5 Ways I Have Grown my Twitter Followers

Sure I don’t have millions of followers on Twitter, but I’ve amassed a few over the years, and I haven’t tried that hard honestly. I know I could do a lot more to get more followers, from better self promotion, to participating in a #FF or #TBT but instead, I prefer to actually connect with people.

A few months back I posted an article on how I’ve grown my LinkedIn connections and now I’m finally getting around to share how I’ve grown my Twitter followers over the years.

Here’s the 5 things I’ve done to grow my twitter followers:

1. Connect with everyone WHEN you meet them – If I am going to an event, I’ll start following the organization around the time I register. I may look for the speaker (hopefully if I follow the organization they’re promoting the speaker), and if there’s someone I want to meet I may even tweet at them in advance. When I’m at a networking event, if someone mentions they’re on Twitter, I’ll pull out my phone and start following them right there.
2. Tweet Along – When I’m at an event I will often live tweet the event. Apologies if you’ve had to slog through my Twitter stream! I use Twitter like I use to make notes. If I hear a good nugget, I’ll tweet it! It helps me to pay attention. If there’s a hashtag for the event, I’ll use it so others can find my tweets and I often find a few new followers that way too.
3. Encourage people to follow you – My Twitter handle is on my business card, it’s in my email signature, it’s in my newsletter signature, it’s on my website and I talk about my love of Twitter often. When I speak, I mention my Twitter up front and ask people to tweet along.
4. Follow the Leader – Follow people in your industry, follow thought leaders you admire, follow celebrities and pop culture folks that you enjoy. Don’t just use it for work, be a real person, it’s who we want to work with!
5. SHARE – Dude, more than anything, you need to share other people’s content. Did you read a good blog post from a friend or colleague? Share that! Did something make you laugh and you think your audience will enjoy it? Retweet away! Also share when you meet with someone and had a good time. You will often see me tweeting “so great to hangout with @xxx today!” and stuff like that. Taking the social media OFF line and being real, is important! Who I tweet with online isn’t always someone I know in my real life, and that’s OK. I’ve made many friends from Twitter. It’s not as creepy as it sounds!