Part Two of a Three-Part Series

In the second part of this three-part series blog, we continue to discuss three more top, actionable tips you can take to increase your followers on Twitter.

In our first blog, we suggested that you should tweet at least once a day, make sure your tweets contain either an image or video and don’t forget to add hashtags. In this latest blog, we share three more great tips you can adopt to grow your audience:

4. Engage with communities

5. Do more with tweets

6. Get ‘threading’

Twitter has a huge number of online communities where like-minded users like to hang out and tweet about stuff they are most interested in. These communities are organised by hashtags.

Storm hunters might like to hang out on the latest hurricane news; #WinterStormWesley. This community offers a space to those most interested in following hurricane Wesley a place to discuss the latest news and share pics of the storm’s damage.

Reading geeks will love #BookTwitter - it’s an ecosystem of tweets curated around the love of writing. The community is made up of readers, reviewers, authors, agents, and even publishing houses.

You’ll find communities built around hobbies, so if your brand is linked to a hobby, you’d be wise to get connected to your most relevant Twitter communities. Equally, some communities are built from an interest in a key trend or industry. So, if you belong to that industry or that trend impacts your business, you’d be wise to follow those threads too.

Getting involved with communities is a great way to grow your followership. By sharing advice or experiences you’ll easily grow your audience.  

Another great way to identify communities to follow is to look at hashtag analytics. 

They can help you identify niche communities relevant to your business. Brand Mentions is a free tool that offers you insight into related hashtags. So, if you use your Twitter Analytics to identify your best-performing hashtags, then add those to the Brand Mentions app to find out other hashtags you could use in future tweets to generate more engagement and hopefully, grow your followers. 

Another suggestion is to peek at the bios of influencers and big names in your industry to see which hashtags they’re using and then start replicating them in your future posts. 

It goes without saying that tweets that include either an image or a video are more likely to receive engagement on Twitter. The same can in fact be said for any social media channel.

Due to the sheer volume of tweets displayed in any one user’s newsfeed, it’s very easy for them to simply scroll and scroll and miss your tweet. By adding either an engaging image or video to your tweet, they are more likely to stop the scroll and digest your content.

Canva is an amazing free tool that offers beautiful Twitter-sized image templates, where you can simply drag and drop your chosen image into the template. It can make your images look professional and engaging, so if you are not yet on this tool, I urge you to get acquainted. You’ll be so glad you did.

Infographics are another great way to convey complicated messaging, so consider creating one. Yes, Canva also offers some beautiful infographic templates where you simply change out the text to suit your needs.

Whether you’re looking to inform or entertain your audience (or both), filling your feed with visual content can help bring you new Twitter followers.

To truly grow your audience it’s not just about creating regular and engaging content. To truly get under the belly of your profile, you should be actively looking at your followers’ activity, industry influencers and customers to understand their sentiments and key trends.

One way to grow your engagement with other users is to tag their Twitter handles like @firstname. You can also do this by retweeting interesting content that either aligns with your brand messaging or connects with your ethos and values.

If another user retweets your tweet or messages you direct on a public thread, try to respond as quickly as possible, or thank the user for the retweet. This shows your followers that you are a real person and it will help get more eyes on your brand.

Here are a few guidance points on how to make the most of your replies and retweets:

When replying to users, try and offer a detailed and authentic response (as if they were a customer having a face-to-face conversation with you). You’ll score way more new followers by providing a thoughtful response over a one-worded reply.

Shout out other brands whenever possible. Tagging (@mentioning) other brands as a compliment is a popular tactic to show some love to others in your industry. Doing so, shows you as collaborative and supportive which can only enhance your brand positioning.

Retweet your fans and followers. Despite only taking a few seconds, doing so shows that you value their engagement and that you are actively participating on the platform.

The image to the left is an example of Taco Bell attempting to entertain its fans by engaging with other Twitter companies that its fans might follow. By doing so it is likely to gain more followers.

As we all know, Twitter can be limiting in the sense that you can only use 280 characters in a tweet. So how do you communicate complicated messages when you are restrained by character count?

Twitter threads serve as a place to break down concepts and experiences within a single Tweet chain. Think of them like a blog post in the form of multiple tweets. A Twitter thread offers businesses a creative way to get the most out of Twitter’s 280-character limit and they are often brimming with discussion too.

By breaking down your messaging into individual tweets that then form a thread, you are able to explain key concepts in one place and often more clearly too.

By doing so you are much more likely to gain more followers as you keep your message on one screen and the user doesn’t need to navigate off Twitter either. 

So now that we close part two in the three-part series of how to gain more followers on Twitter, make sure to read the next blog, where we will share the final four tips.

Like what you’ve read?

Jo Buchanan, the author of this blog, is the Founder and Director of TwitTwooYou Limited, a business growth strategic consultancy centred on getting brands noticed. TwitTwooYou offers a range of smart services to help businesses grow and achieve their aspirations and goals. Want to get your brand noticed? Get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat.