Twitter followers Archives

Nov 24 2015

What are Twitter Followers?

Followers, on Twitter, or Twitter followers, are people who follow you (your account). Each person on Twitter has those following them, and those they are following. Those that are following you can be considered your audience. This article will explain how to follow people, how to follow the people you want in your network/audience, and how to keep your followers.

How do I follow on Twitter?

The “Follow” button is Twitter’s primary tool for connecting people. If you follow someone, you see all of their updates on your Home stream. If someone follows you, all of your tweets will appear on their Home stream.

Once you’ve found someone you want to follow, click on the “Follow” button of their profile. That’s it. They will get a notification that you have followed them.

In real life networking you often have to make the first move and be the one to extend the handshake. The same applies to Twitter. The follow is your introduction to the other person; an invitation for them to connect.

Follows are not obligatory. Just because you follow someone does not mean they have to follow you back. On the flip side, you can follow anyone you like without needing their approval. Typically, we’ve found that about 15-45% of the people we follow, will follow us back.

Are my Twitter followers the right people?

Twitter limits you to 2,000 follows (at least at first). So you’ll want to carefully manage your follow list. We’d suggest you follow the people who could be your ideal client, your ideal referrals, industry luminaries, colleagues, and people you know you can learn from. Use this as a start.

Do know that in our experience, we’ve found Twitter to be a little more casual than some of the other social networks. For example, on LinkedIn, it is typically to see business people with a very professional profile including job title and responsibilities.

On Twitter, we’ve found that those very same people may describe themselves in a more casual way. Just do be aware not to judge too harshly.

Start off by searching for the Twitter accounts of your customers.

Next, search for and follow prominent influencers in your field. They might be CEO’s, subject matter experts, company twitter accounts, or perhaps colleagues with much more experience than you. As you follow them, some may take the time to follow you back. They’ll be able to see your tweets, and will be able to retweet and share your tweets with their own audience. This expands your reach. If they don’t, follow you back, you’ll still be able to learn from whatever resources they share. Either way you win.

Even if you only service clients in a certain geographical area, do not limit yourself on Twitter. It is a global network and you never know if that person who lives 3,000 miles away has followed you because they are moving to your city in the near future and want to be in contact with you for exactly the service you provide.

Keep your Twitter followers by providing value

There is no guarantee that someone will return the favor when you follow them. The best way to ensure follows is by giving value first.

Value on Twitter means information, insights and interaction.

Share valuable insights about your industry on your Twitter feed. If you’re a realtor, for example, you could share tips on finding a good house, or sharing photos of great renovation projects. If you’re an accountant, share news about changes to tax laws or give tips on filing returns. Do this consistently and you’ll be providing value. Sharing industry information you may think everyone already knows is helpful – they didn’t have to go looking for it – you saved them time.

Another way to keep your followers is by interacting with them. This could be in the form of answering questions. Asking how they are doing and what they are working on. You can get a fair bit of information from their Twitter profile – enough to start a first conversation.

Monitor hashtags and keyword search to watch for people asking questions you can answer. We don’t see a huge amount of people doing this (answering questions) so you’ll definitely get noticed. Your help will be appreciated.

The key concept to effective Twitter follows is “value.” Follow people who can provide you or your business with value, whether it’s someone you can learn from, someone who you can work with, or someone who can connect you with other people. On the flipside, the best way to gain followers of your own is to become a contact that others will value. Teach important lessons, share relevant insights and news, and be a person people like interacting with online. Do that consistently enough, and you’ll be surprised at how fast your followers grow.

Add inspirational and motivations business quotes to your Twitter feed as if you’ve tweeted them yourself. A helpful addition to your existing content and the quotes cycle out automatically on YOUR terms. Find out more and try the 30-day trial. NimbleQuotes.com

Sep 11 2015

I’ve Hit My Twitter Follower Limit! Now What?

So you’ve been on Twitter a lot, and been following a whole bunch of interesting people. That’s great! What’s not great is if you follow so many people that you hit the dreaded “Twitter Follower Limit!”

