
With almost 200 million tweets everyday, you may just get lost among them and hardly have many followers. Seems like everybody who is a somebody or even a nobody is tweeting these days.
It’s been 5 years and Twitter has now become an integral part of most people’s social lives. Celebrities are tweeting 24×7 to increase their popularity in the public, with Ashton Kutcher becoming the first Twitter user who got more than 1,000,000 followers. Even, President Obama is tweeting. That is the power of Twitter! In fact, even businesses are using this micro-blogging service to twittwork (network on Twitter). Now, you ca even wage twitter wars! Did you know? At least 72% companies in the United States have a Twitter account.
Social networking sites, especially the ones like Twitter that let you micro-blog about yourself or anything else, are a great way of marketing through word-of-mouth or bird-of-mouth as twitizens like to call it. But, some Twitter users end up getting only about a handful of followers even though they may be following a hundred because not all of them know how to use Twitter, forget about using it effectively. This means they are Twitter users but nobody is noticing them in Twitosphere, the world of Twitter!
Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence
Link Twitter to Facebook
You need to polish your social networking media skills if you are not very familiar with the way they work. Instead of updating your posts on every website like Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn, you can just link them to each other and your posts will be reflected in all your accounts without having to update each one of them. You can link Twitter to Facebook to drag your tweets to your Facebook wall and share it with everyone on both websites.
This way, you will get more followers by integrating your Twitter page with your other accounts on different social networking sites. It saves time and you will look like you are popular on various social networking platforms. It greatly increases your market value.
Fill Out Your Bio
Many Twitter users leave their profile information blank. If you think that nobody reads it, you are extremely wrong. In fact, your bio is the first thing a prospective follower will check out about you to judge whether you are interesting enough to be followed. It doesn’t take much time to fill in some information about yourself that will catch the interest of many new followers. They’d like to know something about you to form a first impression. It also helps you add keywords to your profile that will help it to rank better in search results when say someone was to search for these words. That’s quite a good hint for you to go on and update your profile!
Post Snazzy Pictures
Around 4 in every 10 Twitter users post pictures on Twitter. You should start posting pictures more frequently to catch the attention of your fellow Twitter users and make your posts more interactive. Don’t have a profile picture? Change your profile picture from the egg to a cool shot of yourself or anything else that you clicked. Not changing the default profile picture makes your profile look like you either don’t use your account much to tweet or you are one of the spammers that markets products and services.
Add Links
If you don’t already have a blog or a website, get one for yourself. Add interesting content to it and then mention how you have also been using Twitter. On your Twitter profile, add URL links to your Twitter profile. In fact, I have a brilliant idea. You should get your Twitter URL printed on your business cards as well. Why not add it to your email signature as well. Each mail that you send to people will automatically become a marketing tool to grow your Twitter presence. Try it. It will make a big difference. Keep posting your Twitter page link on other online media that you use and vice-versa.
Tweet More
The more you tweet, the more people will notice you because they will keep reading your posts. This is where most people fail to get followers. They don’t tweet much so people forget. Out of sight, out of mind. It will help you come to the notice of people through the website’s Public Timeline and they will start following you. But, don’t act like a spammer. Don’t start tweeting every hour and don’t tweet just for the heck of it.
People will start skipping your posts. Make your tweets interesting and entertaining. Also, track the number of new followers that you get. You will see a trend that at a particular time of the day, the traffic was the maximum. Tweet more during these hours. Did you know? Thursday and Friday are the days when people tweet the most! Tweet more during afternoons and evenings to get re-tweeted.
Get a Twitter Handle
Get a Twitter handle as similar to your name as possible, so people can easily recognize who you are. Preferably you should use your own name. If it is not available, try a modified or a closer version of it or use keywords in your handle! Apart from helping people identify you easily, you will also get better rankings in search results when the particular keyword or related keywords are searched.
Other ideas for a catchy Twitter handle are combining your name with your company’s name or the industry’s name. Do not use an underscore if you are trying a variation of your name. Somehow, twitterers don’t like to use it much in handles so follow the rule. Also, refrain from using an alphanumeric handle. It just makes you look random and just another Jim or Jane.
Start Following Important People
Follow writers, celebrities, thought leaders and all other people that matter in your social circle, work circle and the industry that you are engaged in. You should come across as someone intelligent and appealing. Also, start following other people like you on Twitter. It is a great way of networking with others and you will get more followers on Twitter over time.
Apart from those you know who are already tweeting, find out others you do not know but would like to follow through the Twitter Search. Try to get involved in important discussions that they start with Twitterchats. There are lots of Twitter tools that you can use to efficiently manage your page, track trends and know what’s happening around you.
It’s Not All About You
Make your tweets more interactive. Tweet about social or current issues and news pieces. If you only tweet about you and your life, you will come across as self-obsessed, snooty twitter-er and nobody will be interested in following you. You are on Twitter to connect to other people, not sing praises for yourself or flaunt your awesome life. Everyone likes to know that they matter. So, it would be great to use some hash-tags to classify your content.
Also, mention other twitterers in your tweets. They will be flattered and you will connect with a larger audience when your tweets appear on their pages too. Re-tweet their posts too. Ask questions in your tweets that in some way relate to others lives so people will respond to you. It will increase your interaction with other twitterers and their followers will notice you too. Make it a mix bag of your own links, tweets spanning diverse subjects (not just yourself) and re-tweets. Also, don’t be phony while you tweet.
Give your Profile a Makeover
Get creative and make your profile catchy! You can change the background of your page and make it look twitterific. Also, it will make you look like a pro at using Twitter and more followers will be fascinated by your tweets. You can modify the background to show your artwork, put your own picture or that of your favorite star, a picture of your product or company logo. There is so much creativity that you can show on your page. My friend’s 15-year-old brother, who is a huge Lady Gaga fan, jazzed up his Twitter page with the singer’s pictures and he uses the micro-blogging site majorly to connect with other crazy fans from around the world.
Don’t fall for scams that promise to get you noticed, by re-tweeting your posts. They are only interested in your money, not what you get. When you get lots of followers, make sure you are following lesser people than the number of your followers. Use your 140 characters wisely to make your Twitter presence felt. Tweet about interesting events around you and balance them with tweets about yourself. Your posts should provide some value to your followers. They should be informative or entertaining and help them in some way. Lastly, don’t forget to show your gratitude to those who have re-tweeted you.