Twitter followers: 550,000 global monthly searches.
Followers on Twitter: 550,000 global monthly searches.
How to get Twitter followers: 210,000 global monthly searches.
I came across these keywords when I searched for the word ‘Twitter’ in Google’s keyword research tool.
I was also a little disturbed by the fact that 450,000 of you were searching for ‘kimkardashian twitter’ every month. But let’s not go there.
There seems to be a big question mark over how to build your Twitter followers.
It was for me as well when I first started our Twitter account for SocialMotus.
Being a startup focused on B2B consumers, we didn’t exactly have Twitter users climbing over each other to follow us.
Honestly, if I didn’t reach out and connect with others, we would probably have a follower count of 10 prior to our beta launch (You can always count on your workmates to follow your company account).
I set myself a goal to post valuable tweets and quickly grow our follower’s base to 100 people before I amped up engagement with Twitter users.
And off I went in search of targeted Twitter followers (The ones who are actually interested in what I have to tweet).
Everything below details how I started from scratch and grew most of our targeted Twitter followers, while getting SocialMotus listed on a huge 14% of our follower’s public Twitter lists (compared to the less than 10% our competitors average).
Just like SEO, it all starts with optimizing your webpage.
In this case, your Twitter page.
Give yourself the best chance to encourage people to follow you and for the search engines to index you under the right keywords by setting up your page properly. If you’re reading this you probably have your account set up so I’m just going to mention one area I see other user’s not fully capitalising on (By the way, I’m Australian so this isn’t a spelling mistake!).
Your Twitter bio
First things first, you need to include target keywords. You can just use normal words or include one or two hashtags.
This is the most important aspect for being found because these are the keywords people will be searching for when looking for relevant followers.
Also, Twitter tools and services such as SocialMotus, Formulist etc will use keywords in your bio in search results when people are looking for similar users to follow.
The best approach to take is:
Since we were a startup with no existing clientele, it was important for me to not only add target keywords but our value proposition as well.
Don’t be afraid to showcase your achievements/awards to improve your Twitter credibility.
Unfortunately, I’m not one of Forbes Top 50 social media influencers (Maybe one day!).
So for my personal account, I targeted the keywords ‘marketer’ and ‘social media’, while offering a great quote that would help me stand out from other Twitter users.
Before I even started following people, I tweeted 20 times with tweets I felt would be valuable to readers, avoiding purely promotional posts.
Leo from Buffer found “higher click through rates and an increase in followers are directly related to a larger variety of links”.
Though I’ve always found the best source of information is the Twitterverse. Tweeting other people’s tweets is a great way to build relationships with existing followers and reach out to new followers.
Now to the juicy bit. How did I grow my Twitter followers you ask?
I’ve stumbled across many great ways to increase our Twitter following, but this method was by far the easiest way to increase the number of users who added us to their Twitter lists.
From the articles I read I knew my tweets had to complete against hundreds of other tweets flooding a user’s Twitter feed.
So for me, the key was to somehow get myself added to people’s Twitter lists. Users view specific list when they are most interested in discovering tweets based on this category. If I can get onto their Twitter lists, than my tweets stand a far greater chance of being seen by this user.
Enter, SocialMotus Discover Leads.
Most follower tools are based on finding users by general keywords.
This Twitter follower tool enabled me to get a huge 14% of my Twitter followers to add me to their Twitter lists. Well above the less than 10% most of our competitors have.
What does it do?
Well I was able to find list owners who have added someone similar to me to their Twitter lists.
Why is this so effective?
Well if you tweet about social media and follow users who have Twitter lists dedicated to social media, there is a higher chance they will not only follow you but add you to their list. This is much better than a simple follow since the user views this specific list when they are most interested in discovering tweets based on this category.
This is how it works:
1. Type in the username of a competitor who has been added to a Twitter list you want to be added onto as well. (I’ve use SocialMotus in my example because I’m too petty to mention our competitors).
**Note: You will see the followed count under ‘Profile’ is only 40 as I re-added our SocialMotus Twitter account to the platform just recently.