What is the “Twitter Follower Limit”?

This limit is also known as the follower ceiling. Once you follow 2,000 other Twitter accounts, Twitter’s system blocks you from following any more until you increase your own followers to an acceptable ratio (here’s the official Twitter Support Page entry). It’s primarily meant to prevent spammers and unscrupulous users from flooding the system with unwanted follows, although regular people have regularly been caught in the cross-fire.

Twitter doesn’t give any details about the ratio calculation, and so nobody seems to know what the right follower/following ratio is. There are plenty of guesses, but the actual number appears to vary per person.

Wonderful. What do I do about it?

Don’t worry, all is not lost! Even if you hit the Twitter follower limit, there are still ways for you to follow new people. Here are what I’ve found to be the most effective methods:

Audit your followers. Not everyone you follow is following you back. That probably means they’re not interested in what you have to say. So therefore they won’t mind at all if you go ahead and unfollow them! Clear out some space for people who want to connect with you.

Also, weed out your followers who only tweet once in a while (like maybe once every few months). These some-time users aren’t online often enough for you to interact with on a meaningful basis, and probably will miss most of your big announcements, so go ahead and unfollow them, too!

Build a list and follow that. Twitter allows you to build lists of people that you want to follow, without you having to follow their individual accounts. You can stay up to date with their news and information without having them count towards your Twitter follower limit.

Who should you put on these lists? Celebrities or prominent figures would be my first suggestion. You still want to see anything they tweet, but they’re highly unlikely to follow you back or send you a DM. So off to the list they go! The same goes for companies or business accounts, as well as Twitter news accounts like TechCrunch or CNN.

Build up your followers. Lastly, you should increase the number of your own followers. You’re trying to build your audience anyway, right? So keep building those relationships and reaching out to new people. You might not know the ratio of follower/follows, but if you can replace most of your one-way follows with genuine Twitter relationships, then you’re doing great!

Add inspirational and industry-related quotes to your Twitter feed as if you’ve tweeted them yourself. Try out Nimble Quotes for 30-days free, no credit card required. Check out @jenkellyjen, @newimarketing or any of the users on the testimonials page to see how Nimble Quotes show up in a Twitter feed.

Aug 18 2015

Who Sees My Tweets?

When you send out a tweet, just who sees it? Can anyone see your tweets, or just your followers?

Can Anyone See My Tweets?

Once you’ve tweeted your update, those who are following you will see it appear in their Home timeline. The Home timeline is the first page seen once someone has signed in to their Twitter account. It’s where you can see all the recent tweets of the accounts that you’re following.

Your tweets also appear on your profile page. This is where anyone from the public can view your tweets – if your account is public, then anyone can look up your profile and see what you’ve posted. So people don’t necessarily need to be following you in order to view your tweets.

Your tweets won’t appear in the timelines of those who are not following you, but they can search for them. (Except for your direct messages – these cannot be viewed by the public.)

What About Hashtags?

Hashtags are keywords or phrases that begin with the hashtag symbol (#). They are used to categorize tweets. On Twitter, when you click on a word or phrase with the hashtag symbol before it, you will be taken to a page with a list of tweets that contain that same hashtagged word or phrase.

If you use a hashtag in one of your tweets, someone who doesn’t know you but is interested in that topic can see your hashtagged tweet. It’s a great way to generate more interest in what you post and more awareness for you and your business.

Click here for some helpful information from Twitter on using hashtags in your tweets.

So, whether you use hashtags or not, many people can see your tweets. But using hashtags will boost your potential audience!

The Nimble Quotes service posts famous and industry-related quotes to your Twitter feed as if you’ve tweeted them yourself. We offer a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. You’ll get to try 1-8 thought-provoking quotes per day automatically tweeted from your Twitter account, with the option of adding a variety of hashtags and specific timing for your audience. Once your trial is over, it costs about $1/day or about $1/week to continue. Check out Nimble Quotes in action on @jenkellyjen or @newimarketing. Not ready for a trial just yet? Sign up for our newsletter instead.