Twitter has celebrated its 6th birthday on March 2012 and it looks like this online social networking cum microblogging service is not showing any signs of slowing down. Contrary to that, its users have increased tremendously over the years with the service handling over 300 million “tweets” and over 1.6 billion search queries per day according to Wikipedia.
It’s an amazing achievement considering what it allows its users to do, sending real-time short text posts aka tweets to their followers. But then again, perhaps it’s the sheer simplicity of Twitter that has made it such a huge success. And good timing helps too. It was born in the information age where information can be transferred and found easier and faster than ever before thought possible.
Twitter has been used as a platform for latest news, spamming (yeah, people do that), announcing promotions or events, passing along latest information (eg retweeting) or just having a good old conversation… the modern way. You know, Twitter has been dubbed Internet’s version of SMS. With such potential, won’t it be wonderful if you could garner lots of Twitter followers? Think of what it can do for your business or website or even self-esteem!
Here are some tips on how to get targeted Twitter followers.
1. Interesting And Relevant Tweets
With millions of tweets per day, you will definitely need interesting tweets to stand out or be lost in the sea of tweets. Think about what your tweeps enjoy reading and tweet them. Also having a good mixture of content will have its advantages too. Don’t just tweet about your blog articles or your business or your followers will dwindle.
For that matter, do not just talk about yourself either. Many I know use Twitter as an open diary, tweeting about what they had for breakfast, lunch and dinner, what happened at work or just about all the mundane stuff that they do day in day out. Unless you are a celebrity, chances are not many would be interested in your daily life for long.
Make your followers laugh or be curious. I know it’s easier said than done but witty tweets and one-liners always brighten up anyone’s day. And make your tweets more attractive, hence more followers.
And if you have a specific topic that you tweet about (eg technology, or web hosting), it is important that you frequently provide relevant and useful information in your tweets. After all, that is the reason why your followers follow you in the first place.
2. Be A Good Conversationalist
The art of interaction is crucial in the Twitter world. When someone replies to your comment, your ID will appear in their feeds, and be seen by his followers, which in turn may create curiosity and interest in them to follow your tweets.
Asking question is a good strategy in generating replies, especially if it’s on a topic that is relevant to them. If you have a 5 replies and if only 1 person from each of these followers’ list subscribe to your tweets, then you automatically have gotten an additional 5 new followers. This may not seem a lot but bear in mind this is only 1 tweet. It’s all about exposure.
3. Utilizing Twitter Search Tools
There are a couple of tools that can help you identify those likely candidates as your Twitter followers.
- Tweepi – This tool helps you manage your Twitter account. Think of it as spring cleaning for it helps you filters inactive tweeps and unfollow them as well as identify those who are following you whom you wish to follow. It would also analyze a given Twitter ID. And when I say analyze, I mean the whole package complete with statistics eg number of followings and followers, tweets and so on.
- TwitterCounter – helps you identify target followers by providing historical information regarding a certain ID. You can find information on their profile, how many followings, how many followers and number of tweets.
4. Promote your Twitter Through Other Networks
You can always leverage on your other online or offline networks eg blogs, Facebook account, business cards, email signature etc to promote your Twitter account. Chances are if they are your blog readers or your Facebook friends / fans or clients, they may be interested in what you do.
Take for an example, a book store’s customers would be interested in getting first hand information on upcoming sales and would follow the book store’s tweeting.
5. Create Twitter hashtags
Now, if you hang around in Twitter long enough, you would notice that some keywords have # before them ie #keyword. This are called hashtags. The purpose of these hashtags is to ease searches and to connect users with similar interests.
This way, your Twitter can be found rather quickly and if the user thinks is worth following will indeed do so. Again, it’s about gaining exposure. That said, do avoid messing your tweets with too many hashtags as they will be difficult to read.
One last piece of advice. Don’t be too caught up with the numbers game. Yes, it is a wonderful feeling to see so many followers but the number of followers should be use as an indication of how interesting your tweets are to others, rather than for self-flattering!
Apply these tips and hopefully soon you will be boasting of a large number of genuine followers. When you do and someone ask you for the secret to targeting followers on Twitter, well, you can always say a little bird told you how.
