7 Ways To Build a Great Twitter Following

{click to tweet}

I just love Twitter, have from the first time I signed on.  Now I did have to learn to shorten what I had to say to the 140 characters, but once I got the hang of it I just loved to Tweet!  I have had the good fortune of making new friends, engaged with people who became clients and learned so much from colleagues and mentors who share great content.

Interesting facts*

I love statistics and I hope your find these Twitter stats as interesting as I do.  Twitter came onto the social media scene in 2006.

  • 500 Million users as of July 2013
  • Country with the most Twitter users?….China with 35.5 million
  • Monthly active Twitter users – 200 million
  • Average number of followers per user – 208
  • Average # of tweets per day – 400 million
  • % of Twitter users accessing via mobile devices – 60%

1.) Follow The Rules

You can follow a maximum of 2000 people on Twitter without anyone following you back.  But a word to the wise, don’t immediately open an account and follow 2,000 people. Be thoughtful about who you want to connect with and follow and for what reason.  You can follow a maximum of 1,000 per day.

Once you follow 2000 people, your ratio between following and followers needs to be 10%.  So to follow 2,000 people, 1,800 would need to follow you back.  If you ratio gets out of balance Twitter will stop you from following until your followers catch up.  (Celebrities seem to be allowed an exception to this rule, Justin Bieber has 42,999,50 followers and he follows 121,861 back)

2.) Search for people you want to follow

Create a strategy for people you want to follow. Example – colleagues, prospects, media, people in special interest groups, political figures etc. The primary Twitter search tool is http://search.twitter.com
I recommend you start by following people in the city in which you live through a free platform http://twellow.com, once you search for people in Twitter in your city, follow those people with a large following, this generally means they are active on Twitter.  Another fun site is http://followerwonk.com

3.) Provide content people want to read

When you start to post on Twitter, rule one is posting content that is interesting, relevant and not always self-promoting.  Twitter can be a great platform for you to show your credibility to your brand or product.  Post your blog articles, also other people’s content that relates to what you do.

4.)  Be consistent with your posts and content

If you have branded your profile for your business, when people look up your profile they will learn about who you are and what you do. So be consistent in your brand messaging with some fun mixed in!

5.) Be engaging

The idea of being social means you should be engaged with your followers. Be sure to try and engage people in a conversation, yes you can have conversations on Twitter. You can also re-tweet someones post that you’d like to share with your followers

6.) Be consistent

Being consistent means not only the frequency of your posts but the relevancy of your brand message.  Remember posting 2-3x per day is not too much.

7.) Be Genuine

Be yourself, remember everyone else is already taken!  Show your voice, the real you and let your personality shine through.

It always pays to read to the bottom of the post ’cause here’s some tips on when to post to maximize your exposure:

Best time of day:  12:00n or 5:00pm CST

Best days to tweet:  Wed, Sat & Sun

Tweets with image links have engagement rates 2 x higher than those without

Tweets with 100 characters or less receive 17% higher engagement than longer tweets

Would love to have you follow me on Twitter @joannefunch 

*Twitter facts reported by DMR (Digital Marketing Ramblings)