52 (non-automated) Ways to Increase Your Twitter Following
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Today’s social media podcast (direct download here) and blog post is on how to increase your Twitter following. These strategies aren’t just about the numbers but are proven strategies to attract the right followers. Here are 52 (non-automated) Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers:
- Have a custom background that tells what you do and who you are
- Have a complete bio with keywords that people search for
- When you follow people, find something to comment on or ask a relevant question to let them know you’re there and are conversational and community focused
- Make sure your Twitter profile is recognizable and real. Photos of celebrities, cartoons or logos tend to get less follow-backs than a profile with a real smiling human face.
- Follow people who recently followed your competitors
- Follow people who are complaining about your competitors
- Follow-back those that follow you. Many will un-follow after a period of time if you do not follow-back. Avoid following spammers, pornbots or anything that doesn’t resonate with your values or personal brand of course.
- Look at your competitors public lists and follow those that are relevant
- If you’re a local business use Twitter local search to find people talking about your business, industry or community and follow them (remember to interact)
- Search for relevant industry #hash tags ( ie #scrm #rechat #bieber or whatever your target market talks about) follow those people, then as per #3 – reach out and communicate.
- Use relevant #hash tags on topics, conferences, and issues and attract more followers
- Search Twellow.com for regional influencers and follow them
- Search Twellow.com for industry specific or topic specific people and follow them
- Register for Twellow.com and fill in the expanded profile and bio section, you will show up in more searches.
- Change your Twitter bio from time to time to attract new markets through search
- Put your Twitter address on your business card, brochures and any other printed material you give out
- Have a decal designed and put your Twitter address on the back of your laptop (I have had a number of new and interesting followers and it’s a good ice-breaker at coffee shops and airports)
- Finish all of your blog posts with a short bio that suggests people follow you in Twitter
- When making comments on blogs, many ask for a web address – give your Twitter address instead
- Have a prominent Twitter badge displayed on every page of your site and/or blog that links to your profile
- Let your Facebook and Linkedin connections know you’re on Twitter and ask them to connect.
- In Linkedin Groups (relevant ones) ask members as a topic discussion to share Twitter profiles with each other and suggest you also connect on Twitter.
- In a tasteful non-spam format let anyone on email lists, meetup groups YOU operate and other online groups that you’re on Twitter and would love to connect. This is often done best as a side-note or footnote in a regular Meetup update or email newsletter blast. Emails and updates titled “Follow me on Twitter” are generally considered bad form.
- Target regional (all regions your market to) influencers (not necessarily Twitter superstars) on Twitter and put them on a private list. Monitor their discussions and updates and pro-actively have relevant discussions, RT (Re-Tweet or Share) their updates and promote things they are promoting. After a period of time they will take notice, often following you and even sharing your content with their network.
- Follow anyone who retweets your content and thank them (except of course spambots)
- Use backtweets.com to find out who is linking to sites of interest or competitor sites. Follow those people and apply #3 again.
- Host a #Tweetup in your community or at a conference.
- Attend #Tweetups in your community (What is a Tweetup? Watch Here)
- If you can type fast and well offer to Liveblog and live tweet an event
- Guest blog on key sites
- Write for magazines, newspapers (online or print) and get your Twitter ID into the footer.
- Start a Twitter Tribe. A group of non-competing people who Tweet each others content. This can be formal or informal but all members usually benefit from increased Klout, reach and followers. (not to mention blog traffic)
- Make sure your Twitter handle is on all relevant Keynote or PowerPoint presentations.
- At the beginning of any public presentation let everyone know it’s okay to get out their smartphones and Tweet to the world.
- If you sell packaged goods or products get your Twitter handle on those packages!
- Have contests rewarding those who Tweet about you, keep it simple and don’t make following mandatory
- If you have a physical business location or retail store/restaurant/lounge/pub etc. have a “We are social” poster that shares your social site URLS (Don’t just use the logos)
- Use QR codes in print materials and on presentations that Link to your Twitter account or a page with all of your social ID’s [This one will take you to my Google Profile]
- Put your Twitter handle on your nametag at Meetups and conferences
- Put your Twitter handle on your contact info for your VCard, Bump application (for Iphone) etc.
- Link to your Twitter account at the beginning of any video descriptions on YouTube, Vimeo Etc.
- If you do a podcast or produce video put it on your splash page or mention it in your intro and extro.
- Create public Twitter lists of great people in specific industry or interest segments. They will often follow you back as a result
- Tweet to different time zones. I typically Tweet between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm on weekdays. That means I miss showing up in a lot of searches on Twitter during my off hours. To appeal to markets like India or Europe I schedule Tweets in Hootsuite to be posted while I’m sleeping. I also devote a night a month to staying up late and chatting with my buddies in India, South Africa and Europe. This conversation also increases followers.
- Using local search start conversations with people in your immediate area who share things of interest. It doesn’t have to be about business, it could be a common interest in art, hiking, food etc. This will often result in a follow-back.
- Reply quickly. Often people will follow us, then ask a question or make a comment. To build rapport and maintain momentum respond and interact as soon as possible. These means checking Twitter more than once a day and taking time to respond in a personal authentic way. When we ignore people’s questions or take too long to reply they may unfollow or never follow us in protest.
- “Follow me on Twitter” with a link in your email signature
- You can custom program “Tweet-this” buttons to include your Twitter address in the title of the Tweet (when people click on the button). This makes it easier to find your fans and gets your Twitter handle more exposure online.
- Follow the 90/10 rule. Twitter is about engagement, people who might follow you and only see marketing links and no-conversation will most likely think you’re not watching or don’t care about what they say. Keep your stream about community, conversation and connection 90% of the time and Tweet about business, blogs, marketing etc. 10% of the time.
- Follow people who retweet your competitors or content similar to the content you produce and once again apply step 3.
- Create and share awesome, unique content via Twitter tips, links to blogs, videos etc. This will get retweeted, shared and increase your following
- Pay it forward. Get your friends, clients, staff and associates on Twitter and coach on how to use Twitter. They can become your biggest allies and fans.
Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years. He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down. When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.
Follow Friday is now People Friday
Enough. With the advent of Twitter there’s the follow Friday or #followfriday or #ff. People post lists of people they endorse or want to thank for their impact on them via Twitter. It may be the trend du jour but I feel for us hyper wired social media and web geeks People Friday is a much greater cause. We spend so much time behind our monitors or squinting at our iPhones and Blackberry’s that we have forgotten the purpose; PEOPLE. Instead of posting on Twitter how much you like someone and why everyone else should follow them online — why not meet them in person or pick up the phone and let them know how much you appreciate their efforts. It’s great to promote and connect with a broad base of people and expand our network. Intimacy and trust however is built by deepening key relationships. When you know each other better, and deep trust is built we can than truly and endorse someone as credible.
So I have my People Friday booked up. I’m visiting with my co-author Stephen Jagger, then meeting with a long time client, and then I will be meeting with George Moen of Blenz Coffee. Most of these conversations and interactions could be handled online via a wiki / chat collaboration BUT there’s huge value to looking someone in the eye and taking the time to let them know how they have impacted you. If at all possible today… get offline in person with someone you have rapport with online and see if you can add depth to that relationship.
Have a great Friday,
Shane
Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, SEO – Which one is right for you?
The question is formed in many different ways. I get it all the time. What is the best social media or social network for me to use? Which ones will my clients respond best to? Should I use social media or invest in search engine optimization?
These are the wrong questions. Lets use a guerrilla analogy: What’s the best weapon for combat? The answer is: You need more than one weapon, you need multiple weapons, multiple approaches and a lot of redundancy and back-up.
Lets step back from “social media marketing” and talk about marketing. We know that the best marketing campaigns use a variety of media and messages. BMW doesn’t just use billboards, they use e-mail, micro-sites, online video, direct mail and also encourage user generated content on some of their more social sites. Starbucks is much the same.
The message here is this:
Stop falling in love with social media tools, start falling in love with your customer
Starbucks, BMW, Ford, Comcast and many other successful social media marketers are customer engagement focused. They surround their customers online with multiple opportunities from multiple media to learn, connect and engage. It takes time, frequency of contact and a lot value added interactions to become top of mind with your customer.
