audience on Facebook. It takes longer to develop relationships, and building a relationship with influencers is like finding a piece of hay in a haystack.

The other top sites are more specialized. They have higher numbers than Twitter, but the scope is much narrower. Many writers successfully use Instagram and Pinterest for instance, and I have written about that here. But it’s more difficult and a bit awkward. Imagine, as a writer, you get invited to a party where only photographers are present. It’s kind of like that. You can meet people, but it’s not as easy.

But Twitter, for me, is a bit more of a social, social network. It’s easier to find and follow users, but more importantly influencers. By using and following a few tips, you can have personalities in your genre with thousands of followers retweeting your posts. This in turn will gain more followers and readers of your posts. And that’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it?

The Basics

The basics on Twitter is the same as any other social media site. I have written on these before, but they all come down to being social. Let’s go back to our party analogy. Remember the party you went to where the guy that sold life insurance was in everybody’s face, handing out business cards? Did you keep his card? Did you buy anything from him? Do you avoid him like the plague? Don’t be that guy.

Be yourself and be social. As you add followers, scroll through posts as if you were wandering through a party. If someone is talking about something you are interested in or know about, stop, and chat for a minute. You can create a conversation, and some of the people reading or following that thread are likely to follow you.

Don’t be anti-social. Before we move on, I have to warn you about the biggest mistake most beginners, and even more advanced users make on social media. They’re jerks. Don’t be that person. If you want to rant about politics or any other subject, that’s your right. And by doing so, you will gain followers, but not likely the ones you want. And you will lose them and others just as fast. Before you get started on any social media site, think about your goals. Is it to spout your opinions or to gain an audience. Two different things.

Climbing the Social Ladder of Twitter

Let’s head back to our party. You walk in the door, and over in the far corner, is the star of the show. Either the host or a special guest. They have the largest group of people around them and everyone wants to hear what they say. Or pretend they do.

You can just cross the room and try to insinuate yourself into that crowd. But this will probably just piss off some of the people already there. And, likely, you will just be ignored. And just as important, you will lose everyone else in the room.

Instead, wander from group to group. Listen for a minute and then add something to the conversation. You can help someone out, answer a question, or just say, “yeah, good point. I like that.” Of course, in each group, you should introduce yourself.

Starting with Twitter is a lot like that. And doing it that way is not only easier and more fun than trying to gravitate immediately to the big dogs, but it’s also more effective. You’re not putting all your eggs in one basket. Twitter is this vast network. You are one node and everyone you interact with is another. The more people you touch, the broader your reach. Start small and build up.

Finding the Influencers

Twitter, like most social networks, is keen to recommend people for you to follow. And like most, the suggestions are usually crap. But finding your own people to follow is easy. You’ve probably already found and followed people in your niche, now just expand on that. As a writer and photographer, I follow a lot of those. But ultimately, I’m not looking for people that do what I do, I’m looking for people that buy what I sell.

You want to spend most of your time on Twitter being social, but you need to spend some time doing research. Scroll through your feed and hover over each person. You get a lot of useful information. First, you are following them, but you also see if they are following you. We’ll get back to that in a minute. Then, you see a brief bio, which should give you insight into how good a fit they are. Under that are the two key pieces of information, how many people they are following, and how many are following them. And both numbers are links.

Both of these links will give you a list of potential people to follow. And each person in those lists provides the same information you just saw. So, it’s an endless pyramid of people to investigate and, possibly, follow. The list of Followers You Know will show you how many people you have in common. Good information to determine how good a fit they are. Who they are following and who is following them gives you a whole new list of people to investigate.

But it is the number of followers, that is the key here. You need to find your sweet spot. If someone has twenty followers, they might be great people to know, but they won’t help spread your message. If they have tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers, you are just going to be a pebble tossed into the ocean; you won’t even make a ripple.

You need to find the people in your niche with a few thousand followers. Those are the ones that will help you the best. Hang around that group. Start or join in a conversation. Like and retweet their posts. Many people will retweet you just for retweeting them. And having someone with 8,000 followers retweet the post about your latest article can be huge.

A word of caution. Beware of people with hugely lopsided stats. If they have thousands of followers but are following five people, or the other way around, something is probably hinky. Best case, they are a waste of time, worst case they are bots or spammers. Stay away.

One final location to find people to follow, and that is the people that follow you. As you grow in your social media, you will gain more and more followers, and it’s hard to keep track. Once a week or so, go to your profile and click on the link that says, Followers. Look at all the ones that you are not following. They made the effort to follow you, they may be worth following back. But use the same care you did above. Don’t just blindly follow everyone who follows you.

Work the System

So, you have the building blocks, now you just need to work the system, and do it systematically. Sometimes you just want to scroll through your feed and look at stuff, and that’s fine. But this is a different operation, so treat it differently. Scroll through your feed and look at each Tweet.

Is there a question you can answer or a problem you can solve? Can you add to the conversation? Get involved if you can. How many comments are there already? If no one is interacting at all, it may be best to wait or move on. If nothing else, give it a like. Likes don’t cost anything. It’s one click.

Is it worth a retweet? Again, how many people are interacting in some way? Twitter gives you those stats. Learn to use them. If the user has a large following and the message aligns with yours, give it a retweet. This can come back many times over. Or retweet with a comment for a little extra kick.

Another word of caution. Don’t be one of those people that get on Twitter once a day and robotically retweet twenty Tweets. It may get you some traction, but it will annoy the people that follow you. If a user fills several pages of my feed with retweets once or twice, they are gone. Don’t do that.

You don’t need to spend a ton of time on this. Fifteen minutes three or four times a day is plenty. With practice, you will quickly be able to scroll through and take action on Tweets or scroll past them. Some days it will help a lot, some days you get crickets. But over time, it will quickly add to your list of followers and your ultimate reach on Twitter.

One type of Tweet to be on the look for is the share and retweet post. In writing, this usually contains the hashtag #writerslift. In photography, there is a similar one. It just takes a second to join in and can boost your followers by a lot. Useful followers? Maybe. Maybe not. But it cost nothing but a few seconds.

Finally, a word about analytics. Personally, I don’t use them. If you are a statistics guy, maybe you can glean some useful information there. Knowing my top whatever is interesting, but how do I use it? I would love to hear if and how you use analytics to grow your followers.

So, that’s it. And if you were paying attention, you can see that everything I said comes back to just doing two things, but doing them intentionally, with thought and planning.

Don’t be a jerk.

Be social.

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About the Creator

Darryl Brooks

I am a writer with over 16 years of experience and hundreds of articles. I write about photography, productivity, life skills, money management and much more.

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