Twitter is a great platform for staying in touch with the latest on your fields of interest, by following people and diverse media word-spreaders. It is also a great tool for promoting and sharing your own work with others – mainly, your followers. In order to gain the most from Twitter, you get to choose who you wish to follow, while, at the same time, you can be followed by anyone. Getting to the first few followers can be tricky, and lots of tips are found throughout the internet. Here I share my own set of tips on how to reach the first 25 followers in no time. At the moment of writing, I have short of 20 followers on Twitter, but I am confident this strategy should be good for anyone. Had I knew these beforehand, I would have gotten far quicker to this number.
General Tips – Get to know Twitter, its workings and its principles of communication. Navigate through Twitter to get a feel of its particularities: lots of media figures to follow, free speech, short postings only (or thread building to compensate). You can use Twitter only for getting feeds easily, but if you plan on promoting your work, you will have to select which area you want to cover. As a complement to the following tips, try reading about what is deemed a successful area in Twitter – News, Expert insights, or Light-heated relief. Try to find the common road between your interest and these three Twitter sought-after areas. Look around for tips from Twitter gurus. Also, it is mandatory to complete your Twitter profile: profile pictures, banner, brief description of yourself or your business. It goes without saying that you also need to promote your Twitter wherever possible on your other social media or on-line profiles.
Okay, these things are written everywhere on the Internet. Let’s get to my experience.
Tip #1 – Tweet visually, as frequent as possible, and with precision. Do not tweet without using @ or # references, because it is like talking to a wall. Use pictures in tweets to better attract audiences. Refer to other Twitter active users (using their @username) in your field, by highlighting their work. Refer to media tweeters to highlight your work when you share it in a tweet. Unless they have hundreds of thousands of followed accounts, they will very likely see your posts. If they like or retweet your post, their followers may notice and go to see your profile. Some users say you should tweet less frequently, but I reckon at this stage it is important to attract the attention of your peers.
Tip #2 – Reply frequently and meaningful, especially in hot topics, expressing your own views. Also reply in tweets started by people you follow; you may start an active conversation. If your views are in line with the discussion, you will get attention from like-minded people.
Tip #3 – Follow accounts which follow back (in your field). These accounts have a large ratio of following/followers, typically over 1. If they do not follow back immediately you should give it a bit of time while being active, to show them you care about your community. Also, you may wish to follow accounts that liked your previous posts. Likewise, others may follow you if you are a keen follower.
Tip #4 – If you get a highly active tweet, you should pin it to your profile. You may also tweet a welcome message to your potential followers and pin it. Quotes are also great for banners or pinned tweets, as they will show to anyone, in a second, what your lines of thinking are.
Tip #5 – Be cautious using images retrieved from the web. They may be copyrighted. Try not to use any web-retrieved image; rather, create your own screenshots, photos or pictures. I don’t find GIFs appealing, but a perfectly placed one could help you stand out.
Tip #6 – Use Twitter Analytics to quickly get a hold on what type of content has made impressions and what has flopped to the internet attic.
Until you get to your first 50-100 followers, these tips should be enough. I hope they help. You can tweet me at @sterbuleac if you have any comments!
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