How to Organically Grow Your Twitter Following

Growing your Twitter following can be invaluable.

A larger following increases the authority of your Twitter profile and broadens the reach of your own content marketing efforts. It opens up lines of communication in your industry, helps build upon your positive online presence, and offers you a pool of potential leads for your business. You’d be hard-pressed to find a downside to growing your followers.

Today I'm going to share with you a cool trick to growing your following with users in your industry. It’s a scalable process, so use it as much or as little as you’d like.

Let’s take a look:

The Tools You’ll Need

We’ll be using 2 tools for this process: Tweepi and RightRelevance.

1. First, connect your Twitter account to Tweepi. You’ll be using this tool to trim the fat -- that is, get rid of folks who don’t follow you back. Tweepi is an easy way to keep track of that and much more.

2. Then, connect your Twitter account to RightRelevance. We’ll use RightRelevance to easily find the users you want to follow.

 

The Strategy

Once you’re logged into RightRelevance, type in a category that’s related to your industry or niche. For me, I’ll try 'personal branding.'

Add it as a saved channel so you can refer back to it later.

Then click the influencers tab and decide whether you want to filter by people or organizations. I want to target individuals, so I’ve clicked the “Person” option.

Finally, decide if you want to tailor it even further by location. I want to filter my followers based on New York City, so I’ll click that option.

Now all that’s left to do is scroll down and follow the people that interest you. I’m not going to be too picky because I’ve already let the filters do that tailoring for me. I know that the accounts I follow are going to be people who fit squarely in my industry and live in my city. Perfect!

You can use this method to follow 20, 200, or 2000 people, depending on your goals and time limit. Don’t forget to switch to a new category and do the same thing all over again. I’ve already used “personal branding,” but I could also try “reputation management” and “content marketing."

 

The Clean-Up

Once you’ve followed a batch of users, give them a few days or a week to follow you back.

Then log into Tweepi and click on the category of users called “Not following back.”

The “not following you back” section is pretty self-explanatory. It shows you all the users who, well, haven’t followed you back. You can also see some interesting stats about when they last tweeted, where they’re located, their follower count and follower ratio.

Go down the list and “unfollow” anyone who you’re ready to cast aside. There are bound to be some people or organizations you want to still follow despite their unreturned thanks, so just keep your eyes peeled for that as you fly down the list.

 

That’s it!

Now that you’ve got the hang of it, try it out using other categories and other filter settings to see if you get different results. And let me know how it goes in the comments section below! 

How to Set Up Your Twitter From Scratch (The Right Way)

A whole day dedicated to Twitter?

Yes — if we set things up the right way now, we’ll move a lot faster when we want to quickly schedule tweets, find relevant influencers, and grow our following.

If you haven’t registered and optimized your Twitter profile yet, follow the steps from Day 6 first.

Okay let’s begin:

1. Set up Twitter Analytics

Go to analytics.twitter.com. You have to actually visit this page to tell Twitter to start tracking your analytics. Why don’t they do this automatically? Who knows.

2. Set up Buffer & Get the Extension

Buffer is an application we’ll use to schedule out tweets and find the best times to tweet.

Go to buffer.com → Sign in with Twitter to create your account.

(If you’re truly starting from scratch and have 0 followers, you’ll need to sign up via email.)

Connect your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts when prompted. This will allow you to post to those profiles from Buffer as well.

Put in your time zone and let Buffer figure out your optimal times to post. Choose how many times you want to post -- 2 per day is a safe choice for now.

Tracking links is good. Enter your email to finish up.

You should get prompted to add the Buffer extension. Go ahead and do that now.

3. Set up Hootsuite & Get the Hootlet Extension

You can only schedule 10 tweets with the free Buffer account. I’ve never had an issue with this, but if you’re feeling frustrated, you can use Hootsuite’s scheduling system. It’s not as user friendly but it gets the job done.

Go to Hootsuite, and sign in with Twitter.

Also install the Hootlet extension, which will allow you to schedule out retweets.

4. Set up RightRelevance & Add Content Feeds

RightRelevance is one of my favorite resources for aggregating quality content all in one place.

Go to Rightrelevance.com and connect to Twitter using the button up at the top.

After you’ve signed in, you’ll be prompted to enter your email address. Do that and then add a few topics for yourself using the search bar at the top.

I’ll choose personal branding. After clicking “Add Topic,” it shows up in my sidebar. The point here is I can always go back to this sidebar and see what content is trending in each of these topics. It makes it really easy to find share-worthy content and get ideas for your own articles.

