How to Build a Twitter Following

As an author, aspiring or published, our goal on social media is always to build alliances, drawa a readership to our website and grow an interest in our book. I’m actually in the process of doing this with Off Her Game. I’m always trying to talk about it (without being all “Look! IT’s my book!”) and get that word of mouth going. But what good is it to talk about it if there’s no one out there to see it?

Pros are now saying that creating a twitter following is one of the best ways to drive traffic, and I agree with them for the most part. I get most of my news there, and I follow blog links all the time from there.

Time to get serious

When I created my Twitter account, defining a purpose was easy. I wanted to have fun. Growing a following wasn’t even on my mind. Different philosophies exist when it comes to growing that following, and I think that I’ve whittled it down into a manageable, fun experience for me.

Have a plan

I’ve had several conversations about people limiting the people they follow to people they’re familiar with. But when you’re a new author, that approach isn’t going to result in the level of promotion you require. We need to have people we can bounce conversations off of, have fun, and interact with. But if we always interact with the same hundred people all the time, are we really going to be stretching our platform and building those relationships?

Maybe that’s not your goal. It certainly wasn’t mine when I started. My Twitter account came along before my Facebook page, or my Pinterest account, or even the author email address I use now.

I’ve always said that Twitter is a world-wide cocktail party and that’s how you interact with people: by mingling.

How we create a quality Twitter following

I’ve had a couple different Twitter accounts, and they’ve all failed spectacularly for one reason or another. In fact, I converted my oldest Twitter account into a feed for when I have new designs out so I could use my current account to grow a readership.

I have friends that unfollow at every turn, and won’t follow anyone. That might work for them, but I like the influx of new blood into my Twitter stream. Sometimes I come up with some very interesting things. I try to follow 10 people a day, though I haven’t had time to look lately. I look mainly for writers, bloggers, book reviewers. Not everyone I follow will be in the publishing industry and that’s important, because there are more people out there than are in the publishing world.

How to find people to follow

I get notifications every time someone follows. I look at every profile. I look at where the tweets come from, how often they respond to people. i like active tweeters. I’m on every day for the majority of the day (even if it’s in the background) so those are the people I look at.

Who do I not follow?

People who don’t interact with others at all. (My exception here is Emergency Cute, which tweets pics of cute animals.)
People who don’t tweet very often but still follow people.
People who follow massive amounts of people, because I’m not sure that they can interact effectively. I don’t want to talk into the void.

It takes time

Active followings don’t happen overnight. Not only that, but Twitter does have a follow limit per day. If you follow too many at one time, it will lock you down. Be patient. You can review Twitter’s Follow Limits here.

So, those that will follow you back (and don’t get bent out of shape if they don’t! They might be waiting for you to engage them in conversation!) will do so within 10 days or so. So what I’ve been doing is going in once a month and slowly pruning away the people I don’t talk to.

This is good to do because once you hit your 2000 people you’re following, Twitter will not allow you to follow more until others close that ratio by following you. So keep your numbers tight to start and you’ll not have to worry about that. And don’t take it personal if people unfollow you. I unfollow constantly. And sometimes, I’ll refollow someone for various reasons.

Interaction is key

You see, if you’re wanting people to follow you, you need to show an interest. Comment on their blogs, tweet their links. RT their book posts. If you give, they’ll give back.

What not to do:

Tweet to others about not following you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a mention from someone saying “Oh, you’re not following me!” and then proceed to try to guilt me into doing it. There might be various reasons why they aren’t following, and it might not have anything to do with you. And not to mention, it’s crude.
Don’t DM people when they follow with self-promo. That’s an automatic unfollow for me.
Don’t sign up for those validation services. I unfollow if I get those messages. You’ll find out I’m real when you engage me in conversation.

Twitter Lists

I’ll admit. I hated the idea of lists when they first came out. Never used them. Now I use them all the time. I have a couple private lists for me. I have a public list with my favorite tweeters and I follow that list more often than I follow my Home feed. This might also be where I put people like celebrities that are never going to follow me back. That way they aren’t taking up one of my following numbers and i can still keep tabs on their tweets.

My Twitter Experience

I love Twitter. It is my favorite social media. I love interacting with people, and it’s always a positive experience for me!

I hope this helps people out there trying to figure out Twitter. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I love hearing from you guys!