A New Generation Marketer

Twitter Myths:

“If I tweet a ton, people will follow”
“If I write controversial tweets and posts, people will follow”
“If I follow a TON of people, they will follow back”

But in reality:

Most of the above myths will not work, at least not long term.

Read on…

“So, how do I get followers if none of the above work?”, you might ask.

First: BE GENUINE! Make your bio legitimate and truthful. Do not use flattery terms on yourself like “I am the best at XYZ…” or “Top notch guy…” or “Follow me and I’ll follow you back.” People can sniff out a spammy Twitter account easily if you write bios like these.

To be genuine, make your bio legit, follow real people, engage in meaningful conversations and share great content with them, and don’t falsify yourself.

Second: Don’t just promote yourself, or people will think you spam or only care to talk about yourself. If you use Twitter for the main purpose of getting sales, period, then you will not gain many followers. People want to know that you want to get involved with them and share other meaningful content, rather than just yours. For example, if your company sells music products, aside from occasionally posting about your products, post industry articles, new music producing technologies, how to become a better musician, etc. People will find this valuable and can learn from you.

Third: Network outside of Twitter to meet some of these people. For example, last week, I attended the #SoxUp by Fenway in Boston. Prior to the event, I networked through Twitter to locate others who were attending as well, and made a point to meet them in person there. In addition, I met several other people that I did not know beforehand, and I still keep in contact with them via Twitter.

By meeting people in person and then continuing the conversation on Twitter, relationships can be enhanced by at least two-fold!

Fourth: Keep track of your content. For example, make sure your Twitter posts on the first page are varied and interesting. By this, I mean if someone visits your Twitter page, show them that you 1. Talk with others, 2. Post valuable content, 3. Know what you’re talking about and 4. Have credibility in your field of ‘expertise.’ This will make them much more likely to follow you.

Last, make sure you thank each of your new followers for following you. A simple direct message saying “Thank you for following me [name]” is fine. It shows that there is a person behind your Twitter name and that you appreciate them following you and wanting to learn more about you through your tweets. I have seen this simple effort go a long way, and further conversations can even be generated just by doing this.

By simply following the above tips, you should be seen as a credible, interesting and conversation-worthy person on Twitter, and you should soon be followed by the right people that you want to get in contact with.

The BIGGEST takeaway from this is to not use Twitter for the sole purpose of promoting yourself or your business. People don’t care about YOU, they care about what they can get out of doing business with you or speaking with you, so give them that information. From there, they may be interested in your needs.

If you want to check out how you rank on Twitter after implementing these simple steps, visit Twitter Grader.

Good luck!