How to Get Twitch Followers
Follower count is often considered one of the vainest of vanity metrics. I can relate. I’ve had my fair share of ego tied to that golden number on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn—one day I’ll point out my follower growth to a friend and the next I’ll feel all insecure about the number not being big enough.
Still, despite the vanity, there is value in follower count. While it seems like a smug number to chase, followers have a proportional impact on how far and wide your message spreads and the rate at which you get clicks and impressions.
I think the best bit of advice on followers I’ve read is from our co-founder Leo:
Quality is key. Quantity can’t be forgotten.
Follower count is one of the metrics we keep a close eye on with our social media reports and audits. There is a lot of great advice on how to grow your followers on social media (much of which I’ll relay below), and at Buffer we’ve always been interested in the research behind the advice. How, specifically, can you increase your followers? Which actionable tactics can you take today to grow your follower numbers?
I went looking for data—and I think I found a few good answers.
10 tried-and-true bits of advice on follower growth
Before we get into the research-backed methods for growing your followers, I wanted to start off with a quick outline of some best practices for follower growth. You’re likely to come across these ideas when you’re searching for social media tips or reading up on how someone got the followers they did.
Here are the Big 10:
Post great contentWrite a professional bioUse hashtagsPlace a Facebook/Twitter/Instagram logo on your blogEngage with others on the social platformsMake sure your content is shareableReshare other people’s contentReach out to influencersStay activeFollow other users
There’s lots of really good advice here on what works and what doesn’t in terms of adding followers. These strategies are really good for consistent growth of your followers, and most of the advice you’ll read—How I Went From Zero to 380,000 Followers and Twitter Tips From a Marketer with 200K Followers—will be variations on many of these bullet points.
You may have noticed that there is no single, simple hack to get more followers. I’m afraid there’s no switch to flip to get the followers flowing. I’ve seen firsthand that the above tactics do work for building your follower count, so long as you can remain patient, determined, and consistent.
But while there’s no magic bullet for getting more followers, there is at least a good deal of research that can take you down the right path and ensure that your efforts are not in vain. Looking for a surefire way to gain more followers? There’s a good blueprint in this data.
1. Informers vs. Meformers
The key to getting 2x more followers: Share less about yourself
Are you an informer or a meformer?
Researchers at Rutgers University found that only 20 percent of us are informers on social media, while the other 80 percent are meformers. What exactly is a meformer?
Meformers — Users who post social media updates mostly relating to themselvesInformers — Users who post updates that are mostly information-sharing
The Rutgers team ended up creating the term “meformer” after analyzing data from a sampling of Twitter accounts. Their analysis, based on patterns of usage along with tweet and follower data, found a clear divide between those who share information and those who share about themselves.
And how does this relate to followers?
Informers had more than two times the followers of meformers.
It would seem that sharing information on social media is better for your follower count than sharing about yourself.
How can you tell which cluster you fall into—informer or meformer? The research study included an interesting breakdown of the classification of tweets. Researchers rated a sample of tweets and assigned a category to each. Overall, there were nine major categories that were used for classification. Do you recognize some of your tweets in the following examples?
Takeaway
Create amazing things and be a leader in your industry. Then don’t forget to mention it in your bio. Terms like author, expert, founder, and official can be powerful assets to growing your followers.
3. Avoid bursts of updates
Social scheduling is the #1 fix to retain the followers you have
You could also approach the question of getting more followers from the other side: Part of having lots of followers is knowing how to keep them.
There was an interesting study by a group of Korean researchers into the how and why of unfollowing. They looked at 1.2 million Twitter accounts and analyzed 51 days’ worth of tweets and interactions. Through analysis and interviews, they found that the following factors came into play with unfollowing:
Leaving too many updates within a short timePosting about uninteresting topicsSharing the mundane details of one’s life
The interview portion of the research study revealed the concept of “Bursts”—too many updates all at once. More than half of unfollows come as a result of bursts. (Hey, that’s pretty much why we created Buffer! If you’re losing followers because of burst, let us help—try Buffer for free!)
There are other factors at play here, too, and many of them are areas that could ring true for marketers or brands. Do any of these types of tweets hit home for you?
Give things away. Twitter users love discounts and freebies, and they are likely to follow a brand to get some goods. If you can add value in this way—along with your content strategy and branding—you might see your followers grow.
5. Increase your frequency
The more you post, the more followers you’ll have
This one might fall under the title of “common sense” for many of you, so it’s great to see that there’s data to back up the claim. Social media analytics company Beevolve analyzed 36 million Twitter profiles and 28 billion tweets to find the correlation between tweet frequency and twitter followers.
The results (as you might have guessed): Those who tweet more have the most followers.
Specifically:
A Twitter user who has sent 1 to 1,000 tweets has an average of 51 to 100 followersUsers who have tweeted more than 10,000 times are followed on average by 1,000 to 5000 usersIt’s estimated that a person with more than 15,000 tweets has between 100,001 to 1 million followers.
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