I get asked how to get followers on Twitter every day.
Following are a bunch of lessons I’ve learned in the process of growing my Twitter account to almost 20,000 followers.
I hope you find them helpful…
How To Write A Tweet That Gets Followers
The more topics you tweet about, the harder it is to get followers.
Why?
Let’s say you’re a gardening expert who wants to attract an audience of people interested in gardening.
If you post two tweets about gardening, one about politics, one about what you had for lunch, and one about your favorite sports team, then that means 60% of your last five tweets have nothing to do with your target audience or providing value to them.
Those people are now less likely to follow you — or even understand the potential value of following you — because the majority of your tweets aren’t relevant to them.
And even if they do follow you, every tweet you post that your target audience doesn’t engage with makes those people less likely to see your next tweet.
Their lack of engagement trains the Twitter algorithm to believe those people don’t care about your tweets, so it stops showing your tweets to them.
So not only does tweeting about a variety of topics cost you potential followers, it also makes it harder to reach your existing followers!
The single most important thing you can do to grow your following is to focus your tweets on no more than a few related topics.
Here’s an exercise to help you identify what topics to tweet about.
Answer the following questions in order:
1. What’s your overall goal unrelated to Twitter? What are you trying to accomplish?
2. Who do you need to reach to accomplish that goal?
3. What do those people value?
4. How can you provide that value in tweets?
Remember: To get more Twitter followers, provide specific value to a specific audience.
For a deeper dive into how to write great tweets, check out my take on What To Tweet.
How Many Tweets Per Day To Post To Get Followers
You won’t get more Twitter followers if you only tweet twice a month.
The more often you tweet, the more followers you’ll get…as long as you post high-quality tweets.
Tweet as frequently as you can while still maintaining high quality — don’t just tweet random stuff for the sake of quantity.
The exact number of tweets you should post varies because it depends how much you’re able to post while maintaining a standard of quality, but posting at least one quality tweet a day is a good place to start.
If writing at least one high quality tweet a day intimidates you, here are a few ways to make it easier:
- Repurpose and repost tweets that perform well. Don’t be afraid to repost successful tweets every couple months.
- Repurpose content you’ve created elsewhere. Every blog post or podcast episode you create contains dozens of potential lines you can post as individual tweets.
- Schedule your tweets in advance using a tool like Buffer so you don’t necessarily need to post something in real-time every day.
Twitter Bio Ideas
Your Twitter bio is one of the most important assets you have when it comes to getting people to follow you.
Don’t waste it.
Here’s a key concept to understand:
Your Twitter bio isn’t about you — it’s about the value you have to offer.
Think of your bio as a sales tool and the product is your tweets.
If someone who doesn’t follow you sees a tweet of yours and likes it, they’ll check out your profile to decide whether or not to follow you —your bio is your chance to convince them.
To convince them, your bio needs to answer two questions:
1. Who are your tweets for?
2. What value will those people get out of following you?
A simple way to express this is to include a line in your bio that says something like, “Follow me for __________.”
Just fill in the blank with the value you provide and make it as specific and unique as possible.
You also want to use your bio to convey why someone should follow you as opposed to others who tweet about similar topics.
For example, if your bio just says you’re a “travel writer,” that doesn’t suggest you’re any different than every other travel writer out there.
Instead, you might say something like “A European travel writer who shares hidden destinations for adventurous travelers.”
Give people a reason to care and follow you. Be specific.
You also need to assume people who read your bio have no clue who you are or what you’re talking about — don’t use references they may not get.
For example, let’s say you write a newsletter about creativity called “Far Out.”
If your bio only says “writer of Far Out” without explaining that it’s a newsletter about creativity, potential followers will have no idea what it is or why they should care.
Explain every reference in your bio.
Remember: The people reading it will mostly be people who know nothing about you and your work.
And they’re the ones you’re trying to get to follow you!
For reference, here’s what my Twitter bio looks like:
How To Pin A Tweet That Gets You New Followers
An effective pinned tweet is just as important as an effective bio when it comes to getting followers.
A pinned tweet allows you to control the first tweet people see when they check your profile (as opposed to your most recent tweet).
That’s valuable real estate — take advantage of it.
Again, most people who visit your profile will have just discovered you and are trying to decide whether or not to follow you.
You need a pinned tweet that will encourage them to do so.
Don’t just use your pinned tweet to feature a link to something you want to promote — the goal isn’t to get a click, it’s to get a follow.
