How a novice went from 10 to 2000 Twitter followers in a month. Here’s how to do it.
Last year I decided to try a little experiment to get more followers on my Twitter account. I got the idea from one of my blogging gurus Jon Morrow at Boost Blog Traffic. Jon is the go to guy on traffic for blogs. If you haven’t visited him you must. The beginning of my story is short – I had something ridiculously poor like 10 followers, actually I think I may be even been even lower than that, even the cat next door had more twitter followers than me. I was on a mission to get this number up.
This is me as a Twitter bird. Bright eyes and bushy tailed looking naively into the Twitter world wanting more followers. Thanks to those Tweeters it’s been nice to connect.
In one month I went from 10 to 2000 Twitter followers. It was a bit of fun watching the numbers grow. In fact the numbers worked with my head and I was getting addicted to the numbers going up even if it did feel shallow and meaningless. But amongst some of the shallowness I have actually gotten some real followers.
So what did I do?
- Started following people in my niche.
- Started following my blogging gurus.
- Searched for #mommyblogger or #mummybloggers and followed as many of them as I could.
- I followed anyone that followed me.
- I followed anyone on blogs I read.
What happened
- People stared following me back.
- People of people started following me back.
- I got some tweets retweeted.
- I got some tweets that were favoured.
- I loved the numbers going up.
What tools did I use to help me?
- I joined Unfollowers. This is a great tool for following people and unfollowing people. I like the set up and easiness of Unfollowers.
- I use Bufferapp. Another great tool which will automatically tweet up to 10 tweets of yours per day. You can tweet more but it cost after 10. I am still a novice and not going to pay at this stage but like it.
Pro’s
- Discovering great blogs both in my niche and from the Blogging gurus.
- Getting numbers that go up so quickly when I am trying.
- Making favourite lists of tweeters and able to cut out some of the noise on my busy news feed.
- Given me confidence that I can actually get followers in the social media world.
Con’s
- Not having the right audience.
- Most my audience not really caring or reading my tweets.
- Being a twit that is just following and unfollowing people.
- Can take a bit of time.
- Having a cluttered news feed.
Must read the next paragraph.
Now this is funny, I did follow back some tweeters that had called themselves “@lovemessages” “@omgloving”, “@realquotes”, “@truefacts” or something similar to these (these are not their actual handle names). Don’t follow anyone that is about love, relationship, quotes or even facts type of tweeters. I, in my naivety thought these would be actual romantic messages or even good facts….No, No and NO!! These kind of tweeters are retweeters of porn. Yes I said it porn. It freaked out me out the first. I was on my phone in the middle of the night checking out my feed while I was feeding my baby and up popped this photo of boobs, that wasn’t so bad but then another horrible picture and more horrible pictures that I won’t even go into what they have been…..arrrgh, horrible.
At first I didn’t realise it was a retweet. I pressed the little person icon next to the message and it popped up that I was following the original tweeter – NOOOOOOOO. So then I unfollowed them and then followed again, didn’t get it the first time doh. I opened up the message and saw it was a retweet. I tried to find the retweeter by scrolling on my list to find them, nope that didn’t work, too many on my list by then. Then I tried to find the handle name – NO that didn’t work on my phone. In the end I had to wait until morning to get to my computer and find the offending follower and unfollowing them. Since then I have had a few more porn retweeters pop up and have unfollowed them. I am still useless at unfollowing them on my phone and have to leave it on the tweet and refer back to my computer to unfollow them. I am now a little bit more conservative with my following habits and actually make a judgement about who I will following rather than follow any old twit.
Rules of Twitter
Here are a couple of rules you need to follow so you don’t get your account suspended from Twitter by going too aggressively. Check out the basic rules here.
- You should only follow less than 100 people per day.
- Unfollow only less than 50 to 100 people per day. I was doing 50.
- You are only allowed to follow up to 2000 people until you have 1800 or more people who are following you. Twitter stops you at 2001.
- Once you get 1800 – 2000 followers you can start following more accounts again until 10 000. Then the rules change again after that. I am unsure of these rules after 10 000.
It’s been an interesting Twitter experiment. What a laugh hey?
Have you had any funny experiences with Twitter?
My next experimental venture for followers will be with Pinterest and Instagram. I have free ebook I need to read from Vincent Ng from MCNG Marketing.
Does anyone have any tips for getting more Pinterest or Instagram followers?
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