Go through and add a few more topics in your niche.

5. Set up Crowdfire

Next go to crowdfire.com and login in with Twitter.

Crowdfire allows you to easily grow your following, clean out followers who are inactive, set up an automatic direct message to new followers, and a whole lot more.

Sign in with your email. Again, uncheck the follow button unless you’re dying to follow them on Twitter.

NOTE: The next screen asks you if you want to routinely brag to your audience about all the new followers and unfollowers you’ve gotten. You don’t, so hit NO.

(If you were going too fast and accidentally hit YES, go to Automate on the sidebar, click the Automatic Tracking along the top, and uncheck the “Tweet my follower and unfollower stats.”)

We’re going to wait until next week to start actually growing your following.

6. Add Tweets to Your Queue

Now let’s add some tweets to the queue.

Go to buffer.com and click on your queue. This is your tweet pipeline. It’s where your tweets will reside until they get sent out at the scheduled time.

Add your latest blog post

Copy the URL to the post, and don’t be alarmed when Buffer shortens it. Then give it a title, add a photo and a hashtag or two. Leave enough characters (20ish) so that people can retweet you without editing your post. Adding an image takes up a lot of characters but the extra engagement from images makes that move totally worth it.

Then add your article a second time. Don’t worry -- you’re not tweeting it out twice in a row. We’re going to fill in that space with other posts.

Try to give it a different title, maybe a quote or alternative title the second time around.

• e.g. The 28 Day Online #Reputation Management Challenge {URL} #ORM #personalbranding

• e.g. Want to get your #PersonalBrand in shape? Try the 28 Day Online Reputation Management Challenge {URL} #branding #ORM

7. Finding the right hashtags

Go to RiteTag.com (and sign in with Twitter.)

Type in the hashtag you’re curious about in the search bar. When I try #personalbranding, I see that there are 21 tweets per hour that use that phrase (my competition) and 30,000+ people who see those tweets per hour (my audience). Not bad.

#Branding is much more popular at 400,000+ people per hour. But there are also 217 other people using that hashtag every hour. More competition.

For reference, the blue tags have a longer shelf life because they’re not as popular as green. The green ones are trending -- you can take advantage of that by getting in front of more people but your tweet is likely to get buried in the noise faster as well. Grey hashtags are no good and red tags are overused.

If I have the space, I’d always prefer to use one blue and one green hashtag.

8. Fill in the rest of the queue

Go to RightRelevance and find some articles that fit your brand and add them into your queue using the same strategy. The goal will be to tweet your content and curate other high quality content to turn your Twitter into a content authority in your niche. 

9. Schedule Retweets

Finally, let’s schedule a few retweets.

In Twitter, search a person or a phrase that fits your brand. I like Neil Patel’s work so I found him on Twitter and scrolled down his feed to find one of his latest posts.

When you find the right post, click the little owl to activate the Hootlet extension.

Sign into Twitter. Then choose your Twitter account from the little dropdown menu. Click Post Later and schedule the post whenever you’d like. Perhaps on a day that you’re not tweeting.

Closing Note

And that’s it! Your Twitter is all set up and ready to kick ass.

Now you’ll be able to schedule tweets with ease, retweet your favorite authorities, and grow your following quickly and effectively. Tweet me if you have any questions :)

A Powerful, Organic Strategy to Grow Twitter Followers In Your Industry

Growing your Twitter following can be invaluable. A larger following increases the authority of your Twitter profile and broadens the reach of your own content marketing efforts. It opens up lines of communication in your industry, helps build upon your positive online presence, and offers you a pool of potential leads for your business. You’d be hard-pressed to find a downside to growing your followers.

In this post, I share a simple but effective strategy to organically grow your Twitter following with users in your industry. It’s a scalable process, so use it as much or as little as you’d like.

Let’s take a look:

The Tools You’ll Need

We’ll be using 2 tools for this process: Tweepi and RightRelevance.

1. First, connect your Twitter account to Tweepi. You’ll be using this tool to trim the fat -- that is, get rid of folks who don’t follow you back. Tweepi is an easy way to keep track of that and much more.

2. Then, connect your Twitter account to RightRelevance. We’ll use RightRelevance to easily find the users you want to follow.

The Strategy

Once you’re logged into RightRelevance, type in a category that’s related to your industry or niche. For me, I’ll try 'personal branding.'

Add it as a saved channel so you can refer back to it later.

Then click the influencers tab and decide whether you want to filter by people or organizations. I want to target individuals, so I’ve clicked the “Person” option.