This means your pinned tweet isn’t a place to showcase a random personal accomplishment —it’s a place to feature something your audience will find valuable to them.
Here are some examples of effective pinned tweets from people who have grown large Twitter audiences.
Use Twitter Replies For More Followers
Replying to other people’s tweets can be more important than posting your own tweets — especially when you don’t have a lot of followers.
Those replies will likely get you more exposure, and will definitely get you more exposure to people who don’t already follow you.
So rather than just tweet some observation to your 50 followers, post it as a reply to an account with a large following that tweeted about the same topic — you’ll reach more people that way.
Be on the lookout for opportunities to post interesting and valuable replies on tweets from people, publications, and journalists who have lots of followers or are influential in your niche.
You can also use Twitter search to find popular tweets about relevant topics and reply to them.
It’s a great way to get noticed and speak to a bigger audience than the one you’ve got.
But one key thing to keep in mind:
Replies will only get you more followers if they’re genuinely valuable to the audience who sees them.
If you just reply with something like “I agree!” or “Great tweet!” that’s not going to make anyone curious to check out your profile and follow you.
If you want to post more replies but aren’t sure who or what to reply to, a great place to start is to try my Twitter Replies challenge.
You can also reply to people who participate in Twitter chats.
How To Quote Tweet To Get Followers
Retweets won’t get you more followers.
There’s nothing wrong with retweeting stuff you find interesting (as long as it’s relevant to your target audience), but retweets only grow the following of the person whose content you retweet.
If Twitter follower growth is your goal, then you want to prioritize original tweets.
Use your tweets to showcase the value of your ideas, not just share the thoughts of others.
That said…
When you retweet something, always use the Quote Tweet option so you can retweet it with a comment of your own that adds value or perspective.
Add interesting commentary to anything you retweet instead of just sharing it.
This not only gives you a chance to create additional value for your audience, but it means when your followers see and share the tweet they’ll share the version with your comment as opposed to just the original tweet.
This gets your account more exposure…and more followers.
How To Make A Twitter Thread That Gets You Followers
Twitter threads can often allow you to share more value, and more value equals more followers.
Threads are particularly effective when you would otherwise have shared a link to a blog post, podcast episode, or video you created.
Rather than tweet the link — which Twitter’s algorithm hates and won’t reach many people — instead summarize the most valuable ideas from the content in a tweet thread.
Remember: The goal of your tweets is to provide as much value as possible to your audience.
The more value you provide, the more likely your tweet is to be shared, and the more likely you are to get more Twitter followers.
Don’t make people click a link to get that value — put it right in the tweet thread itself.
When you write a thread, introduce the overall concept in the first tweet, and then incorporate one or two key concepts in each individual tweet in the thread.
Craft the thread in a way that each individual tweet works on its own and provides enough value that people may want to like/share it on its own.
You can also include a call to action for people to follow you at the end of the thread and remind them the value they’ll get from doing so in the future.
Tweet About Who To Follow On Twitter
Any time you follow someone new on Twitter, post a tweet about it.
Announce who you followed, why you followed them, and the value others can get from following them.
When you do this, a couple powerful things will happen:
1. The person you tweeted about it will see it and may share it, thank you, and/or follow you.
2. Your audience will appreciate being introduced to someone worth following and may share it.
In addition to doing this when you follow someone new, you can also do it on a consistent basis where you highlight various people you already follow to spread the word about them.
Never Buy Twitter Followers
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably not the kind of person who would buy Twitter followers.
But just in case you’ve ever been tempted to do so…
Don’t do it.
Buying Twitter followers won’t get you any value — the “followers” you’re buying will be fake accounts.
Even worse, buying followers actually makes it harder to reach the real people who follow you!
The Twitter algorithm judges each of your tweets based on the engagement they get, so if you’ve got a bunch of “followers” that don’t exist and don’t engage with your tweets, then Twitter will assume your tweets are bad and won’t show them to the real followers you do have.
Long story short, never buy Twitter followers.
More Twitter Tips
Here are a few more resources to help you master Twitter and grow your following:
- My For The Interested newsletter is a free newsletter featuring proven strategies to grow your audience and business.
- 80-Minute Social Media Strategy is a video presentation designed to help you figure out how to get the most out of the time, effort, and investment you put into social media.
- I also offer Creator Clarity Calls and Custom Strategic Plans if you want some one-on-one help figuring out how to use Twitter to accomplish your goals.
- Looking to hire some help? Here’s how to hire a great social media consultant.