Gaining Twitter followers is hard! Let’s be real, getting new followers on any social media site is hard. But Twitter is a unique platform with it’s own set of challenges. In some ways, its’ easier to gain Twitter followers than it is to gain followers on other sites, but you have to know what you are doing.
It is possible to gain Twitter followers quickly and legitimately. The legitimate part is important – no one wants fake Twitter followers. Follow these steps to gain 500 new followers in less than one month! Keep it up, and you’ll be a Twitter influencer in no time!
How to Gain Twitter Followers Quickly
Growing your Twitter following actually isn’t that difficult, but it does take a lot of time and effort. Here’s a list of what we’re going to cover in this post.
- Twitter Profile
- Like Follows Like
- Engagement Engagement Engagement!!
- Content is King
- Hash it up
- Support Groups
- Twitter Chats
This post is going to help you get started with building your Twitter account. You need to master the basics. Let’s start with your profile.
1. Twitter Profile
In order to gain Twitter followers, you need an interesting profile. And that starts with an actual profile photo and cover photo. They can be avatars, pictures of pets, pictures of you, whatever. But nobody wants to follow an account that has the general Twitter egg as the main photo. That screams bot to me, and it probably screams bots to many others.
Next, you want to write an epic Twitter bio. Tell us something about yourself! Followers want to know that you are a real person. I personally don’t like to follow accounts with a lot of emojis in their bio because in my experience, those have had the most spam. But you do you on that one, my personal opinion isn’t relevant to your brand. Last, you should add a link to your website, and pin one of your most interesting Tweets. Your first Tweet impression is more important than you think.
So now that we’ve covered the bare bones basics of building your account, let’s get to the real tricks of how to gain Twitter followers.
2. Like Follows Like
The best way to get followers when you are brand new is to follow similar accounts. By similar, I mean in size and in content. Let’s take my @partnersinfire Twitter account for example. I’m using this account to promote a financial independence and lifestyle blog. Therefore, I should be following small-time bloggers who are also looking to grow their audiences. I should also be following people who are into related topics: finance, saving money, budgeting, etc.
One tip that I always see on other “how to gain Twitter followers” posts is to follow the big shots in your field. I don’t like this advice. When I’m trying to gain followers, I don’t focus on following the giants in my niche. Mr. Money Mustache is one of the most popular financial independence bloggers in the world. He has amazing content, but he also has over 80 thousand Twitter followers. He’s not going to be excited about getting one more; and he probably won’t follow back. In fact, he’s only following about 50 people. I honestly don’t even understand the point of following him unless I love his content (I do not). I don’t want to emulate him, I want to grow my own brand. The only reason I could see this being beneficial is that you can see who follows him – those might be people who’d also want to follow you. But you don’t need to follow him to see that.
It’s better to follow smaller accounts who are in the same boat as you are. Follow others who are just starting out with social media and who are trying to grow. They are much more likely to follow you back, and they will be an integral part of the community that you are engaging with. Their followers list is also a great place to look for new followers.
3. Engagement^3 (That’s Engagement Times 3!)
In my humble opinion, engaging with other Twitter users is the number one path to growth. By engaging, I mean commenting on their posts. Likes and Retweets are nice, but the person isn’t really going to remember you or acknowledge you if that is all that you do. Who are you going to remember, the person who opens a door for you or the person who tells you that they love your bag? It’s the same concept. If you want other users to notice you, you are going to have to comment on their posts.
What kind of comments should you make? The beauty is that it doesn’t really matter. You can write whatever you think of. I sometimes agree with the original commenter, or write a funny story about how that comment relates to my life. Sometimes I even disagree, but I always do so in a polite and respectful way. The only way to mess this up is to be rude, offensive, dismissive, or generally negative in any way. The point of Twitter (for us anyway) is to be positive, create a brand, and spread a good message. We don’t want to make anyone feel bad. So keep you replies positive, even if you disagree with something.
4. Content is King
We’ve all heard that great content is the number one path to success when it comes to blogging, but it is true for getting Twitter followers as well. You want to post interesting, engaging things on Twitter that your followers and potential followers will appreciate. This is often a struggle for me because I don’t know what to Tweet about. What should I say? Will people like that? Will I get hate for this Tweet? Has this been said before? Will people actually engage with this? These are all questions that I have asked myself before Tweeting. But it really doesn’t have to be that hard! My Tweets usually fall into six categories: Questions, Pictures, Promotional, Humor, Passionate Subjects, and Quotes.