Finally, decide if you want to tailor it even further by location. I want to filter my followers based on New York City, so I’ll click that option.

Now all that’s left to do is scroll down and follow the people that interest you. I’m not going to be too picky because I’ve already let the filters do that tailoring for me. I know that the accounts I follow are going to be people who fit squarely in my industry and live in my city. Perfect!

You can use this method to follow 20, 200, or 2000 people, depending on your goals and time limit. Don’t forget to switch to a new category and do the same thing all over again. I’ve already used “personal branding,” but I could also try “reputation management” and “content marketing."

The Clean-Up

Once you’ve followed a batch of users, give them a few days or a week to follow you back.

Then log into Tweepi and click on the category of users called “Not following back.”

The “not following you back” section is pretty self-explanatory. It shows you all the users who, well, haven’t followed you back. You can also see some interesting stats about when they last tweeted, where they’re located, their follower count and follower ratio.

Go down the list and “unfollow” anyone who you’re ready to cast aside. There are bound to be some people or organizations you want to still follow despite their unreturned thanks, so just keep your eyes peeled for that as you fly down the list.

That’s it!

Now that you’ve got the hang of it, try it out using other categories and other filter settings to see if you get different results. And let me know how it goes in the comments section below! 

12 Twitter Tools to Take Control of Your Online Reputation

Online reputation management is all about developing your personal brand, publishing quality content, and taking control of your search results. Twitter is an obvious choice if you’re looking to get control of your search results — it ranks well on its own and can be a powerful resource for increasing the engagement of your original content.

But there is a big difference between using Twitter like an average user and using Twitter like a pro to impact search results. First, you'll need to optimize your Twitter profile. Then use these 12 twitter tools to give you the jumpstart you need to take control of your online reputation:

1. RightRelevance

RightRelevance is one of my favorite resources for aggregating quality content all in one place. RR mines the web to consistently find and rank the most influential people and articles for any given topic. Once you’ve signed in via your Twitter account, simply add all your favorite topics to your feed (that column on the left) and then check them whenever you’re low on content.

Once you've clicked on a particular topic, you can view the ‘Influencers’ tab (across the top) to see that topic’s most influential users and find loads of people to follow in the industry. You can do it all easily right from the RightRelevance interface.

2. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a data miner’s best friend. It shows you the most shared pieces of content for a given topic and a given timeframe. It teaches you which social networks and platforms you’ll want to target based on your industry and interests. And it is also a critical brainstorming tool because it shows you what your competitors and peers are doing. Use it to discover content, improve your content, and come up with brand new content altogether.

3. RiteTag

If you’re tweeting about ‘entrepreneurship,’ how do you know whether to use #entrepreneur #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship or some other variant? 

RiteTag, that’s how. Simply enter a keyword and RiteTag will determine how many unique tweets per hour, retweets, potential hashtag views, etc. You can even view a historical timeline of that hashtag’s popularity over the last month. 

From my RiteTag search above, I can see that #entrepreneurs and #entrepreneurship are good but #entrepreneur is better by a long shot. Case closed. The RiteTag extension makes this even easier by integrating directly with Twitter, Buffer and Hootsuite but it only lasts for a 30-day free trial unless you’re willing to dish out a monthly fee.

4. Buffer and 5. Swayy

I go back and forth between Buffer and Swayy a lot. Buffer has quickly become one of my all-time favorite Twitter tools because of its amazingly easy queuing system. You set up as many posting times as you want throughout the week and your tweets will automatically fall into line when you add them to the queue. With Buffer’s new Content Suggestions (which will probably get better and better), you can throw ready-made tweets right into your queue with one click. Just season with hashtags to taste.

But as good as Buffer’s content is, it isn’t curated based on your interests, which is why I’m drawn to Swayy. Swayy’s content suggestion engine gets better and better the more you use it because it learns what types of content you like to share over time. Swayy also suggests users to mention and hashtags to use. (The hashtags sometimes leave something to be desired, however, so I would still stick to RiteTag.) 

Buffer lets you easily throw images into your queued tweets to increase engagement but you have to pay to schedule more than 10 tweets at one time. Swayy doesn’t make it easy to use images but it does let you schedule an infinite amount of tweets. Sigh…the debate rages on.

6. Pablo

Even if you don’t use Buffer, you should still use its younger brother Pablo. Pablo lets you create engaging social media images in under a minute. Upload a picture of your choice, pick a quick background option, enter a title, and you’ve got a custom image ready to go.

