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imageNew to Twitter? Created an account a while ago, but don’t know where to begin?

Here are 12 easy steps to build your Twitter following.

  1. Get a profile and header photo. The egg won’t do. A gray header shows potential followers you don’t care.
  2. Fill out the profile. Be authentic. Be witty. But put something truthful down. Before following you back, people will check you out and your profile plays a role in whether or not they follow you. Your profile should provide a hint of the topics you tweet about.
  3. Don’t follow a lot of accounts at first, hoping they will follow back. Following 300 accounts, but having only 10 followers doesn’t look good. Keep the ratio as close as possible. Unfollow some people if it’s lopsided, try them again later.
  4. Engage with people or accounts that you hope to connect with. Comment on their photos, ask a thoughtful question. Be authentic with your compliments.
  5. Use hashtags. No one will find you if you don’t.
  6. Post pictures through Twitter. Don’t use a third party scheduler otherwise there’s a link instead of a photo.
  7. Participate in organized chats or Twitter town halls. These use a particular hashtag and lead discussions on a unique theme or topic. What are you passionate about? Chances are there is a hashtag for it and regularly scheduled meet ups that you can join.
  8. Other people’s content: comment, share and retweet it. Set a goal for 40 to 50% of your content so that it features other people’s content or external links to articles or videos on the topic of interest.
  9. Repeat important information, breaking news, and date-sensitive information several times a week, at different times. Stagger it between other content.
  10. Lose the hard sell. People pay attention to you when you are thoughtful, authentic and relative.
  11. Unrestrict your tweets.Protected tweets can’t be retweeted. Protected tweets defeat the purpose of Twitter in the first place.
  12. Do not auto-post or auto-connect your Facebook account to Twitter. Read more about auto-connect here.

Avoid following accounts that only want to sell you something, or promise more followers for a fee. Be patient, the followers will come, especially if the audience feels a real person is behind the Twitter account.

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