
- Image by Bibi via Flickr
Twitter – How to Grow Your Follower List Organically
Want a Twitter following that’s more relevant and useful? Time to grow your list of followers organically! Like organic gardening and farming, these methods capitalize on existing resources and do not artificially balloon up a following that will eventually fall away.
Don’t Auto-Follow – Even though there are ways to auto-follow people on Twitter who follow you, don’t use them! What if these folks are spammers or just not quality contacts?
A friend of mine found out about this the hard way. He auto-followed everyone who followed him. Then one day when he was viewing his own profile, he was shocked to see all the indecent and irrelevant entries on his lists! When people are deciding whether to add you to their timeline, they may look at the list of those you are following. If you have a bunch of obscene entries, well, they might not consider you a good choice.
No Bots… and Don’t Act Like One – I can always tell when someone in the Twitterverse has used a bot program to build a list. How can I tell? Maybe I’ve sent a tweet about an industry not related to mine. All of a sudden, up pops a bunch of new additions, all from that non-related industry. If they had really looked at my profile, they would have known there was no relation. Granted there are some programs that may be helpful in locating interesting and helpful people. However, watch to see what the program locates and see if it is doing a good job.
The other bot problem is people who act like bots. There was one person who kept posting my Twitter handle, along with several others, throughout an entire day, but was not following me yet. Trying to get me interested in checking out your profile? That is not the way to do it.
Follow Who They Follow – If you have some helpful and informative “tweets” in your timeline, check out the people they mention or recommend such as in a Follow Friday post, as well as those whose posts they retweet. This is easy to do in either the regular Twitter interface or an application such as HootSuite since the mentioned person’s name is an active link to his or her profile. I have found some of the most incredible and relevant contacts with this method.
Start Sharing – Has someone posted something really interesting or helpful? Retweet it so your followers can read it and pass it along to their followers, too. You’ll look like someone “in the know.” Plus, you may find that the person who originally posted the information may post a “thank you” tweet mentioning your name. Then that person’s followers will see your name in their timelines and might want to check out your profile. Give to get.
Does this seem like a lot of work and a slow way to build your Twitter network? It is! But it is just like building any other quality prospect or customer list. It takes time and constant nurturing to grow.
Want to organically add Heidi Thorne to your Twitter network? Find her at http://www.twitter.com/heidithorne. And speaking of organic, check out more about ecofriendly promotional products at Heidi’s http://www.EcoFriendlyPromotionalProductGuide.com website.








