Have you noticed that some people on Twitter just want to collect followers?
It’s not as if it means anything – you won’t suddenly become rich beyond your wildest dreams just because you have loads of followers. In fact, if anything it singles you out as the person that followed all those ‘how to get thousands of Twitter followers really quickly’ posts. But if they’re not genuine (i.e. people who have seen your tweets and are genuinely interested in what you have to say), what’s the point? They’re not going to engage with you, they’re not going to send business your way and it could put other people off following you.
Numbers aren’t the be all and end all. It’s far more impressive to have people follow you because they like what you have to say and want to interact with you.
If someone follows me and they have loads of followers (especially in comparison with the number of people they follow) I won’t follow them back because its obvious they’re just playing the numbers game and are not interested in me.
But I’m getting off the point – when you have followers, what do you do?
Well, you want them to notice you and engage with you so that means being active, tweeting great information, starting conversations and generally standing out. The following 5 tips should help.
1. Time zones
Your followers are scattered across the globe, so you need to tweet at different times to make sure you catch them all. If you want to say something important there’s nothing wrong with tweeting about it a couple times, but at different times of day. That doesn’t mean you can send the same tweet over and over and over and over, but a couple of times to catch those in different time zones is OK.
2. Talk
Blanket tweets (i.e. random comments sent out into the Twitterverse) can be effective and create engagement, but if there is someone in particular you want to build a relationship with, read their tweets and comment on them. You may not get a conversation going straight away, but responding to them will get you noticed and, with a bit of luck, the engagement you want.
3. Retweet
I always get a warm and fuzzy feeling when someone retweets something I’ve put out. It’s great knowing they’ve seen it, read it and liked it enough to retweet it to their followers.
But it’s not all one way traffic. If you read something and like it, retweet it. You never know, it could be of interest to your followers and it’s a great way to get conversations started and relationships built.
4. Ask
Twitter is a fantastic platform from which to ask for help. I’ve asked for help a number of times (usually when I have IT related problems) and there’s always someone there ready and waiting to help. Of course, that also means there could be someone looking for help or advice in your field too. In which case be ready and waiting with some tips and make yourself stand out as an expert in your field.
5. Consistency
When using Twitter it’s important to be consistent in what you put out if people are going to get a sense of your personality. If you always put out great information, retweet useful information and interact with other tweeters, you’ll start to build long-term and rewarding relationships with other people.
So you see, Twitter isn’t just about getting loads of followers. If you want to be effective you must get people to notice you.