An example of my Tweeting method. You can see I have humor with a quoted tweet, a promotional tweet, and a poll with an interesting question
Questions
This is probably the format I use the most. I ask Twitter questions all the time. I ask blogging questions, I ask social media questions, I ask finance questions. I’ll ask any type of question on Twitter. People love to answer questions! And sometimes people follow you because they want to know the answer too. I mix it up between asking a straight up question and running a poll, because as we know in the finance world, diversification is key. It’s important on Twitter too, you don’t want to bore your followers!
Pictures
Everyone likes to see pretty pictures every now and then. And I’m sure a bunch of research shows that Tweets with pictures tend to get better engagement than Tweets without. So show some pictures! Share a cat or dog picture every now and again, or share a picture of your every-day life. Followers like to know that you are a real person.
Promotional
Of course, if you are like me and every blogger ever, you are using Twitter to promote yourself. So, some of your original Tweets should be about you! Share your latest blog post, share something positive that happened in your life, share your social media accounts, share your wins (and your losses, Twitter can be incredibly supportive!). But make sure this isn’t the only thing you are doing. We have all seen accounts where all of their posts are self-promoting, and they just look spammy. Nobody is going to want to follow that.
Humor
I try to be funny every now and then. If I can get someone to laugh, they may want to follow me, right? Unfortunately, I’m not a comedian (though I laugh at myself a lot) so my funny tweets are few and far between. But, I’ve seen a ton of Twitter accounts get noticed and attract followers with just one funny Tweet. Even if you’re just hilarious one time, having that tweet go viral can create a huge spike in followers.
Passionate subjects
I really don’t want to use my Twitter account as a soapbox, but sometimes I think it is important. There are a few issues gaining national attention that are extremely relevant to the blogging community and to our lives in general. I can’t help but to Tweet about them. There are lots of great examples – I’ve posted about net neutrality when that was a big deal, political subjects that I feel strongly about, social distancing wins, and anything else that I feel is important. This is a great way to connect with others who share your values.
Quotes
A final great way to post engaging content is to quote other people’s Tweets. Instead of hitting the easy Retweet button, add your own spin by quoting the Tweet. Anything that adds value to the original tweet will get you noticed. General Retweets are fine every now and then, especially for important topics, but they don’t add any value. They don’t add content to the conversation. So instead of hitting the Retweet button, quote the tweet and add your own spin. It doesn’t have to be anything profound. You can quote a Tweet and say how much you agree with the original author.
A great thing about using this method is that the original author will receive a notification, and will often engage with your quoted Tweet. They won’t do that with a Retweet. I try to limit simple Retweets to topics that I am incredibly passionate about and supportive thread Retweets (more on that later).
5. Hash it up
You have amazing content that you have written, but how are you going to get people to see it if you don’t have any followers? Twitter has an easy solution to that: hashtags! Hashtags are a great way to get your content seen by other people who share your interests. The important thing is to keep your hashtags relevant. I tweet about Financial Independence a lot, so I use #financialfreedom, #fire, and #finance. But if I’m asking a question about blogging, I won’t use those; I’ll use general blogging hashtags.
People do actually search hashtags. It’s a great way to find accounts to follow. When I was at a paltry 0 followers, I searched related hashtags that I mentioned earlier to find related accounts to follow. I engaged with tweets that were applicable to the hashtag discussion.
But be cautious about using hashtags. I know a Twitter user whose tactic is to use the hottest trending hashtag on every tweet, even if it is totally unrelated. This is not how you gain followers – no one wants to follow a spammer. Only use hashtags that are relevant to the subject that you are tweeting about.
How Can I Increase My Followers on Twitter Quickly
6. Support Groups
My sixth method for gaining Twitter followers is one that helps you get there fairly quickly – and that’s joining blogger support groups. For the most part, fellow bloggers are the most supportive people out there. Find bloggers to follow and engage with, and they generally follow and engage right back. They don’t even have to be in your niche.
I joined a “bloggers follow” thread and gained about 30 engaging followers within an hour of joining. These amazing Twitter users run blogs on all sorts of topics, from make-up to lifestyle to travel to living with traumatic injuries. Everyone supports each other and reads each other’s blogs. In addition to gaining a bunch of followers, I gained a wealth of information on a huge variety of topics! You can follow the account @bloggerstribe to get a start on finding some supportive bloggers to follow.
