Following the Leader

Posted Tue, 26/01/2010 - 13:25 by Liz

A quick guide to jumpstarting your followers on Twitter.

Unless you already have a strong reputation, offline following, or brand name that will mean people look for you specifically on Twitter, you need to find another way to get people's attention. 

You could tweet usefully with lots of niche keywords to help people find you when they search and you can put all the right keywords in your bio on your homepage, for the same reason.  But this is very passive and gives you no control over speed of following.  (you should niche tweet in the long-term still)

You could @reply people in the hope of starting a conversation, but this is very time-consuming.  (you should engage tweeps in the long-term still)

For most of us unknowns, the only way to get people to follow you, quickly, is to follow them, and then be so irresistible they follow you back. 

Some people will follow you back automatically, yay! Apparently the statistic is about 64%.  However, Hubspots January 2010 “State of the Twittersphere” report shows that Twitter users are getting much more sophisticated, which means they are using the tool to build relationships for business, and being careful about the networks they build.  So “automatic” follows may be on the decrease. 
 
Others will check out your profile and make a decision about whether you are worth following (this often means the same as “you are worth re:tweeting” because people want good information to pass to their followers to keep them loyal.)  Lots of people don’t use Tweetdeck etc to manage zillions of followers, and 85% follow less than 100 people (from Hubspot’s report), so you have to make it worth their while.
 
Create your Content
 
So first, make sure you have some great tweets on your Twitter profile.  Think hard about the top 6 to 10 tweets that will show up first in the list on your page when people check out your profile.  Make sure at least one or two is an @reply (to show you are human and have conversations); a couple should be links to useful stuff for your audience (use bit.ly to track when these links are clicked); two should be links to something associated with your brand including MAYBE some sort of discount/offer (bit.ly again), but more importantly, it should lead to useful, well-written non-technical information.
 
Your Tweets should make your Retweeters look good.
 
Have an Offer
 
Why should they follow you?  If you create an offer, you can not only tweet about it, but seed content across the web with a call to action of following you on Twitter to get access to the offer.
 
You can use SocialOomph or Twitter Sniper to send DMs (Direct Messages) to new followers automatically with a link to “Your Offer” in this first tweet they receive.
 
Find your ideal Followers
 
You can find people who have your niche keywords in their bios using TweepSearch. 
You can find people tweeting about your niche keywords using SocialOOmph
 
If you want a geographical bias to your audience, check-out loudmouth tweeters in your area using Twitter.Grader for your location(s) or use one of the many twitter directories. (You could also just search their profiles using Tweepsearch)
 
You could find bloggers using a service like http://blogrovr.com/ and then check out their twitter accounts.
 
Twitterhawk could be useful for niche keywords+location
 
You can also find relevant people on LinkedIN, by searching on industry, and see if they have Twitter accounts.  You don’t need to LinkedIn to them to follow them on Twitter, and once they follow you back, its easy to send them a Linkedin invitation on the basis you’re already “friended” on Twitter.
 
Follow everyone as you go along.  Tweepsearch makes it easy. But sometimes it will be a case of profile by profile, hitting the follow button.
 
Create Lists as you go
 
As you are going to be visiting a lot of profile pages, thank about setting up some lists that will be useful to you or your followers (It also makes you look like a useful and savvy Twitter user), and add people to lists as you go along.
 
People will see on their own home-page they’ve been listed, and as we all have narcisistic tendencies will go look to see who’ve listed them and BINGO! You’ve got their attention, and hopefully a “follow” will follow.
 
Find the Influencers
 
You should always follow competitors, providers, suppliers, commentators, critics and reviewers in your niche as well as potential customers.  The early adopters, and the people who are doing it “right” may have established your perfect audience – now you just want to get access to it.  Watch and listen, check out profiles, see how many lists people are on, how many followers they have.  Check out Twitteranalyzer to see who retweets the most.
 
Once you’ve identified the key Tweeters or Influencers in this area you can use a tool like refollow to automatically follow all of the Influencer’s followers, and hopefully, some of them will follow you back.  ESPECIALLY if you can be seen to be engaging that person they follow in conversation using @reply - even if the Influencer doesn’t @reply you, the Influencer’s followers will see the conversation, make the connection, and be more likely to follow you back.
 
Influencers are like Influenza – they’ll spread your word fast. That’s why they call it “viral”.
 
When Followers become “Friends”
 
Send genuine @messages to new followers – find out where they are, what they are interested in, go out of your way to find stuff on the web of interest to THEM PERSONALLY and tweet them the link in an @reply.  They will love you, and you may get some retweets to their followers. 
 
I just got a personal DM from a guy in Melbourne with 27,000 followers, and I complimented him on the message (it was sweet) and asked him if it was him or a robot, as I was a little surprised he had reached out to me as one of his many followers.  This was his reply . . “Contol C Control V is the answer.  But please don't tell - that DM was just for you, not theTwittersphere.”  Which just goes to show, even the big Influencers have to dispense with robots for some of the work!
 
A “friend” is the Twitter term for when you follow someone and they follow you back.  You need to decide early on whether you are going to go for the “follow everyone who follows you” strategy – adopted by Barack Obama amongst others, or the “I’m too busy/important/cool to follow you, accept the crumbs of wisdom from my table” strategy, which many seem to think denotes the ideal twitter profile i.e. loads more followers than following.
 
This is your own decision.  My personal belief is that your CONTENT, and your CONVERSATION is more important than your RATIO.  However, if you do go for the “I’m too cool” option, remember you can send @replies to anyone to engage them, and you DON’T have to follow them to do it.  So you could send lots of @replies to particular people, including Influencers, in order to come to their attention and let them make the decision on whether to follow or not.  This is a common marketing strategy adopted by many applications and web tools that want you to buy or try.
 
My own profile falls somewhere in the middle.  Plenty more followers than following, which shows I’m useful (people aren’t only following me to get me to follow back, they are interested in my tweets even if I don’t).  But very many followings too, which shows I’m engaging in conversation and open to new ideas, and willing to retweet.  At least, I hope that’s what it shows.  Check it out at http://www.twitter.com/lizcable and let me know.
 
Goodbye, Farewell, Alpeiterzein, Adieu
 
Finally, about two weeks later, you can chose whether you want to UNFOLLOW anyone who hasn’t FOLLOWED you back, to make sure your ratio is more followers than followees.  Use refollow to do this the quick way, or twitter karma to consider each case on its individual merits.
 
This is a quick and dirty guide to increasing your followers, but not as quick and dirty as the pyramid scams which abound.  These break the terms and conditions of Twitter which could leave you open to having your account suspended (and by “suspended” we mean its NEVER coming back).  So be warned, don’t use any tools that guarantee you followers.
 
All the while be thinking, when I look at a profile, what are the judgement calls I make?  How many followers means someone is worth following?  How many tweets?  What sort of content?  How recently must they have tweeted? What about their ratio of following to follower? 
 
And be aware that these are the judgement calls people will be making about you.