Increasing your Twitter following

[HeyShawwwty]

Too many times, people simply Retweet and never actively engage in a conversation or share their opinion on said tweet.
If you really want to get noticed, try to reply to tweets (you otherwise would've only Retweeted) about 80% of the time.
Or if the tweet you want to retweet is short enough, do this:
[insert your comment/opinion here] RT@[inserttweetersname] "*insert their tweet here*"

You probably already know to do all this but I'm going to say it all anyway because people forget. It sounds very basic but even if your comment says "Absolutely agree," others see your handle and have you in mind--not just the person you Retweeted. It's important to make your handle familiar and foremost in the minds of your followers or people who may randomly check out your page.

Remember, for every person's individual tweet, there is the option to "Expand." Expand allows everyone to see how many times that tweet has been Retweeted or Favorited by others... it also shows all the replies to that tweet.

If you say something intelligent/funny, others who expand the tweet, can see your reply, favorite/retweet it, and you're more likely now to gain some followers than you would've been before. Here's an example of an expanded tweet, with a reply that also received some RT's and favorite.

Good luck!

 

[ColdCat]

I'm having a huge issue with Twitter. Several times in the last six months I have had all of my tweets and followers wiped out. I'll log in and I will have 0 followers, be following 0 people and the only tweets that show up and things I've retweeted. A couple of times I've even logged in and my profile pic has been deleted and once my name was even reset to "." I've contacted support but they just emailed me a link to their FAQ page which was no help at all. I've gone from a couple hundred followers to none, told everyone to follow me again and again had it all wiped out. I'm trying to show employers that I'm digitally savvy, but with a Twitter account with no followers and no tweets that is not the impression I'm sending. Any ideas?

 

[Precious Roy]

Someone's trolling you, that's all I can think.

 

[GabeD]

1. Be interesting

2. Interact with people

Those are the best ways

 

[Houston1]

Yes! It's true. I don't understand why Twitter doesn't just automatically erase the "@" when you link a name with it to save everyone a character.

 

[mustangj17]

Because how then would you distinguish between a name and a word? How would you write someone's name without sending them a direct Tweet? The @ serves its purpose.

 

[MNgremlin]

We've been using our sports section account mostly for sending out scores. We also do in-game updates if someone is covering the game.

 

[Schottey]

It's all about having conversations.

In that way, it's not unlike networking in *real* life. Sure there are tricks of the trade, but it comes down to being professional, interesting and engaging. Some people will follow you if they absolutely need your content in their life (and would follow you no matter what), but most will do it simply because you add something here and there that they enjoy.

When I first started on Twitter, I couldn't believe some of the "high-clash" journos who interacted with me and then *gasp* followed me. From what I've figured out looking back, it wasn't because I was RTing their stuff (plenty do that), and it wasn't because they were desperate to read my stuff. It was just a relationship that was built over time.

 

[Rhody31]

I'm appalled at how bad at social media the media here is.
If you're on Twitter, you need to be the one starting trends, not following them. If you're at a local news event, create a hashtag so followers and readers can easily find all the information at one. We had one of those local protests over Ferguson and every reporter was hashtagging Ferguson, which was incredibly dumb because if I wanted to read about the protests here, searching for Ferguson wouldn't help.
Be creative. Make sure you're interacting. Do not tweet play by play. Do not think because you tweet 100 times a day you're doing anything productive. You need to be interesting and give people a reason to follow you. If your only retweets and favorites are fellow media members, you're not good at twitter.

 

[Versatile]

I'm appalled at how bad at social media the media here is.
If you're on Twitter, you need to be the one starting trends, not following them. If you're at a local news event, create a hashtag so followers and readers can easily find all the information at one. We had one of those local protests over Ferguson and every reporter was hashtagging Ferguson, which was incredibly dumb because if I wanted to read about the protests here, searching for Ferguson wouldn't help.
Be creative. Make sure you're interacting. Do not tweet play by play. Do not think because you tweet 100 times a day you're doing anything productive. You need to be interesting and give people a reason to follow you. If your only retweets and favorites are fellow media members, you're not good at twitter.

It'd be easier to take you seriously if you hadn't started by proclaiming no one knows anything, then proceeded to repeat numerous points already made in this thread.

 

[Rhody31]

Wasn't referring to people here as much as the people I read on a daily basis. Some stuff was done poorly the other day and it made me very crazy.

 

[ADodgen]

You might all enjoy reading the Buffer blog. Lots of good info.

I do quite a bit of social media management in my role as an inbound marketer, and that blog is one of my regular reads.

It's worth noting that there's been a fair amount of research that indicates you'll get the best engagement with tweets that are under 100 characters.