Not All Groups are Equal
Be careful with follow threads though. Very Careful! I made the rookie mistake of thinking that all follow threads would be like the amazing blogger follow thread that I chanced upon. Oh how wrong I was! I joined a regular “follow thread” and it was a huge mistake. It was one of those “follow everyone who Retweets this to gain followers” things. So I Retweeted it and followed everyone else who did.
Bad idea. First of all, most of them didn’t follow back, so I didn’t really gain many followers. But the worst thing about it is that my feed was suddenly filled with spammy Retweets of “follow for follow” and “gain followers this way”. All of the awesome content that my real Twitter friends were publishing was drowned out. I promptly unfollowed everyone who spent their time on Twitter re-Tweeting for followers.
What was the difference between the blog thread and the other thread? The blog thread had real people involved who were genuinely trying to grow their brands, their blogs, and their Twitter accounts. They cared about engaging because it was more than just a number, it was themselves.
The general “follow thread” was filled with accounts (people or robots, who knows?) that were just trying to get more followers. They didn’t care about having relevant content or engaging with people, they just wanted the largest number of followers possible. To be honest, that’s not the type of account that I want following me anyway. I want to gain Twitter followers who are interested in what I have to say and who will engage with me. I’d buy Twitter followers if I just wanted a large number – but fake Twitter followers do nothing to help you grow your brand. I’d rather grow my account organically.
7. Join Twitter Chats
A Twitter chat is a scheduled discussion on a certain topic. There are travel chats, finance chats, credit chats, and basically chats for any subject that you can think about. The content of the chat is joined with a hashtag – think #creditchat or #travelchat. Often times, brands will sponsor the chat, and ask influential accounts to host them (this is often a paid task – another great reason to get more Twitter followers!)
Joining these chats as a user is a great way to increase your engagement and gain more followers. Answering the chat questions builds your credibility in the niche, and helps you find people to follow that are interested in the same topics that you are. I usually gain 10-15 followers after participating in a chat.
Get to Twittering!
Growing your Twitter following really isn’t that hard. If you follow similar accounts, engage with other, post awesome content, use relevant hashtags, and join some support groups you will be able to gain at least 500 Twitter followers each month! So what are you waiting for? Get out there and Tweet it up!
And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for even more tips and a ton of quirky content! Mention that you read this blog post and you’re sure to get a follow from me!
Melanie launched Partners in Fire in 2017 to document her quest for financial independence with a mix of finance, fun, and solving the world’s problems. She’s self educated in personal finance and passionate about fighting systematic problems that prevent others from achieving their own financial goals. She also loves travel, anthropology, gaming and her cats.
Great tips! I really enjoy following you on twitter and following along with your blog 🙂 500 followers in one month is a huge accomplishment!!
Thank you so much! I’m so happy that you are a fan of my Twitter page 🙂
This was really helpful thank you! My blog is new to Twitter so I’ve been struggling to grow my followers, definitely going to try these tips out 🙂
http://www.beautydose.co.uk
Yay! Glad I can be helpful! Please let me know how it goes!
Great Tips! My partner and I are trying to break up the tasks of social media – he’s on Twitter, I’m on Pinterest. Pinterest was quite the learning curve for me! Come on – can’t I use snapchat?! Good tips, and good pin on Pinterest btw!
Thats a great plan! My partner and I do the same, he does Insta (because I’m terrible at it, haha!) and I do Pinterest and Twitter. I’m doing great on Twitter so far, but I need to work on my pinterest game!
I joined Twitter a week or two after you did, and while I don’t have 500 followers yet (300ish for now) the thing I like best about twitter is the PF community. I was encouraged to join to find people who care about finance and want to talk about it, and it’s awsome. Pinterest/Instagram are fine, but I feel like I’ve found “my people” on Twitter 🙂
I totally agree! I also have a twitter for my travel blog, and it seems like the PF bloggers are way more supportive, outgoing, and friendly. I love the twitter community! Glad to be a part of it with you!
Thank you for your tips. I generally struggle to understand Twitter. This article helped a lot.
Question: How much time should we spend in twitter to get maximum return without spending our whole day in it.
I love twitter