Your First Twitter Follower Build Strategy

[john]

Follower Build Strategy #1 Getting Followers By Following

 

Posting fantastic tweets is essential to growing your following, but until you have an audience to read those tweets, to like comment, retweet and quote your tweets, your fantastic posts will lay undiscovered.

 

It’s a classic chicken and egg scenario. To build your audience, you first need to have an audience to see your posts.

 

This strategy gets you a seed audience. It relies upon the percentage of people who, when followed, will follow you back.

 

Don't use this strategy in isolation, ie also tweet and interact with other twitter users.  Finds followers, influencers and key people to interact with. Try to follow 50 - 500 per day (pretty easy if you do it right).

 

Start with indie artists and writers in your genre.

 

Use Twitter search to find the first artists, then drill down by looking at who they follow and importantly, who is following them.

 

• Give it 2 - 6 weeks before unfollowing people who don't follow you
  • This gives them a chance to follow you and avoids penalties incurred by more aggressive follow/unfollow strategies.
• Don't unfollow people as soon as someone has followed you back
  • People who do this are disliked. Users feel used.
• If you follow 100 one day and unfollow the same 100 the next, or even the next... Whether they follow you or not... if you repeat that behaviour a few times, Twitter will brand you a spammer and sometimes they will suspend your account. So don’t do it!
• There are Twitter “follower tools” for desktop, Android and iOS.
  • We can compare notes on the best tools
• Initially, expect to be following 3 times more than follow you. At least until you reach 3k followers. You can then gradually shift from a follow strategy to an almost content only strategy. As you shift you begin weeding out more people who didn't follow you back, than adding  new people to follow. For example, you unfollow 110 but only follow 90 new people at a time. Yet again you still wait 2 - 6 weeks before you unfollow anyone.
• By the time you get to 10k followers you should be following about 10k
• Follow :
  • grammy winners
  • songwriters
  • use genre (just search grammy winner + songwriting, or + New York, or + Country etc)
• Find people who work for labels, publishers etc... NOT the labels themselves. They rarely follow anyone lol However the workers you can develop a relationship with and make them awar of your music. Try searching for specific lable names, or publisher names etc.

 

Expected numbers on a "Get Followers by Following" strategy, as mentioned above:

 

• Initially follow 50-500 people per day by using Twitter search and people list of follwers (more than those they follow, though that list can also be of use, for example to find band mates, work colleagues etc). This will take you 5 mins to 45 mins depending on numbers, and on any taretting research you do. Expect to get 10% initial return on effort. ie you follow 100, you get 10 followers. As time passes that number will rise to 20% or maybe 30% if lucky.
• By the time you are following 1000, you might have 100-300 followers. At this point start aiming to unfollow people who unfollow you (a tool will tell you), and begin to gradually unfollow people who you followed a few weeks ago but they still are not following you (yet again a tool will tell you).
• By the time you reach 1000 followers, you should be following about 3000.
• By the time you reach 3000 followers, expect to be following 5000.

 

At this point in time you start to shift more towards a content posting, interaction and following / unfollowing strategy where you maintain the number you follow.  This way you will keep the number you are following around 5,000. Many people you follow will NOT be following you. You now start unfollowing those who do not follow you, starting with the oldest. If someone is not following you, you should have a good reason to continue following them. Every 100 you stop following, follow 100 new users. Don't unfollow someone who is following you at this stage. You will probably find that of the 5,000 you are following only some 2,000 of them are following you back. The other 1,000 people following you were picked up THROUGH that 5,000 directly, and through the interactions with your posts by those following you.

 

• By the time you reach 5000, you should be following 5,000.

 

You continue your content posting, interaction and follow / unfollow strategy.

 

• Followed by 10,000, following 5,000

 

Now shift content posting, interaction and following / unfollowing strategy towards a gradual) reduction in the number of those you follow. By unfollowing slightly more than the new ones you followed. Unfollow dead accounts, ones that haven’t posted for an while etc. . 

 

• Followed by 12,500, following 4,800
• Followed by 15,000, following 4,500

 

Change to a content posting, interaction and unfollowing strategy. This is where you start getting concerned with the quality of those you follow, and who follows you. By unfollowing those who don’t interact some may well unfollow you. That is expected.... but they weren’t helping you anyway! Your growth will temporarily slow down

 

Start unfollowing those who do not interact with you, do not like or re-tweet your stuff. 

 

You will probably find that of the 4,500 you are now following an increasing number of them are following you back. Perhaps as high as 3,500.

 

• Followed by 17,500, following 4,000

 

You now will be far more focused on content. None of your time is spent on following. Some time still on unfollowing. In truth the changes will have been gradual. As your initial list expands you will have spent less and less time adding new followers by following and more time gaining followers by interacting and posting.

 

• Followed by 20,000, following 3,000
• Followed by 25,000, following 2,000
• Followed by 35,000, following 1,000

 

You get the idea.

 

You can start unfollowing people with small lists who do not interact with you. Almost all Twitter energy will be on interaction and new posts.

 

I hope this all makes sense?

[robertolabruna]

uh, I really feel like a dinosaur here  I think I'll start very very slowly and try to understand how it works before starting "tweeting". And read your post again several times.

Edited March 22, 2018 by robertolabruna

[john]

On 22/03/2018 at 7:06 AM, robertolabruna said:

uh, I really feel like a dinosaur here  I think I'll start very very slowly and try to understand how it works before starting "tweeting". And read your post again several times.

 

 

How is are you getting on Roberto? Can I be of any help?

[robertolabruna]

On 2/4/2018 at 10:59 AM, john said:

 

 

How is are you getting on Roberto? Can I be of any help?

 

Hi John, I've just sent you an email. I'm living a very weird moment. I told you why in my message  

[john]

Hee hee. Great news it is too. I hope you got a screen shot!

[robertolabruna]

2 minutes ago, john said:

Hee hee. Great news it is too. I hope you got a screen shot!

 

Hope to meet him when he comes to italy this summer  

[john]

3 hours ago, robertolabruna said:

 

Hope to meet him when he comes to italy this summer  

Awesome.

[Alex Bolt]

Hi guys! So since I think getting followers and then following them back is a great way to gain publicity and get noticed, would you be kind enough to follow me on Twitter?  Will follow back.  @RealAlexBolt on twitter.

 

Thanks so much!!! XO

[Lisa Gates]

9 hours ago, Alex Bolt said:

Hi guys! So since I think getting followers and then following them back is a great way to gain publicity and get noticed, would you be kind enough to follow me on Twitter?  Will follow back.  @RealAlexBolt on twitter.

 

Thanks so much!!! XO

Done! see ya on twitter girl! awesome!