How to get Twitter followers fast

I’m not usually one who jumps on a fad and runs with it. Nor am I one who says you can get anything, FAST. It took me an age to get onto Twitter and even now I’m not extremely active on it. Occasionally I look at my messages, click through to anything that interests me and that’s about it. I like it, but I’m not gaga. Yet a month or so in I have over a thousand followers and I spend about 3-4 minutes a day on Twitter.

The big hype with twitter is in its networking capabilities and the opportunity it presents to be in touch with those in your same field of interest(s). This has led to the theory that the bigger network you have, the better. In my opinion I would rephrase this theory as the bigger network of like minded people you have, the better. It’s not exactly your Napoleon Hill Mastermind group but a large network can provide you with interesting and useful information as well as allow you to get your message across to people with roughly the same interests.

So how do you get a good number of twitter followers that will follow you back? Well here is a way to get 237 twitter followers off the bat. These are people on Twitter who have over 10,000 followers. The trick here is to be observant. What do all these people have in common? What you will notice is that for many of these Twitterers (can’t believe I just used that word) their number of followers roughly match the number of people they follow. What this means is that most of the time, they will follow back whoever follows them (hence the name of the article).  Not exactly rocket science but I thought I would state the obvious anyway!

Now that you understand the principle of “follow me-i follow you” you can use it to your advantage. What we know is that people tend to befriend those who have roughly the same amount of followers as they do people they follow, that’s why you befriended the 237 in the above list. That means if your likely to follow back then it is more likely that people will follow you in the hope that it will be reciprocated.

You will notice that you will need to spend a bit of time finding people you wish to follow (and will most likely follow you back) especially in the early stages. However as your followers increase an interesting snow-ball effect begins to happen and you will notice more followers coming your way without you needing to follow them in the first place. This occurs as your list of friends grows and you effectively become viral and hit a certain critical mass. In essence as most friend lists are public, your profile becomes more prominent and people begin to notice.

There is another technique I have used to increase my followers. I was considering whether or not I should put this in my blog in the first place but I want to show that I do have a sneaky side, a side that we all have somewhere. First of all, I am not one of those people who will just add anyone, I usually quickly check a person’s profile before I add them but I will follow the majority of people who are in my related field nevertheless. On the other hand there are people who have Twitter pets and Algerian wrestlers as their followers, yet regard themselves as “online entrepreneurs”. These people are Twitter gold. You can also spot these people by looking through their profile and realising that the only posts they make are the one’s promoting their blog. I ignore Oscar the pooch and find those followers that are in my related field and ad them as chances are they will follow me back. The reason behind this is actually quite cynical but I will explain. I call these Telstra Twitterers, in that they have nothing great to offer yet people flock to them because it’s easy to do so. People following Telstra Twitterers can’t be to picky (because they added them in the first place) so it’s very easy to get these people as followers. It doesn’t make the followers any better or worse but you know that chances are, they will follow you back.

This is probably one of the most candid posts I have written but it seems to be the topic of the day and everyone wants to put their 2 cents in. People have created membership sites and businesses based around getting plenty of Twitter followers. Some bloggers such as Problogger state that you need to be active on Twitter to generate a large following but that is fine for someone like Darren who people recognise but I have seen many people who are extremely active yet only get a trickle of followers. I have also seen some Bloggers who pump out drivel, day in and day out, yet have several thousand followers (Telstra Twitterers). It doesn’t make sense until you dive in a little deeper and find out whats happening.

In essence its just a case of looking at a profile, asking yourself whether or not this person is most likely to follow you. Then ask the question, is this person a Telstra Twitterer? If so, find their followers that are relevant to you then add them, chances are they will add you back. I know, it’s not all noble and organic but did you really expect it to be?