Building a Following on Twitter

Signing up for a Twitter account is fairly easy, you enter in a few pieces of personal (and not so personal) information, verify your email, and BAM! you’re good to go!  Building a profile that people want to follow is a different story! It’s something that you must learn as a marketer in order to use Twitter to it’s fullest potential.  Having a Twitter following is invaluable to your business for numerous reasons!

Why do I need to build my Twitter following?

• Twitter users are by far (from my data) the best type of social media traffic that you can receive.  As I mentioned in my last post, about twitter becoming more mainstream, twitter users stay on pages longer and convert into readers more.
• It’s very easy for Twitter users to share your stuff.  It simply takes one button on Twitter, the retweet button, and your blog post or story has not only been shared with your followers but also with anyone’s followers that have retweeted your tweet.  Because it’s so easy for users to hit the retweet button, twitter users seem to be more willing to share people’s blog posts and such if they like it.

So now that you know the two main reasons Twitter is an invaluable service, the next question obviously is how do I build a following like you are talking about?  A following that will share my blog posts, stories, product launches, or whatever else I need to get out there to potential clients, readers, etc.

Hopefully, I can shed light on a few things that I’ve found that work for me.  Of course all niches and circumstances are different so some of these, all of these, or none of these may work for your individual needs!

Twitter is a Community!

The first thing you need to realize about Twitter is that it’s a community.  It’s made up of people that follow you and people that you follow.  If you want people to follow you back or share your information with their friends you need to build up a reputation within your community.  The ONLY way to do this is to participate in your community, and by participating I don’t mean sending a tweet out each time you want to promote yourself!  You must be active in your twitter community and make an effort to tweet with others, share whats going on in your life, and share great stories (not yours) with the people following you.

Show You Care!

There is no other way to show people how much you don’t care about your Twitter profile than to leave your picture the default avatar.  Your avatar needs to define you, add to your personality, and allow others to see you for who you really are.  I know what you’re thinking…a picture can do all that?  Of course it can!  Think of the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”.  This is true even on Twitter!  Be unique and find, take (don’t steal), or create a picture that shows the world a little piece of who you are!

Use Your Profile Page to Your Advantage!

People love finding out information about people…especially when it’s people who’s blog they read, talk to online, or become friends with on social media sites.  If you’re not using your Twitter profile page as a way to share yourself, your business, etc. with the people following you or the people that stumble across your profile then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

It also goes back to making sure that people understand that you care about your profile and about Twitter, by saying that you took enough time out of your busy schedule to make your profile unique, just like you did with your avatar!  People appreciate this!  I know I do!

Below is a picture of what my profile page on twitter looks like…

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’m attempting to do several things here.  The first thing you should notice is the Click Consultants black and orange “C”.  The reason I used this “C” is because of advertising I’ve done in the past and currently for this blog.  People have come to realize it as part of the Click Consultants site even if the word Click Consultants isn’t mentioned.

However, I haven’t actually put my picture out there a lot and also many people may not realize that mystickcal is the name that I go by online as I don’t use that persona on Click Consultants like I do the rest of the internet.

Basically I want to make sure people realize who I am one way or another, whether it’s from the black and orange letter C, my picture, or my name and the best way to do that is to include them all.  It’s part of building my personal brand along with my company brand.

Another thing I use my profile page for is to let people know a little about me.  My little blurb reads…

I am a regular guy who just happens to make a lot of money online through affiliate marketing.  You can contact me through twitter or the following:

Basically, I wanted people to realize two things about me right off the bat…First off, that I’m a regular guy just like them and as such, I can be approached just like a regular guy.  Secondly, I wanted people to realize that while I’m a regular guy, I do make a lot of money online through affiliate marketing and as such my information about affiliate marketing can be trusted. (I know just by saying that it does mean it can be, but with all the rest of my stuff out there, it only adds to it)

The last thing I do on my profile page is make it very easy to people to contact me and I believe this is very important as well.  I give people the following options, I tell them they can contact me via twitter, AIM (aol instant messenger), my blog (Click Consultants), or by Email.  Not only do I give people all these ways of contacting me, but these are actually my main ways.  mystickcal is my main AIM screen name that I’m on most.  derek at clickconsultants dot com is my main email address.

What I’m trying to say is that not only do I give people plenty of ways to contact me, but I actually mean it!  Do you?  This goes back to are you a part of your Twitter community!

Wrap Up

This post has increasingly grew in size from when I first started out with the idea and brainstormed and while that’s okay, I didn’t get to touch on a couple more points to increase followers that I really wanted to touch on.  So, make sure you subscribe to click consultants because I’ll definitely be doing a follow up post to this one shortly.  Whether it’s tomorrow or a week from tomorrow, I’ll definitely be touching on Twitter again here shortly!

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