The One Time When Being Followed Isn't Creepy

by Kim Niemi

When you’re walking to your car in a deserted parking garage late at night, the last thing you want is to be followed. When on Twitter, however, that’s exactly what you DO want.

Last week we alluded to the three most important things to focus on when using Twitter, and we’re starting our series this week with “followers.” After all, the best tweets in the world are absolutely pointless if nobody sees them. But just how do you get people to follow you? And how do you get them to interact enough to get THEIR followers to notice you as well?

Who to Follow

Start basic: friends and family. You follow them, and ask them to follow you. That’s right. Just ask them. Or tell them (maybe they owe you a favor—call it in). Just get a small base going for yourself. That way when you send your tweets out into the world, you’re not just talking to yourself. Also, you don’t look like a fake account built for spamming the masses.

Follow anyone relevant to your business: thought leaders, vendors, authors of books about your field, etc. If you’re an electrician, for example, be sure to follow that plumber you always recommend, and those contractors who are always calling you when they need wiring done.

Follow-backs

With people you know personally, follow-backs are fairly automatic. They already know, like and trust you, so just by following them you’re going to get some followers in return.

With strangers, it could go either way. Not everyone you follow will follow you back, but that’s okay because you may not want to follow every person that follows you either. Always check profiles of people you don’t personally know before following them. Twitter produces a lot of trolls (like all social media) and nobody needs more trolls in their life. If someone doesn’t have any followers, or if every single tweet they’ve ever sent has a distinctly spammy vibe, steer clear.

What to tweet

Remember to keep your tweets on topic. If your Twitter account is for your electrical business, you don’t want to be tweeting 9000 times a day about who you think is the sexiest Real Housewife. Follow the advice laid out in our “Getting Started on Twitter” post, and keep your eye on the prize.

You want to continually build a captive audience for your Tweets, and you want that audience to be well aware that the content you put out is worth sticking around for and sharing with others. And you want it to bring you business, not just be a diversion in your work day.

Next week we’ll explore the second most-important focus for Twitter, and you’ll see how it will help increase your follows as well. In the meantime, comment with your questions about Twitter and we’ll include answers in the next two posts.