….. but only if you waste time using it inappropriately or inefficiently!

There’s no point in “transmitting” on Twitter if only one man and his dog are listening!  Your message gets lost in the Twittersphere in the “graveyard of tweets” that were never read!   So, when starting out on Twitter, one of the most productive things you can do is build an organic and natural following of people who are genuinely interested in hearing your messages and engaging with you in your area of niche expertise. 

It could be said that the one health hazard of twitter is your “follower” count. If it wasn’t there, would twitter be as important as it is?

By “health hazard” I mean there appears to be two reasons for having or participating in twitter: 

1:   For the IMHO, real reason – which is to blog, or in this instance to micro-blog to spread messages and demonstrate your specialist knowledge and skills.
2:   For the “game” of who can get the most followers.

However, if you focus on the first reason then the second one will happen, but if you focus on the second reason then the first will not happen.

There is no doubt that having a following gives you a sense of credibility.  However, if you focus on the “game” of numbers, that credibility could be short lived. Moreover, the bigger the numbers the more obvious it becomes – in both camps.   And the bigger the numbers, the harder they are to manage, and the less likely you are to be able to engage with people – which is the whole point of Twitter!

Social media is about sharing of information, and twitter is just one of the web 2 tools that allows us to do that.  It is particularly powerful because it is in real-time and businesses must increasingly react in real time to remain relevant to their audiences and customers.

As my friend @therobbrown recently commented on another blog “Don’t count your conversations – make your conversations count. That’s how to build a great network, and a great network (who you know) builds a great reputation (who knows you)!”

You’ll notice that on the front page of twitter, just below the account holders name, there is a list of “following”, “followers”‘ “updates”. All these numbers should have a balance in them. If not, then that will explain what the user is up to (either gaining numbers or giving information) – not that there is anything wrong with either routes, but as a follower I would want to know. 

So how do you create a healthy natural following?

Here’s my top ten ways of creating a healthy following and for all the right reasons …

1. Avatar: Your picture (Avatar) should be the same on ALL your social media sites and it should be a good one. Either a good photo or cartoon, whatever. Remember on twitter your photo will be your signature for the content NOT your name. People associate good content with your avatar.

2. Biography: Write a compelling biography because I want to know who you are. You have 160 characters to do this and it is good practice for writing engaging tweets. IMHO, you should always follow back (this can be automated here) as part of reciprocity. You can always “cull” at a later date if necessary (this can be done here). This is not a given – if you prefer to “vet” your followers then that’s fine, but you will need time to do that – I would prefer to write stuff.

3. Twitter homepage design: Be serious about your web efforts!  Let people know for sure that you have intent to enrich their lives with valuable information and one of the easiest ways is to create your own identity on your twitter page. People will follow leaders and what better way of being a leader than going that extra mile and making yourself different than everyone else. There are many ways to do this and for free, but if you want a professional finish then you might want to try here.

4. Follow others who share the same interests as you: You want to be part of a Club, an association of “like-minded people”, twitter gives you this ability. Most of these people will adopt the same attitude, they will want associate with you and probably they will want to “RT” (Re-Tweet) your content – this in turn will put your message out to a wider audience.

5. See who they follow: The people who you follow will also follow compelling individuals (probably). Therefore it stands to reason that you should be knowing them too.  Leverage other people’s lists to find other tweeps who share your interest or niche area of expertise.  Their followers will then be exposed to you through RT’ing etc.

6. See who follows them: As above (ish) people who follow the ones you follow have good reason. Moreover, they might be useful people for you to follow.

NOTE: People like to “hang out” in groups, or to “align” themselves to certain thinkers or leaders. Numbers 4,5, and 6, although they sound confusing, are very simple ways of “getting yourself” involved in these groups. Providing you write compelling content yourself you will attract followers.

7. Signature: Create a signature that you use on a consistant basis on ALL your web pressence, that point people back to your twitter homepage and makes it easier for them to follow you. There are many different ways of doing this, twitterbuttons.com is one. However, you can create your own bespoke button – click here – to e-mail me if this is what you want to do.

8. Post on shared interest forums: Have an opinion, thats what forums are for, not bickering but opinion. You must think of YOUR BIT OF THE WEB like a special interest magazine such as MacWorld for Mac users. Associate yourself with these forums/blogs and have an opinion, but make sure that I can find you when you write something.

9. Use the SHARE buttons that you find: On most sites you will see “share” buttons – either twitter, fabebook, linkedin, ecademy etc etc – these buttons are there to make it easy for you to publish your content or anyone else’s content. Sharing other peoples content will make you a “newsgatherer” and I might want to follow you because you find “good stuff”. Use these buttons.

10. Write, write, write, write, write: You get the message, but it has to be compelling. I don’t always want to know what you are doing but I might want to know why. I might want to know what you are reading, creating. I want to know your opinion. I want you to share my opinion. I want you to gather great information and put it together in a fantastic blog. I want you to point me to an awesome event. I want to know what you have learned. I want to know that it might benefit me. I want to know the latest gadget. Then I want to know it was crap because the battery does not last, I want to know who you follow and why, I want ….

I want to know what you know, afterall I’m following YOU.

N
P.s  There are other ways of growing your following and using Twitter, such as Twitter search and advanced search on key words and hashtags, what time of day to tweet, how to make sure your tweet is not lost in the Twitter “noise”.  For the answers to these, and to get the best out of your Twitter efforts, you might want to consider this – click here -.