I know. A lot of people are wondering why you would want to get more followers and become a celebrity on Twitter. Here is why. There are more than 100,000,000 users of Twitter. Yes, they all may not be following you but, they are still doing searches on topics which can lead them to you. It’s no wonder why Twitter is becoming the #1 marketing tool out there. Plus, Twitter is FREE!

How to Get More Followers on Twitter

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Guy Kawasaki said, “Truth be told, there are only two kinds of Twitter users: those that want more followers and those that lie.”[1] While this statement is controversial, [2] many people do want more followers on twitter. If you are reading this page, you might be one of them. Here is how you can multiply your follower count.

Steps

1. Follow everyone who follows you. It might seem counterintuitive to do this when you’re focused on gaining followers, but it’s a good practice because:

• People who notice that you didn’t follow them back might unfollow you.
• When you follow back, some people might respond to you publicly, which will give you some added exposure to their followers.[3]

If you’re worried that you won’t be able to keep up with that many people, you’re right. Once you’re following over 100 people, it’ll be pretty much impossible to read all their updates. You’ll become more selective in who/what you read.
2. Follow more people yourself.
Here’s why:

• The fastest way to get more followers is to start following more people. A lot of the people you follow will follow you back. So if you follow more people, you’ll get more followers.
• You can also put links to your Twitter profile on your blog, website, Squidoo lenses, facebook page, and any other social networking sites where your fans and friends go.

The services that can help you get more followers include:

• TweetAdder
• SocialOomph

3. Regularly unfollow people who haven’t followed you back. This is especially important to avoid follow limits. The first limit you’ll probably hit is when you’ve followed 2,000 people. You won’t be able to follow any more until you have 2,000 followers. As you follow and get followed, it’ll become time-consuming to “clean up” your list (unfollow people who aren’t following you back). There are services that can help you with that:

• FriendOrFollow
• TweetAdder

Quantity
If you’re just looking to crank up your numbers, these easy techniques will go a long way in a short time. There’s a lot of clicking but not a lot of thinking involved.

1. Consider creating a different Twitter account. There’s the possibility that by making a concentrated effort to boost your follower numbers, your account might get suspended (for being a spammer). If your main Twitter account is very valuable to you (it’s your full name, a distinct brand, etc.) you might want to create another one to use these techniques with.
2. Follow people who follow spammers.
   • Wait until a spam follower follows you. Spam followers will have 1,000 + people they are following but only 5 to 150 followers in return.
   • Follow everyone who follows the spam follower. Those are likely to be people who autofollow or who are following in return in order to boost their own follow count.
3. Use Twitterholic. Pick major cities, states, countries like Chicago or India and follow anyone with who is following over 200 more people than are following them back.
4. Follow people who autofollow.
   • Follow everyone on the list at SocialNewsWatch in order to get an easy 237 new followers.
   • “Twitter celebrities” are also likely to follow you back automatically.[3] Like spammers, they’ll be following over a thousand, sometimes tens of thousands of people, but unlike spammers, they’ll have the same number of (or more) followers. You’ll stumble upon such accounts during your Twitter travels (e.g. when they are retweeted by someone you’re following) but you can also do an Internet search for “most popular Twitter accounts” or “popular Tweeters”.

Quality
Just because you have a lot of followers doesn’t mean you’ll get a lot of readership or interaction. If you want followers who will actually read, respond to, and retweet your tweets, use these techniques instead of (or in addition to) the ones above. These require more time and effort.

