How I Increased My Twitter Following by 45% In One Week

I’ve been fascinated by the art and science of building a relevant network of Twitter followers in the past few months. Like I’ve written before, I didn’t really spend a large amount of time with Twitter until May of this year. Since then, I’ve learned quite a bit. In previous posts I’ve written about ways I feel Twitter can be useful, and the debate of quality vs. quantity. I still believe that there is value in ensuring that those you follow are relevant to you, but as your following grows, this can be a tricky thing to manage.

In the past week, I’ve incorporated some new tactics that have had me grow my following more in one week, then in previous week’s combined. Below I’ve listed some steps you can take to possibly produce similar results.

First, some disclaimers on my methods/motivations of using Twitter. There isn’t a one size fits all approach to using Twitter. I don’t claim that my way is the right way, or that it would work for everyone. But for me, it works.

I only tweet a couple times a day on average…
There are tons of users who tweet everything they see, find, experience, etc. That’s not me. I don’t have that kind of time, nor do I have any interest in spending that amount of time on Twitter. I keep my tweets to a minimum only sharing my 1-2 blog posts a week, very interesting/entertaining articles and retweets. I imagine this accomplishes two things. One, my followers appreciate I am not flooding their Twitter streams with endless tweets about everything I experience. Two, it makes the content I share more valuable, as those that follow me know that when I share something, it may actually be worth checking out.

A large (albeit, relevant) following is important to me…
I am working to gain credibility in social media marketing and community building while building out my business. I also have aspirations to write a book if I can every get my ass in gear. Imagine having a 10, 20 or even a 50,000 following of potential readers/customers. As long as you took the time to build a strong, relevant, spam free following, I would imagine that a large following might open some doors with publishers that would otherwise be closed. At the very least, some potential buyers/customers.  Chris Brogan touches on this nicely in his latest book, Trust Agents (must read).

The following strategies assume you have some Twitter history with your account..  First being that you already have a Twitter account and some degree of followers/following established.  If you’re just starting out, these tactics might not be as effective (but I imagine they will still produce good results).  Second, that you have some sort of tweeting history.  People won’t be as interested in following you if you don’t have some of this history.  Of course many won’t care at all.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s some steps you can take to possibly mimic some of the success I’ve had:

1. Use a 3rd party Twitter software solution. I have been using TweetAdder for the past few months, and it’s been a fantastic tool.  I am not a corporate shill for them in any way (yes, it’s an affiliate link, but c’mon, who wouldn’t?), I’m simply someone that tried out the demo, had early success, and since then, it’s been a no brainer tool that I use everyday.  I DO NOT recommend anything that I don’t stand behind.  It’s great software, works on Windows and Mac, and they recently updated with some great new features.  Don’t take my word for it.  Check them out and try the free demo yourself.  If you’re serious about wanting to grow your Twitter following, I promise you’ll find yourself a customer.

2. Follow the followers of those you respect. There are so many spam accounts, robots, etc. out there it can be hard to know who’s real or who’s not.  In addition to using TweetAdder to identify relevant users to follow, I’ve found that using the software to identify followers of those users I respect have produced tremendous results.  The idea here is simple.  If you choose to follow users of those you respect or are related to you in some way, there’s a high probability that the majority of those users are real people with similar interests.  The follow back rates tripled for me using this tactic.  TweetAdder has a great feature where you can simply add a user’s name and it will extract those who follow them and add them to your “follow list” that you can use within the software.

3. Add yourself to the wefollow directory. This one is a bit harder to measure, but the fact is this can be a great tool to find others to follow that are relevant to you (including their networks).  You simply add your account and choose categories that are relevant to you.  For example, I listed myself as Seattle, WA, community manager, and social media.  While I probably won’t be cracking the Top 10 for social media anytime soon, I’m currently #9 for Seattle, WA and #3 for community manager.  It’s kind of fun, but more importantly, it’s a great resource because you can simply enter the users in these lists into TweetAdder and add their networks into your queue to follow.

Those are the 3 key areas I’ve focused on in the past week and it’s produced significant results.  There are many users that think using automated software is evil, spammy, etc.  I couldn’t disagree more.  With anything in life, anything can be abused and used in the wrong way.  But utilized the right way, ethically, there’s no reason to not take advantage of tools that can help you be more successful and efficient with what you do.  It’s worked for me, and it can work for you.