Tips on How to Increase the Number of Your Twitter Followers

Some people use Twitter as a social network with a handful of friends and consequently do not want a large number of followers. Others use it to increase their influence and the awareness of their personal brand. For these people it is important to attract a large number of followers - and the right kind of followers. Here are some practical tips on how to gather a large number of suitable followers:

1. Decide on your focus. What is the primary purpose for your presence on Twitter? Think of it as many different communities of interest. What are your key interests? I focus on innovation, creativity and lateral thinking.

2. Write a full and clear bio. You should use the full space allocated for the bio to explain who you are and what you are interested in. Include the keyword topics from above.

3. Include a photo. People like to deal with real people - not avatars or cartoons. Post a friendly image of yourself.

4. Follow people who follow the people you admire. Choose two or three thought leaders in your area of interest and follow them. Now for each, click on their followers and select a large number to follow. Choose ones who have an interesting recent post (shown on their profile) and who live in your geography if that is important to you. The more people you follow the more will follow you back as a matter of courtesy. Since they are also interested in your topic it is likely they will be interested in your posts.

5. Follow to your maximum number. This is 10% more than your number of followers so keep it topped up.

6. Unfollow those who do not tweet or tweet rubbish. When you see someone tweeting spam or dull or offensive material unfollow them to free up space. Also unfollow those who never or rarely tweet. I use http://untweeps.com to do this.

7. Tweet frequently on your topics. I try to post at least 8 tweets per day and I try to add value for my followers with my tweets. I post links to interesting websites or articles - some of which I have written. I often add quotes, humorous items and one-liners to amuse my followers. I use http://socialoomph.com to schedule tweets throughout the day and night.

8. Retweet. When someone posts something of interest to your community retweet (RT) it. This spreads the value and is appreciated by the person who originated the post.

9. Answer questions. Remember that Twitter is a community as well as a bulletin board. Reply to queries and commments that are directed to you.

10. Give your tweets interesting headlines or challenging questions. Try to draw people into your articles and items with provocative headlines that will engage and interest your followers.

Paul Sloane writes, speaks and tweets on innovation, creativity and lateral thinking. He is the author of How to be a Brilliant Thinker.

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