Build your Twitter following

Build your Twitter following

1. Set up a Twitter account with your complete name, a profile picture, and an attractive header image and a bio with industry-targeted keywords and social proof.

You can use a tool like Snappa to create an original, eye-catching header image, and add in a link to your website. Tell the audience what exactly you do, like ‘helping people save 3 hours daily’, instead of just saying time management. Mention the name of your employer or any famous publishing platform you write for, so that you appear in search results when people search for your employer or publisher. Use achievements and awards in the bio as social proof.   

2. Participate in major and relevant Twitter chats to gain followers and use the advanced search feature to find relevant discussions.

For example, if you’re a digital marketer, you can join chats like #Social Chat, #VCBuzz, #BrandChat. Grab the chat organizer’s attention so that they highlight your contributions.  Be as helpful and active as possible to receive invitations for hosting chats.  To search for questions, add a space and a question mark after your query, and you’ll get tweeted questions only. To search for tweets with positive or negative comments, add a space followed by or after your keyword. This will help you filter tweets based on sentiment.  Log in at least once daily to check Tweetdeck and try to contribute to some of the tweets.  Use Tweet Alerts to track specific influencers and companies and get email notifications.  Use a keyword like [content] and profile keywords like [Moz, Google] if you want to keep a tab on the content marketing industry, for example. This will send you email alerts from those who probably work at these companies and who mention the word “content” in their Tweets.

3. Use the Trending tab and search function on Twitter to identify popular Tweets, participate actively, connect with influencers, boost engagement, and curate content.

You can also identify popular content to engage with by using third-party tools like Triberr or Agorapulse. Follow the trending list by Sparktoro to check popular industry content with high Twitter activity. Take notes of Twitter content types that grab attention or participate in active conversations. Use Triberr, a paid tool, to improve engagement, gather good content, and connect with influencers on Twitter. Track keyword trends and identify popular Tweets on Twitter with Agorapulse and Sprout Social.

4. Use Tweetdeck to reach out to niche influencers and participate in their recent Tweets by liking, commenting, or retweeting.

Engage with them and ask for advice or feedback, as this will help you understand your target audience’s needs better.  

5. Use Twitter Analytics to identify your top tweets and recycle them for more engagement and re-targeting.

The higher the engagement rate, the better-performing your Tweet.  For a more comprehensive approach, export the results to a spreadsheet and sort them to identify Tweets with the maximum engagement. Recycle Tweets by reTweeting it with a comment, pinning the Tweet at the top of your feed, commenting on the Tweet and tagging an influencer, requesting feedback.

6. Boost the reach of your top-performing Tweets with Twitter ads.

Go for a campaign like website clicks or conversions, so that you have to pay only for the clicks that lead to your site.  Use the lookalike audience feature on Twitter for targeting your engaging influencers and the profiles that are similar. It will give you better results than generic keyword targeting.  Run ads once a week at least, if your account is new or if you have a few followers.

7. Create a conversion funnel to warm up your Twitter traffic and build brand awareness before promoting products.

Create a free whitepaper or cheat sheet for sparking interest and generating leads, ask your audience to try your new software for free or give freebies like a t-shirt, mug, or a chapter from your new book. Invite your followers to take a video course (good for problem-solving advice with products, brand building and customer engagement) you have created. Use a tool like Kajabi to create advanced courses and easily host these on your domain.  Build a landing page and drip campaigns for advertising. Create assets that are onsite for social media promotion.   

8. Create a Twitter landing page that is engaging and conversion-friendly to attract visitors and re-target them in the future.

Create a landing page that is minimalistic and tells visitors within 5 seconds what your page covers and what they are supposed to do. Use Twitter cards to make Tweets rich by including text snippets or images from a linked URL. The user can click anywhere on that to navigate to the linked page.  Re-target visitors who click on your tweet the next time they come back with tracking software. Use a tool like Finteza to monitor returning visitors and greet them with CTAs that are personalized, based on how they discovered your Tweet.   Use a tool like Alter to automatically serve pop-ups to visitors who intend to leave your landing or any other page, to prolong engagement.

9. Promote your Twitter landing page, schedule Tweets in advance and diversify your Tweet copy by doing these:

Include your landing page URL in your Twitter profile along with the right CTA to invite clicks. Schedule around 10 to 20 Tweets much in advance and diversify the copy by: Starting it with a “Did you know…” phrase to generate interest. Tweeting numbers or data points from your research paper or case study. Using a CTA called “Download” for better engagement. Tagging a client who provided a testimonial for your landing page, to get reTweets.  Connect your Twitter account to ContentCal, a social media collaboration platform, so that other team members (if you have access to help) can contribute, edit, review and schedule Tweet copies. Schedule recurring Tweets if you Tweet frequently and have a decent follower base already.

10. Engage with niche followers to grab attention, get feedback, and promote your product, using these tips: