Learn/How-To-Get-More-Twitter-Followers

This article is a work in progress. Have feedback or suggestions? Email me.

1. Write interesting tweets.

Make sure to add something to the conversation. Give people a feel for what your future tweets will be like so people know what to expect when they're deciding whether to follow you or not.

The more you write interesting tweets, the more likely people are to:

retweet you. This means that your tweet will be re-broadcast to the followers of whoever retweets you.
find your tweets - and maybe follow you - when they search Twitter. When you're writing tweets, think about what keywords people may be searching for, and try to include them.
#FollowFriday you

2. Start following people who know you.

After you've posted at least a few tweets, start following people.

Get a list of your customers, business partners, etc. and look for them on Twitter - then follow them. They'll hopefully notice that you've followed them, and then follow you in return.

3. Once you've followed people you know, interact with them.

Look at the stream of tweets from the people you're following, and respond to people - especially the ones who aren't following you yet. It's important to be a person on Twitter.

4. Include prominent links to your Twitter on your website.

5. Include a link to your Twitter page in your email signature.

This makes it so much easier for people you're already talking with.

I don't know about you, but I'm lazy. When I see a Twitter link in someone's email signature I'm much more likely to follow them. It's a reminder that I might want to follow them on Twitter, and it's much easier and faster than trying to search for them.

6. Include a link to your Twitter page in your email newsletters.

7. Include your Twitter handle on your business cards.

[Show example of mine.]

8. Follow people in your industry or who talk about things you care about.

Search...

9. Ask your employees, friends and family to follow you.

These won't be very meaningful followers, but getting them to follow you can help you gain momentum and get a few more "real" followers if people notice that someone they know is now following you and decide they want to follow you too.

Don't:

Buy Twitter followers.
Have apps tweet for you, like a post everytime you check in on Foursquare, for example. Those get boring and/or annoying really fast.