2. Click on ‘Advanced Search’ to narrow down the results that are shown.
3. And voilà. You can see all the users who added your competitor to their topic specific Twitter lists.
Need more information? No worries. Hover your mouse over their name for more information.
Now for my hot tip.
If their following/follower ratio is less than 100%, it means they are not following back everyone who has followed them. Focus on following people with a ratio of close to or above 100% as they are more likely to follow you back.
For example, “Anita Lixel” in the image above is only following 632 people but 2083 people are following her so her ratio is 30%. It is unlikely she will follow you back.
4. Remember it takes time for people to follow you. So I waited until the end of every week or two before I would unfollow users who hadn’t followed me back or engaged with me in any way.
There are several unfollow tools on the market. You can use SocialMotus to unfollower users.
While there are several methods that have helped us increase our Twitter followers along the way, I grew the bulk of our followers prior to our beta release using this. And I definitely would not have been added to so many Twitter lists without doing this.
Note: You might find more success using our other tools to help you find retweeters who retweet someone similar to you or find those who follow users similar to you.
Don’t mass follow hundreds of users a day
If you’re thinking, ‘Thanks Siv, now I have a new tool under my belt to mass follow Twitter thousands of Twitter users a day’, then please do everyone a favour and de-activate your account right now.
Never forget that Twitter is a ‘social’ site.
If that doesn’t convince you, maybe this will.
Have you ever seen a brand on Twitter following hundreds or thousands of users but having very few follow them in return? They may be a perfectly legitimate business but they’ve set off my ‘not worth following’ alarm.
It takes Twitter users time to follow you back, up to a week or 2 in some cases. So mass following people without anyone following you in return just diminishes your credibility.
Your goal should be to steadily build up targeted Twitter followers. Usually you would simply find users based on the same interest and follow them within Twitter search.
This Twitter follow tool should be used to speed up this process and ensure followers are more likely to be interested in your tweets.
I used this to follow no more than 20 to 30 users a day, engaging with new followers when space clears up in my schedule.
It is up to you to use this for either good or evil.
I’m going to have faith you’ll make the right decision. (GOOD. Use it for GOOD.)
Find questions and engage
During these early days of Twitter, I also (stumbled) upon other ways to increase my follower base through engagements.
Do a search in Twitter to find questions that people asking for help and then answer questions of Twitter users who aren’t following you, it is a great way for those looking to build up your Twitter followers.
I set aside 30 minutes of my time every week to engage with new users through this method.
Remember 59% of Twitter users are more likely to follow their account if you answer their questions!
You can do this easily with SocialMotus monitor tool. You simply set up the keywords to monitor. When someone asks a question with that keyword, a notification pops up on your Internet browser, so you can quickly view and respond to appropriate questions.
Here’s an old tweet conversation I dug up from back in 2011.
@consultingchris asked what inverse search was. I’m not quite sure how but I knew the answer so I responded to him.
He then thanked me using a Twitter mention.
Then proceeded to follow me and include me in his #ff mention!
I could spend the whole day chattering on about the various ways I grew our Twitter followers, but these are the 2 main Twitter tools I used.
You’ll notice even now we don’t have thousands of followers.
Sometimes I look at others and experience Twitter envy over their massive follower numbers.
Yes, I too could have accumulated thousands of followers as well using SocialMotus.
But at the end of the day, I would much prefer the numbers we have.
We had regular engagement with other Twitter users and a good sized following prior to beta launch which helped others perceive us as a legitimate social management tool.
While at the same time, being listed in 14% of our follower’s Twitter lists meant our tweets promoting SocialMotus had a greater chance of being seen.
That’s all for now.
I guess it only seems appropriate to end this article by saying:
If you found this article helpful at all, why not Follow @socialmotus
Siv Rauv is a Marketing Executive at SocialMotus. Her expensive Marketing degree taught her nothing about online marketing, but through extensive self-learning and trial and error she’s successfully implemented several social media marketing strategies. She happily shares her experiences through her articles.
If you aren’t a crazed Justin Bieber or One Direction fan, she would be happy to connect with you on Twitter and Google +.