1. Make a good avatar. The simplest and most personal way to go is a photograph of your face looking straight into the lens–no funny angles, and nothing else in the photo. Crop it into a square, but don’t shrink it down; you want people to be able to click on it and see the larger version.[3]
2. Write up a good bio. It’s important that people know who you are and what you’re interested in. Selective followers will read your bio before deciding whether to follow you back.
3. Tweet well and tweet often. Selective followers will also glance at your most recent tweets to see if you’re worth following.
   • Be interesting, transparent and provocative. Share intimate news about your life. If you can spin a good story, you might get readers addicted to the daily dramas of your everyday life.
   • Post interesting links. Find the man bites dog story. Search the web voraciously for a nugget you can spin into a good tweet. Guy Kawasaki, who has over 100,000 followers, goes as far as paying employees to find buzzworthy stories for him to tweet.[4] There are many websites you can scour for prime Tweeting material, such as:
     • Sites specifically geared towards providing Tweet-worthy material, like stufftotweet.com
     • Social bookmarking sites, like StumbleUpon and Digg
     • News sites such as CNN and the New York Times
   • Post multimedia. Switching things up with pictures, videos, and even sound clips here and there can make your posts more fun to follow.
   • Repeat your most popular tweets. Do a search for your Twitter name and observe which of your updates get the most replies and retweets. Then repeat those updates a few times, 8-12 hours apart. You’ll reach more people this way because you’re more likely to catch the attention of people who missed your updates the first time around. People “tune in” to Twitter at various times during the day (and night). If you get complaints about repeated tweets, you might want to slow down, but you probably won’t.[3]
4. Ask people to retweet you.[5] Some, perhaps many of your followers might not be familiar with the nature of retweeting. But being retweeted pushes your exposure to the edges of your Twitter network. Simply adding “Please retweet” or “Please RT” to the end of some of your posts here and there (not all the time) can remind your followers that you want them to spread the word for you. Occasionally posting a link to an article on How to Retweet will also help your followers help you.
5. Search for tweets with keywords related to your topics of interest. Let’s say you’re a metalhead. Look for people who mention your favorite metal groups. Reply to their tweets and then follow them. Your response will show them that you have something in common, and make it more likely that they’ll follow you back. Better yet, retweet them if the content is good. Not only are you forming connections with other Twitter users, but you’re also bringing good content to your followers.
6. Use hashtags. This is another way to connect to people with similar interests. Add hashtags to your tweets, and also create tweets based on hashtags that are popular on Twitter at the time (you can see these as “trending topics” on the right hand side of your Twitter home page).
7. Put up “Follow me on Twitter” links on your blog, social networking profiles, wikiHow user page, etc. That way, people who are already interested in what you’re doing have a chance to follow you.
8. Follow people who follow people who are like you. If you’re a tarot fanatic, for example, find another tarot fanatic who has many followers. Follow those followers. If it’s clear in your bio and your tweets that you’re a tarot enthusiast, they’re more likely to follow you.
9. Make an effort to Keep Your Followers on Twitter. People who actually keep up with the tweets of the people they follow will regularly re-evaluate who they follow, and will unfollow whoever they feel is not worth following anymore.

Warnings

• Do not send auto DMs as that may result in unfollows.
• Do not unfollow people right after you follow them. Wait at least five days before you unfollow people who don’t follow back. If you do unfollow right away, you will most likely be reported as a spammer and your account will be suspended.
• Twitter has a system that detects quick and massive follows and unfollows. If this system catches you, you may have your tweets stricken from the Twitter search engine.
• Twitter monitors your Follow-To-Follower Ratio. If you are following many more people than are following you, you could be marked as a spammer. It is important for you to clean up your Following-List by unfollowing those who don’t follow you back. Keep your ratio clean.

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/12/how-to-use-twit.html
2. ↑ http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/rich-brooks/social-media-strategies-small-business/why-guy-kawasaki-wrong-about-twitter
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/11/looking-for-m-1.html
4. ↑ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/03/24/guy-kawasaki-can-handle-being-called-a-spammer/
5. ↑ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/kevin-rose-10-ways-to-increase-your-twitter-followers/

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Get More Followers on Twitter. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How to Be a Twitter Celebrity

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Being popular on Twitter can help you market your business or publicize your blog. The most well-connected users on Twitter have over 100,000 followers, and some even have over 500,000.[1] Most of those users were quite well-known before they started tweeting, but that doesn’t mean you can’t climb your way to the top.

