Social media has been one of the absolute pillars of my career. It’s something I enjoy, whether it’s for personal use or for getting a project off the ground. Honestly, it’s one of the things I enjoy the most because it’s an organic conversation with the entire world on the other end – how exciting is that?
No matter why you’re using social, it’s definitely fun to start interacting with your followers and see results – and, by results we mean more followers and better engagement. No matter what you do – good engagement on your social media accounts will eventually lead to more followers – so, the root of it all? Talking and listening – a back and forth that forms mutual engagement. When it comes to Twitter, specifically, building a following comes down to a few tried and true tricks of the trade. Ready to check them out?
How to Grow Your Twitter Following
Post great content. Posting great content means finding that sweet spot between content that’s self-promotional and content that’s informative. Informative content can mean so many things – and, there’s so much out there! Curating interesting content from around the web and bringing that to your followers will also help to continue to grow your own following as you work to build a community of mutual sharing and curation. In a nutshell – when you find something cool, share it!
Ask questions. Sounds so simple, right? But what an easy way to get a conversation started…ask a question and get ready for the answers and the opinions to start flying in. Once your followers start to respond, that level of conversation will go from zero to sixty in an instant. When you fire up those questions and host a good spot for discussion, the followers will come.
If you’re promoting a brand, offer something special to your followers. If it’s possible to host a drawing to win something exciting or if you’re able to offer a discount code – go for it! Your followers will love it and new followers will be instantly drawn to interact with your account. Once you’ve won over all those followers, keep them around by offering continual, quality content – both curated and self-promotional. You’re building an online community – just like your real live community – remember that.
Utilize the power of hashtags. It’s easy to forget about hashtags when you really get rocking and rolling on twitter – they’re an incredible way to expand your exposure to whole new world out there by tapping into a community that discussing topics outside of your norm. Let’s say you have something really awesome to say about a new app you’re using and it gives you the opportunity to tap into the #tech world. Might be outside your comfort zone, but why not use hashtags like #tech, #technology, #apps etc. to get the whole world talking and tapping into your Twitter presence?
Don’t hesitate to re-share and re-tweet all the awesome content out there that you’re really interested in. Think of it this way: if you had an awesome experience at a local restaurant, wouldn’t you tell all your friends about it? Same goes for Twitter. When you read an awesome blog or see a killer website that you love, why not share it and promote it with your followers too? Not to mention, what an incredible way to start building a pretty cool online community?
No matter if you’re offering a give-away or you’re asking questions to try and elicit a conversation, building an organic following on Twitter starts by establishing a community of like-minded individuals. When you have something you can all chat about – there’s typically so much to say! So get that conversation started, maintain and foster it and the followers will come.
Do you use Twitter? What tricks have you seen for growing your following?
