Twitter holds the number 3 spot for social media use after Instagram and Facebook. It has 500 million active users and 100 million daily users. With that being said, Twitter is another terrific platform to get more exposure for your brand and business. The average twitter user follows 5 or more brands and 37% of users buy from the brands they follow. If you are like most entrepreneurs today, it is a no brainer to have some sort of Twitter presence.
If you haven’t spent much time with Twitter, here are 4 must have principles that will get you tweeting in no time. However there are a few simple rules that must be obeyed. When you are first getting started, you can follow up to 2000 people with no problem. After that the ratio rule kicks in. You can only follow 10% more of the number of followers that you have. So say you have followed 2000 people, you cannot follow anyone else until you have 1800 followers. With the techniques that will be shared in this post, it should not be too difficult to get people to follow you especially if you remember the 4 E’s. People like to be entertained, to be educated, to engage with you and to be empowered or inspired by you.
#1 Profile: There are 3 things to consider here. One is the header, just like in Facebook, you want to create a very eye-popping header. This is the first and biggest thing people will see on your profile, so keep the 4 E’s in mind when creating your header. Ask yourself, what is the message of your brand, try and convey that on the header. Some useful things to put on your header would be inspirational quotes, a call to action to visit your website or blog, your logo and maybe a picture of your business or even you. Next would be your profile picture. This is important because when you are tweeting or direct messaging or being retweeted, your profile picture is what will show up with your tweet. So make it a good one. Remember that people are following you so make sure it is a good picture of you not your business. The last part of your profile is your BIO. There is not a lot of space to say too much. Again think about what your message is, who do you want to follow you. Bios are searchable so make it keyword rich. Also you might want to put a little bit about your self. Like your hobbies or how you spend your time. Examples might be rock climbing enthusiast, lover of flamenco music, beach comber. You can also include a link to your website or blog. Adding your location is also a good idea as this does add a more personal touch.
#2 Connect with People in Your Niche: The best way to grow your audience is to connect with people in your niche. There are many strategies that you can use to do this. A fast way to do this would be to find some big influencers in your industry and follow their followers. Reading people’s tweets and following the people that you like. Searching trendy hashtags in your niche is also a good way to find people who would most likely follow you back. If you have set your profile up properly, most people who you have followed will follow you back.
Following people can be a time consuming activity. It can be done manually or there are tools that you can use to help automate the process. Twitter only allows you to follow 1000 people a day, and of course the only way to do that would be using automative tools like Unfollow.com or Manageflitter.com. If you opt for using an automative tool, use it wisely as there is a Twitter jail. Unfollow and Manageflitter both have free tools or you can upgrade for a small monthly fee to get more features. You can even find followers by using keywords that will search people’s bios.
#3 Engagement: Give people a reason to follow you back. The best way to do this is to share valuable content. As discussed earlier, the most engaging tweets are ones that empower your audience, educate your audience, engage your audience or entertain your audience. Inspirational quotes are very popular and will get retweeted. How to tweets are also good. Give a short, concise overview of how to do something and then refer them back to your blog or website for more details, such as how to build a list that sticks. Tweets with pictures and videos get a lot more engagement. Adding hashtags to your tweets will increase your engagement. And another quick little tip is having a number in your tweet will also increase your engagement such as 3 strategies for content marketing or the 5 step formula.
#4 Direct Messaging: Use direct messaging wisely. It can be fully automated but if you want to keep an engaging audience be mindful what you say in your message. It’s always nice to thank them for the follow and then start a conversation by asking them a question. Some people will want to engage so scheduling a little bit of time each day to answer your messages will go a long way in your relationship building. Don’t be spammy, in that do not post your links in your initial message. This is a complete turn off to a lot of people. Try to get to know your followers first, find out what they are looking for, find out what there problems are and then come back with a solution for them.
Building a Twitter following does take time and patience. These 4 principles should help to get you started off with a solid foundation. If you are building your brand properly and engaging your audience you will have a laser-targeted audience that you can easily build a relationship with and eventually make sales effortlessly. I’m curious to know how your personal branding on Twitter is working for you. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
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