Steps

1. Tweet like a blogger. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool; it’s basically blogging in 140 characters or less. Generally the same guidelines for being a good blogger apply for being a good Tweeter.[2] You can’t expect a blog with only three posts on random topics to attract many subscribers, can you?
   • Choose your topic. If you want to be famous on Twitter, don’t take their question (“What are you doing right now?”) literally. It’s more like: “What are you doing or thinking right now that’ll be interesting to a certain group of people?” The theme should be specific enough that people know what to expect, but not so narrow that only 50 people would be interested in it. Start with only one to two primary topics or “tags”. Then expand as your Following grows.
   • Find the man bites dog story. Read news feeds voraciously for a nugget you can spin into a good tweet. Guy Kawasaki, who has over 100,000 followers, goes as far as paying employees to find buzzworthy stories for him to tweet.[3] Mix up informative Tweets with entertaining Tweets.
   • Be interesting, transparent and provocative. Share intimate news about your life. If you can spin a good story, you might get readers addicted to the daily dramas of your everyday life.
   • Network. Good bloggers link to other blogs. Good Tweeters retweet other Tweeters. Search Twitter for keywords related to your topic. When you find an interesting one, hit “Reply” and add “RT” or “Retweet:” to the beginning, and post it. Not only are you forming connections with other Twitter users, but you’re also bringing good content to your followers.
2. Follow like a spammer. Once you’ve got your quality established, focus on quantity. Take the same approach that spammers do. In order to avoid actually looking like a spammer, though, make sure there’s never more than a 200 or 300 gap between who you’re following and who’s following you. This can be handled automatically by various services.
3. Keep your followers coming back for more. There are some basic dos and don’ts that will keep your followers list from shrinking. Use a service that notifies you whenever you’re unfollowed. Examine your last few tweets – what did you write that could’ve turned them off? Keep the following bits of advice in mind:
   • Do not use services that allow you to auto DM. Auto DMs frequently cost you followers. Some people get their DMs on their cell phones, and an auto DM can be an annoying reason to have to check your phone, not to mention the cost that might be involved in receiving it.
   • Do not radically change the content on Twitter after you’ve already established a twitter presence. People like consistency and followed you for a reason.
4. Ask questions. One of the best ways to engage your followers and spark a dialogue is to ask questions. Keep the following tips and tricks in mind:[4]
   • Acknowledge answers. If you can’t respond to each answer individually because there are too many, at least send out a general thanks.
   • Stick around to listen. Don’t ask a question right before leaving your computer. If people respond, you want to be able to respond to them as quickly as possible, while they’re at their computers.
   • Repeat your question several times throughout the day so you get in touch with different timezones and schedules. Make sure one of the times is “prime time” when most people are online (usually weekday mornings).
   • Ask your followers to retweet your question.
5. Tweet often, but not too often. Every time you post an update, it shows up in the public timeline, exposing your profile to people who don’t know you yet. At the same time, tweeting too frequently can annoy your existing followers and make it difficult for them to respond. Stick to one topic at a time and leave some time in between updates for people to respond.[5]
6. Use a Twitter client. A client can help sort the updates that you see by user, keywords, etc. For example, you might be following people all over your country, but you can create a list of users in your city, and use a client to see only their updates to get a glimpse of what’s going on in your area.
   • How to Use TweetDeck
   • How to Use Twitterfox
   • How to Use Twhirl With Twitter

Tips

• If your motive for becoming a Twitter celebrity is so that you can channel more traffic to your blog or website, learn How to Gather and Use Twitter Metrics to measure how “effective” your fame is.
• Once you follow 2000 people, you won’t be able to follow any more until you gain 2000 followers. You can “clean up” your list with some third party services that will show you who you’re following that isn’t following you back–unfollow them.

Warnings

• Be prepared. Whenever you project yourself out there to get known, there will always be someone that will come down on you. Don’t take it personally. Know How to Handle Fame.

Related wikiHows

• How to Get a Lot of Followers on Twitter
• How to Use Twitter
• How to Add wikiHow Featured Articles to Your Twitter Updates
• How to Use TweetDeck
• How to Be a Social Networker
• How to Change Your Background on Twitter

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ http://twitterholic.com/
2. ↑ http://michaelmartine.com/2008/03/26/secret-success-twitter-blogging/
3. ↑ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/03/24/guy-kawasaki-can-handle-being-called-a-spammer/
4. ↑ http://www.twitip.com/how-to-ask-effective-questions-on-twitter/
5. ↑ http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/08/5-tips-to-grow-your-twitter-presence/

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Be a Twitter Celebrity. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

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