I started my first Twitter account (@DianeNassy) back in 2008. Back then, Twitter was only a few years old and a pretty novel idea. I signed up because of all the buzz, I really didn't know how to use the platform and had no idea as to what I was doing on there or what Twitter followers were for that matter. Since then I have more than doubled my twitter following!
In an effort to learn how to use it, I searched online for tips and tricks on how to use it effectively. One piece of advice I kept seeing time and time again was to follow everyone who follows you. I didn't really get it back then and regrettably, I didn’t heed that advice. Had I had indeed followed that advice, my Twitter following would be huge.
Fast Forward to 2013 and Twitter Followers
Fast forward to 2013. A few months ago, I had the chance to sit down with a very well known social media guru. This person has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. As we talked about Twitter, he mentioned that he truly believes that following people back on Twitter is the way to build your following. After hearing this, I thought to myself, if only I had followed that advice 5 years ago. My guru friend went on to detail some of his methods as well as a tool he uses to help build up his twitter following.
After our meeting, I became determined to build up my following for the twitter handle associated with this blog – @Philzendia (follow me!). I took the tips I had learned and went to action.
Here is a screenshot of my twitter profile page taken back on February 28, 2013. (click to see larger photo).
Almost Doubled My Twitter Following in Less Than a Month
You can see that at that time, I had 7,799 Twitter followers. A little over one month later, I had increased my Twitter following to 13,915.
These are the steps I am taking to increase my twitter following:
- I am following everyone back – the thinking behind this is that following back is a simple gesture of kindness. It’s like smiling back when someone smiles at you. Nevertheless, I won’t follow back anybody who’s using the generic Twitter egg logo, spammers, or those who tweet in foreign languages, because I really can’t tell what they’re saying!
- Un-following those that do not follow me – there are a couple of reasons behind this one: (1) Twitter automatically limits the amount of people that you are able to follow based on their follow/follower ratio. If my account is limited based on their ratio, I won’t be able to follow back the people who are following me, so I get rid of non-followers; (2) Some people will follow you and then unfollow you right after you follow them back in an attempt to inflate their numbers. Umm, no!; (3) It’s just good to clean out your account.
- Seeking out new followers – I am finding new followers who share my similar interests by following people who are similar to me. So for instance, a fashion blogger would want to follow other fashion bloggers, DIY bloggers would want to follow other DIY bloggers, etc.…
- Use a tool to make it easy – I use a tool called Just Unfollow. Here’s a screenshot:
The above screen shows me a list of the 1,099 people who are not currently following me back on Twitter. I un-follow these people. As you can see, using this tool makes it really easy. I just hit the red unfollow button and I’m done!
Similarly, you can see a list of: people who unfollowed you, people who followed you, your current fans, etc.… You can also se a list of inactive people. I tend to also un-follow those people as well.
The copy followers section of the tool is also very powerful.
If you come across a blogger with a large following on Twitter, who is similar to you in terms of niche and interests copying their followers and encouraging them to follow you can help increase your own visibility. All of them may not follow you back, but some will!
I use the tool about three times a week. It use it until I hit my follower limit for the day which usually takes under 20 minutes.
Since I put in this effort to build my Twitter following, The number of people following me has grown significantly. As of right now, I have 16,633 Twitter followers.
Not too shabby eh! I did have success with learning the app and have doubled my twitter following and you can as well.