7. Canva

If you have a little more time to make an engaging social media image, then Canva is the way to go. Canva - which deserves a whole article to itself - lets you easily create stunning designs, images, infographics, and more. Their awesome templates and cookie-cutter social media sizes makes this process as easy as it can be.

8. Hootsuite

Hootsuite has become one of the standard tools for social media managers because it was early on the scene (2008) and its dashboard integrates with a whole range of social networks from Twitter and Facebook to LinkedIn and Google+. Heck, it even supports MySpace if you’re into that.

I actually prefer Swayy and Buffer as pure scheduling tools but one thing I will say about Hootsuite is that it makes scheduling retweets a cinch. Simply install the Hootlet extension on your browser and you’re ready to start spacing out your retweets.  All you have to do is click the little owl instead of the retweet button to throw retweets into your queue.

9. Tweriod

Tweriod helps you make the most of your tweets by analyzing your Twitter followers and letting you know the best times to tweet. It will tell you when you get the most exposure, when most of your followers are online, and when you received the most @replies. Use this simple tool before setting up your customized schedule to get the most out of your tweets.

10. WhoUnfollowedMe

One of the easiest ways to NOT get followers and quality engagement is to just follow people willy nilly and let your following/followers ratio get all out of whack. Think about it — if you follow 2000 people (the maximum Twitter will allow unless your ratio is healthy) but only have 100 people following you back, that’s a pretty sure sign that you’re a spammy user. Most users will steer clear.

That’s where WhoUnfollowedMe comes in. It helps you catch the people who once followed you but have since unfollowed you. You can quickly see who those users are and then seamlessly unfollow them back to keep your ratio clean and healthy. You can also use the tool as a great way to view the people who have followed you recently and decide who you’d like to follow back. 

11. Twitter Analytics

Twitter analytics is a really easy and useful. Simply go to analytics.twitter.com to start tracking your account with Twitter analytics. Then you can check back at any time and see a 28 day summary of your Tweets, Impressions, Profile Visits, Mentions, and Follower Growth. You can compare this month’s numbers to last month’s and can see some great highlights like your Top Media Tweet, your Top Follower, and how many impressions your Top Tweet received.

12. Followerwonk

Moz’s Followerwonk tool does a lot of things, but my favorite is the analysis feature. Simply put, it helps you figure out when your followers are online and engaged. This is critical because it gives you a great sense of how you can be more efficient with the time you spend on Twitter. Tweet when your followers are active and lay off when they’re not. 

6 Steps to Optimize Any Social Profile For Maximum SEO Value

Impacting search results isn’t as simple as it used to be. You can’t just plant a link farm or stuff keywords like crazy and expect great results. Those actions are actually much more likely to earn you a Google penalty. Today’s SEO is all about publishing quality content and driving organic user engagement. There are no shortcuts to winning Google's heart.

But, there are still 6 steps I always use as a default when building social profiles for a new client. I’ll go through them here and use my Twitter as an easy example. I ran into some classic stumbling blocks along the way, so I'll share those here and give you my thought process for each step.

Step 1: Reserve Your Custom URL 

Keywords aren’t what they used to be but search engines still look to the URL as a sign of what the online property is all about. If I want my Twitter profile to rank well for my name, it’s wise to have my name in the URL slug. That means making my username my full name.

Protip: Don’t get twitter.com/rickross if people know you by Richard Ross. 

Above, you'll see the one thing a brand strategist hates to see: the ideal username is already taken.

In this case, there are a number of directions you can go. Ryan_erskine and erskineryan were already taken as well and I’m not one to add numbers at the end of my username. So I decided on ryanerskineNY. Putting my location in the URL slug won't hurt and it might even offer a slight boost to my search results. 

Step 2: Put Your Name in the Title

It seems obvious, but step 2 is putting your name — or whatever you’re trying to rank for in search results — in the title. Search engines still take title tags seriously and I would be wasting a useful spot for my name if I didn’t put ‘Ryan Erskine’ here.

Step 3: Upload Your Optimized Image

The next thing you’ll want to do is upload a profile picture. Some social profiles automatically rename and resize your image (as Twitter does here) but it’s useful to remember this step as you construct other social profiles and web properties.

1. First, name your image appropriately. This part is easy. Rename your image on your desktop (or wherever you’ve saved it) as the full keyword. In this case, I’ve renamed my image as “Ryan Erskine” before uploading it. 
2. Optimize your image’s size. As Google cares more and more about load speed as a SEO factor, it is critical to upload images that are appropriately sized. We’re only dealing with a handful of pixels here in the Twitter profile picture, so a high definition picture would be a waste of space and load time. 