EngagementDB.com a project by Altimeter Group and WetPaint studied the web’s top brands and looked at the impact of using multiple media and channels versus being a one-weapon marketer. Without exception the brands that used multiple media and channels had greater and faster engagement levels. These brands also happened to be more profitable than the others. This is probably not due to social media use but the fact that they are progressive and strategic at all levels in their businesses.
Here’s your take-away:
- Fall in love with your customer, interact with them in multiple channels and add value. Focus on them, not the tools.
- Have an over reaching plan and goal that drives your content creation and interaction
- Use all of your social media tools, search marketing and offline marketing in tandem and with the same focus.
- Stay on message, stay consistent, and continually engage
What are your thoughts on this? Have you found that multiple media helps you engage faster and more effectively?
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28 Ways to Improve Your Sales Results
I had a number of people (close to 300) complete the 28 Days to Better Selling Program I put on in May and June. Many of you were asking when I was going to do it again? My next one will be in the fall but it will be marketing focused. With that said, you can do the 28 Days to Better Selling Program at your own pace by following the links below.
Here’s how 28 Days to Better Selling Works:
1) A daily task that you can easily implement to improve your sales and business
2) A succinct daily lesson to help you make the improvement
By the end of the 28 days you will have looked at 28 ways to fine tune and improve your sales process and business. The daily lessons will be in written, video or audio format and will take less than 10 minutes each to review.
Day 2 Targeting the Right Referral Sources
Day 3 Prospecting in Person
Day 4 Networking Strategy
Day 5 LinkedIn Prospecting
Day 6 Investigative Prospecting
Day 7 Lead Nurturing
Day 8 Don’t Be A Boring Salesperson
Day 9 Listening in Sales
Day 10 Needs Analysis in Sales Part 1
Day 11 Needs Analysis In Sales Part 2
Day 12 Twitter for Sales Part 1
Day 13 Twitter for Sales Part 2
Day 14 Keeping Commitments
Day 15 Selling Benefits and Results
Day 16 Preemptive Objection Handling
Day 17 Sell the Price Different Not The Total Cost
Day 18 Vital Signs
Day 19 Preparing For a Sales Call
Day 20 Team Selling
Day 21 Just Thinking About You
Day 22 Team Players Make Efficient Sellers
Day 23 Day of Rest, Chill Out and Reflect 
Day 24 Influencing Top Level Decision Makers
Day 25 Key Skills and Strengths for Selling Intangibles
Day 26 Reducing Anxiety and Worry
Day 27 15 Ways to Close A Sale
Day 28 Operationalizing Your Sales Process
Want to Close Bigger Deals? Buy the Book:
Twitpic’s Gone Wrong Shane Gibson Exposed
In a Hyper-transparent World You’ll Be Found Out
In our book Sociable! Stephen Jagger and I talk about some of the do’s and don’t's of social media. One thing we talk about is wherever you are, there’s a camera, and at 2:00 am that funny twitpic might not be so funny when your boss or your best client sees them.
Steve and I have not learned this by standing at the pulpit looking down at people making silly errors or posting things they shouldn’t have. We learned this by doing it ourselves (okay actually most of the dumb things that have been documented were done by me).
I also believe in not deleting, people will catch you and make things worse. So I leave these errors in judgment up, why you might ask? Mostly because they weren’t really errors, it was me, my real personality doing these things. Blame it on my Celtic East Coast sense of humor. So in the spirit of full transparency and for charity (please donate) here’s some pictures from the last few years that probably should not made it on the internet (better me than someone else posting these!):
#1) Kyle MacDonald (The guy who traded up “One Red Paper Clip” for a house) and I after we left a conference we were speaking at. This is is us at 3:00 am after we emptied a Keg. Kyle is really Superman because he did a fantastic radio interview 4 hours later. (Seriously itemized beer bill).
#2) Everyone who left the Mother of all Meetups at Christmas time left their tags with me (so to speak)
#3) I sorta crashed a womens’ only conference for social media after party/tweetup (invited by Colleen), this is what ended up on Twitpic. I look so sincere.
#4) This was just a bad mistake, I wanted a pic of the hat on me but the preview didn’t show the bloke in the background (nice personal branding).
#5) No man should ever walk a dog dressed like this. Yes that’s my dog.
To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!
