21 Effective Ways for Small Businesses to Grow their Twitter Following

Twitter is one of today’s most powerful social medial platforms for business owners. It helps improve a company’s brand, promote products/services, announce upcoming events, monitor competitors… the list goes on. But unless you’re Coca-Cola, Apple Inc. or Samsung, it can seem difficult to increase your Twitter following in a short span of time.

Not entirely true. In fact, there are many things you can do to build your Twitter following even if your business is just starting out. You’re about to find out 20 of the easiest and most practical ways to attract more Twitter followers.

#1: Create a strong profile
Believe it or not, your profile can have a huge impact on whether or not people would be interested in following you. Make your business logo as your profile photo and be creative with your bio. A great Twitter bio should describe your brand and products and/or services. Keep it clear, concise, and a true reflection of your business.

#2: Share interesting content
Sure you want people to know more about your brand and offerings but that doesn’t mean your tweets should be all about your business.Google Alerts, Reddit, Digg, Flipboard, Delicious, The Tweeted Times, Buzzfeed, Storify, and Curata are some of the tools you can use to find interesting shareable content.

#3: Find relevant influencers
To put it bluntly, connect with quality people. Wefollow and Twellow are excellent places where you can search for Twitter users by location, industry, interests or expertise. Another way to find quality people to follow is by using Twitter’s search function.

#4: Engage on Twitter
This means re-tweeting quality content, participating in conversations by posting relevant comments, starting a chat using hashtags, and sending out multimedia content, to name a few. Being consistently engaged helps in establishing visibility. The more Twitter users are seeing your involvement, the more exposure you get and the more people will be interested in following you.

#5: Follow your followers
After all, they wouldn’t initiate following you if they didn’t consider you relevant to them. So return the favor and take advantage of the connection by sharing similar interests and introducing your brand’s personality.

#6: Tweet valuable tips and inspirational quotes
Tips and inspirational quotes remain a big hit with Twitter users. It’s probably because people in general always welcome instructions that are beneficial to them, as well as quotes that will make them feel good. Similarly, posting daily tips is a great way to show your expertise to your target market.

#7: Announce exciting events and irresistible discounts
Doing so will not only help increase your Twitter followers but also boost future sales. Seriously, who isn’t attracted with discounts? Who would pass up an opportunity to attend a fun event, especially if it’s free? The next time you have an upcoming fundraiser, holiday discount, or special promotional offers, share them on Twitter.

#8: Promote your Twitter profile in your company website and blog
Incorporating a Twitter button on your blog posts or website’s contact page lets new and existing customers know that your business exists on Twitter, too. Your Twitter account should serve as another medium for them to know future updates about your products/services or if they want to leave feedback about your business.

#9: Put your Twitter username on your business card
There will be times when you attend seminars, workshops, networking events or conferences where you could meet potential business partners and clients. It would be nice if you could just hand out a business card with your Twitter username to make them aware of your Twitter presence.

#10: Schedule tweets
You can use time-saving tools like Hootsuite to do this. One of the major benefits of creating a tweet schedule is that you can attend to other important aspects of your business while your Twitter account remains active in posting quality tweets.

#11: Encourage your followers to re-tweet your posts
To some it may sound desperate, but asking your followers to re-tweet some of your posts can do wonders in terms of developing your Twitter following. Just don’t overdo it or it could backfire on you.

#12: Share your Twitter account on your Facebook page and/or LinkedIn profile
As of March 2013, Facebook accumulated more than 1 billion users, thus making it a very powerful social media site to promote your brand. If have already created a Facebook fan page for your business, make sure that your Twitter account is visible on that page for potential customers to see.  

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is where you can easily find colleagues and other professionals who can help create some buzz for your business. Hence, it would be logical to have your Twitter account appear somewhere on your public profile, too.

#13: Check out "Who to Follow" on your Twitter dashboard
It won’t hurt to follow the accounts that Twitter recommends. Check the recommended profiles, follow them, read their tweets and find an opportunity to join conversations.

#14: Be an expert on a certain topic
If you are selling drug testing kits, be active in joining conversations about substance abuse or sharing links about new drug laws. Tweet original posts from your blog about drug testing in the workplace or schools. It’s important that you know what you’re talking about to build credibility and visibility. Twitter users will seek you out if they are confident about your expertise.

#15: Use hashtags properly
Hashtags are used to categorize tweets by keyword. Make sure to use hashtags only on tweets relevant to the topic being discussed. Proper usage of hashtags will help you attract more followers while abusing them is a sure-fire way to drive away Twitter users within your area of interest.  

#16: Track your followers
You can use TwitterCounter or Qwitter to monitor your network and see how they respond to your tweets. Identify which of your tweets are attracting followers and which ones are not.

#17: Find and connect with local consumers
Go to Localtweeps.com or Trendsmap.com to find potential customers within your locality. You can also use Twitaholic.com to find local Twitter users with the highest scores in your industry.

#18: Find and answer questions
Wthashtag.com is a good place to start when looking for interesting topics and questions related to your niche. Use this as an opportunity to show your industry expertise by offering a no-nonsense opinion or advice.

#19: Be polite and respectful with your tweets
It doesn’t take a lot to be a responsible Twitter user. Don’t overload your followers’ Twitter feeds with your non-sense posts. Share relevant content and be respectful when replying to tweets. Never argue with anyone as it could only give your business a bad reputation.  

#20: Launch a Twitter contest
If you’re goal is to get new followers or increase your email list, a simple sweepstakes is the way to go. The mechanics are simple: users are entered into a random drawing for a prize by submitting their email address and clicking an "Enter Contest" button. Woobox, OneKontest, PromoSimple, and Signal are some of the most helpful tools you can use in creating your own Twitter sweepstakes.

Other engaging contests that could boost your Twitter following include photo contests, essay contests, video contests, and vote contests. Binkd and
Interactwive are great places to start for Twitter contest ideas.

#21: Use Twitter Advertising

Twitter offers two advertising tools for businesses of all sizes.

The Promoted Accounts is designed to help business owners quickly attract new followers and expand the reach of their online presence. This tool can give you access to a robust suite of analytics. Additionally, you get to connect with customers in a specific geography or with specific interests.

The other advertising tool is called Promoted Tweets which brings your important tweets in front of the right audience. It targets Twitter users by keywords in timeline, interest, geography and device.

The best part about Twitter Advertising is you can set your estimated monthly budget. You can always adjust your budget depending on your ad’s performance.

Use these 21 tips to help you sky rocket your Twitter following, engage and promote your company, services and products!

If you have questions on would like help with your social media marketing, contact us at art@artofonline.com.