I noticed recently, since reaching 4,000 followers on Twitter, my "new Twitter follower" email notifications have been steadily increasing. This means I have a constant influx of new follower profiles to visit, check out and consider offering a return follow. Not surprisingly, most of my new followers are real individuals, while the rest are made up of brands, agencies, non-profits and marketers using Twitter to get the word out about their overall business or a specific project.
Despite whether you are an individual or a brand - playing well with other Twitterers is the key to success. With success here meaning more followers.
How do I (quickly, in 10 seconds or less) decide who I follow back? It's based on a couple factors, but overall they must:
- Have at least a handful of @'s on the first page of their profile, showing they listen, engage and talk with their followers.
- Have a completed profile, with their real name, website URL and, an interesting/compelling bio.
- Have a close following to follower ratio, meaning they actually follow people back and/or they don't follow a disproportionately larger number than those that follow them back.
- Talk about more than strictly "what they are doing." In other words, they share links, photos, videos and their most coveted thoughts with their followers.
In a matter of 10 seconds from looking at a profile, I have to get the impression they care about the community, enough to actually read some of my tweets and perhaps start a conversation with me at some point in the future. I am only encouraged to follow back those that play well with others, and contribute to the greater (Twitter) good.
Twittering for Business
This especially goes for brands, agencies, marketers, and basically anyone Twittering for business. The best strategy to pull in new followers AND grow awareness of your business AND drive traffic- is to consistently post balanced tweets (between promotional and non-promotional) that are posted by a particular voice or collective voice, based on the personalities and characters of the real people working for the brand.
A few days ago, while clicking through my new follower email notifications, the Suntimes and BestBuy221 Twitter profiles caught my eye. Both the Chicago Sun-Times and the #221 Best Buy store in Tulsa, link to and promote their brand through their bio and tweets, but also participate in random conversations through @ing others and discussing topics that have nothing to do with their business. It's new followers like these that make me happy to see brands using Twitter for business, because they are joining the community the right way, rather than the easy, spaming way.
