Getting Quality Twitter Followers Takes Work

Let’s face it; we all get excited when we get more Twitter followers. But have you ever stopped to see who’s following you? Many of the followers we get are just spammers looking for followers themselves and don’t actually care about what you or I have to say.

So how do we get quality followers? Here’s 7 basic principles to getting good Twitter followers:

1. Say something interesting. Just giving a play-by-play of your daily activities probably isn’t enough to get quality followers, unless you’re a celebrity. Instead, provide something interesting that people would want to read, and will make them want to see what else you will write in the future. You can talk about yourself, but don’t just talk about yourself.

2. Include links. Twitter is a great tool for directing people to blogs and websites. Share with others what you find. The best way to share links without taking up too many of those precious 140 characters is to use a third-party site built for that. I recommend Hootsuite .

3. Retweet others. Retweets are the prize in the box of CrackerJacks. We all love them. So, if you like being retweeted, then retweet others. But don’t always just retweet exactly what others say, it’s usually good to retweet with a comment, if space allows.

4. Join the conversation. A great way to get followers is to find a topic or issue being discussed on Twitter and join the conversation. This is an opportunity for you to apply suggestions 1-3 above. You can say interesting things, offer other links about that topic or issue that haven’t been used, or take the time to retweet some of the comments you like.

5. Participate in a tweetchat. Tweetchats are a great way to converse with others about a topic, issue, hobby or career. You can find a whole list of tweetchats on a public Google Doc with times and hashtags here . May I offer a suggestion with tweetchats: be sure to tell your followers you plan to participate in a tweetchat. You can even suggest they use a tweet-muting site so they don’t get annoyed with your continuous tweetchat tweeting.

6. Mention others. This is a lot like retweeting. However, instead of just repeating what others say, you can say something to them or about them by inserting an @ symbol and their username, like  @byuboston  (which is my Twitter username). This will show up under their ‘mentions’ and will show them you are talking about/with them.

7. If you have a blog, keep it updated. You can probably tell I am not very good at this. I only update my blog every month or so. But if you want followers, you most likely have to give them something more than a few fun tweets a day. People like substance. So if you have a blog, keep it going, and use Twitter to let them know about your updates. Also, use Twitter to find topic ideas, see what others are saying about your articles and invite people to read them.

There you go. Seven tips to getting quality Twitter followers. If you have any ideas that I have left out, please let me know. Also, I love comments, so feel free to leave some!

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Parrot Tongue