Blogathon 2009 for Vancouver Food Bank
Social Media and Twitter Videos
I have made a few videos about Tweetups, Twitter, and social media over the past few months. Here’s some of my favorite ones. Enjoy
Twitter For Sales Part 1
Twitter For Sales Part 2
What the Heck is a Tweetup?
Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside Down
How Hard is it to Video Blog?
To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!
Blogathon 2009 for Vancouver Food Bank
Top 10 Reasons You Might Be A Twit on Twitter
#10) You only read @replies and don’t care about the meaningless stuff people post
#9) You retweet like it was your own idea forgetting to give credit
#8) You send everyone the same pitchy auto direct message when they follow you
#7) Your auto direct message has a link to an affiliate site or squeeze page
#6) You mass unfollow people to look more popular than you really are
#5) You’re noisy, rant a lot, curse and yet complain when other people update a lot
#4) You ask people constantly to retweet your marketing content
#3) You never answer @replies or dm’s
#2) You follow 2000 people, have 300 followers, 8 updates and your profile says you’re a social media expert
#1) You read #2 through #10 and you don’t think there’s anything wrong with them
To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!
Blogathon 2009 for Vancouver Food Bank
Hootsuite 2.0 Interview with Ryan Holmes
I have been involved in the beta for Hootsuite 2.0 and had the opportunity to connect with Ryan Holmes President of Invoke Media. For our book Sociable! I interviewed Ryan about the soon to be released version of Hootsuite. It is loaded with features, analytics and tools that business users of Twitter can really benefit from
Here’s the video of the interview
Integrating Social Media Into Your Sales and Marketing Process
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Today’s social media podcast is on Integrating Social Media into Your Sales and Marketing Process. I will discuss the Social Media Matrix that Stephen Jagger and I developed for Sociable! as well as the 7 Steps to Strategic Engagement and Integration which are:
- Identify Your Goal
- Identify Your Target Audience
- Pick the Right Platforms
- Map out Social Etiquette
- Implement Listening and Engagement Strategy
- Know Core Pains
- Uniquely Communicate Pills Mixing Marketing and Community
Related posts:
22 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters
Twitter for sales tutorial video Part 1 & Part 2
The Future of Sales and Marketing Social CRM
20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters
Daily I post social media tips on Twitter, I thought I would post the most recent 20 for you. Have any to share? Post them in comments below.
20 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters:
- Spend at least as much time listening as you do broadcasting.
- It’s called “social media” for a reason. Be prepared to interact consistently.
- You can’t win the game focusing on the scoreboard. Focus on the game of engagement and the traffic will come.
- Losing followers is okay, measure the engagement level of who is still here to see how you are doing.
- Have a goal, measure results, measurement provides feedback and improvement.
- The internet has always been about helping people connect to people (@nickusborne)
- Pay it forward. Help, teach. guide and be patient with people new to the scene. [Tweet This Tip]
- Study people who are credible with the type of clients you want to attract. Model their strategy.
- Marketers aren’t always synonymous with community builders, traffic and followers isn’t always equal to credibility.
- If you’re an old school e-mail marketer or pitch artist, there’s some habits you will need to unlearn.
- Before you start your campaign define your market and their pains.
- Everyone and every company gets off message once in a while. Refocus and learn from it.
- Leaders of large “Tribes” need to have thick skin and a tolerance for noise.
- Continually tweak and update your Linkedin profile, your network will be notified.
- Social media is changing so quickly that if you stop too long to smell the roses you’ll be out of touch.
- Try a new platform each month, video blogging, FaceBook, tumblr etc. Curiosity can lead to great discoveries.
- You can’t make a robot network for you at a party, why do you think they can do it for you on the web?
- Some un-follows are strategic. People want to know if you’re really listening.
- You can’t please everyone. But know who you are trying to connect with. Get in sync with your audience.
- http://www.ping.fm updates FaceBook, Brightkite, Twitter, tumblr and Linkedin statuses all at once
Twitter for Sales Part 2 Day 13 of the 28 Days to Better Selling
This is day 13 of the 28 Days to Better Selling. Today’s video on Twitter for sales people is about how to get more followers and connect with prospects. It also covers strategies on building community and credibility. This is twitter video is 13 minutes in length which is a bit longer than the rest of the lessons but I felt that the topic needed to be covered thoroughly. Tweet you later!
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