The number one reason, according to Omnicore Statistics, people give for being on Twitter is for news consumption and interaction.
Back in the day, a million followers showed how awesome you were in the social space.
Now, it’s all about engagement. And frankly, that makes a richer experience for you as well.
If your Twitter followers are not responding to you, retweeting, asking questions or otherwise engaging, then we need to shake things up. Twitter is for interaction, stimulating conversation and meeting new folks. To get the best Twitter following, use these simple steps:
1- Follow 25 people a day. This is an easy number to handle but do your research.
- Look at their profile: do they have a picture, a location and a description that means something?
- No pictures indicate a couple of things. One is spam. Run like the plague. But they also indicate a newbie who is still learning.
- A location lets you know if they are in an area of the country you are interested in.
- Description should include interests so you can gauge if they would tweet about things you are interested in.
2- Choose only those who are interactive. This is a social “networking” platform.
- What is their ratio of Twitter followers to following?
- If they have way more followers than they are following, then more than likely, they are only pushing information and aren’t engaging with those followers.
- How many replies, retweets, mentions and hashtags do they include in their tweets? This indicates someone engaged and more likely to be engaged with you who will help you promote your tweets.
3- Give ’em two weeks to follow back. People are busy after all.
- But after two weeks, they are probably not going to follow you back. So unfollow and look elsewhere.
- Don’t even worry about this either. People follow and unfollow for a million different reasons.
4- Engage your followers. Every single day (or at least every other day).
- Interaction is like a boomerang. The more you do it, the more return you get. Ask questions, respond to posts, retweet something at least three times a day to hit a different set of folks each time.
- If you are only on Twitter to promote yourself, people will know this and stop following you.
- Besides, people want to know you. Have you built your author brand yet?
But above all, enjoy it! Twitter is a great place to meet people, find out new things and just have some plain ole fun.