Step 4: Input Your Location

You should always determine a consistent public location to use when building your social profile foundation. Yes, there will be overlap when people search your name from different locations, but the city you input will be an important factor for search engines that tailor their results according to geography. I've used New York here.

Step 5: Link to a Property in Your Campaign 

The logic here is this: by linking to another site in my campaign, I’m taking the valuable authority my Twitter account generates and am providing an authoritative link back to my main website. 

My website, ryanerskine.com, is an important link in my campaign’s link structure, so I’m linking back to it here.

Step 6: Write a Unique Bio With Your Name

Your bio is another prime opportunity for you to use your full name or keyword. Clients sometimes feel weird about this concept of writing in the third person, but the reasoning is simple - search engines don’t know what “I” refers to, but they sure as hell know your name.

Unfortunately, Twitter leaves us very little room and I wanted to include @Brandyourself and a number of relevant hashtags so I actually skipped this step in my optimization process. 

Closing Note

This is a great place to mention a caveat. You have to pick your battles when working in the world of SEO. Sometimes what’s best for SEO isn’t best for the online branding campaign. In this case, I couldn’t fit my name because it was more important for me to have the association with my company and some relevant, valuable hashtags so I could drive user engagement. 

These 6 steps are all important defaults but they are just that — defaults. Feel free to break the rules when it makes sense for your campaign. And don’t forget to have fun!

5 Ways the Amish Can Help You Jump-Start Your Twitter Following

Upon first glance, Twitter followings and Amish craftsmen appear to have very little in common. In fact, claiming that they are similar may even sound ludicrous. But, crazy as it sounds, the Amish way of life can actually offer a number of valuable insights into how you can jump-start your Twitter growth.

Consider the following...

Be Deliberate:

Did you know that most Amish groups don’t reject technology? In fact, many are actually quite engaged with modern tech, including company websites and personal telephones. The difference is that the Amish are much more suspicious of technological advancements. When a new technology comes out, they make a deliberate choice whether or not to include it into their life.

The question the Amish raise for new technologies -- “Will this hurt me?” -- is the same sort of question you should ask when deciding to jump on the bandwagon for a new fad, twitter campaign, or trending hashtag. If cookie giant, Entenmann's, had asked itself this question in 2011, they might have avoided the #notguilty mess after the Casey Anthony trial.

Fill a Niche:

Today, Lehman’s is an internationally known hardware store with over 40,000 square feet of showroom space. But Jay Lehman started his small store in Ohio back in 1955 with a unique goal: to build a non-electric hardware business to serve the needs of the Amish community. He loved the Amish country and wanted to capture that niche market.

Filling a distinct niche is the best way to pave a clear path to success for yourself or your business. Determine what unique benefit you want to offer your Twitter followers and try to primarily stick to tweets that fit that criteria. Remember, by trying to please everyone, you spread yourself too thin and please no one.

Build to Last:

Quality. Reliability. Durability. These are the traits that come to mind for Amish craftsmanship. Brands are bound to fail when they focus exclusively on efficiency, speed, and profits at the expense of quality connections with their consumers.

When building a Twitter following, make sure you focus on the core elements that will keep your followers coming back again and again. A hastily-planned twitter account may cause you headaches as you try to expand or change later on. Do your research, track your analytics, and take the necessary steps to continually engage the right types of users. That means offering fresh and original content, using creative campaigns and tactics, and following the most influential users in your niche.

Be Honest:

Amish craftsmen are known for being honest about their products’ features and letting their customers make up their own minds. In fact, the link between the Amish and honesty is so strong that many companies are starting to put Amish on the label as a marketing ploy.

Flashy sales pitches may capture your followers’ attention, but they won’t help your brand or reputation. People will feel emotionally connected to you if you appear open, honest, and a real live person. Give your tweets an honest and engaging personality and you’ll reap the benefits. (Check out my previous article for more info on creating conversational and engaging content.)

Embrace Simplicity:

The beauty of Amish food, furniture, and clothing is its superior craftsmanship and utter simplicity. When deciding how to create your Twitter strategy, remember to prioritize what’s most important and let the rest fall to the wayside. Tweeting every hour on the hour may reach a ton of users, but it comes across as needy and will alienate your most active followers who will prefer some breathing room in their Twitter feed.

If you come up with a bunch of promising tweets in one go, save them as drafts or schedule them out over the next week to keep things consistent. By crafting fewer tweets that have a greater impact, you’ll dramatically increase your credibility and reputation.