Ultra.
Smart content creators know that while your worth is not determined by your follower count, more followers means more eyes on your content. More eyes means more potential opportunities, such as sales and sponsorships. It’s easy to understand why most people want to get more followers on Twitter. However, followers for the sake of followers is the wrong mindset (how many times have you seen, “Can I get to x number of followers by the end of today?” posted on Twitter?).
Today we’ll give you tips on how to grow your Twitter account by focusing on attracting the right kind of followers—followers who are going to engage with your content by commenting, retweeting, and, if the stars align, making a monetary contribution. While there’s no magic formula to grow on Twitter, there are some best practices you can follow to achieve your goals.
Determine Your Niche and Target Audience
The importance of a niche cannot be overstated. Knowing your niche can help you find your target audience, which will allow you to post more effectively. If you’re a content creator who is using Twitter like a sort of online diary, know that this tactic usually only works for celebrities and those who already have a strong online presence.
Instead, focus on your audience and content they’d find interesting. Determine your niche by thinking about the kind of content you want to make and who it might appeal to. If you’re in the jewelry business, posting about the awesome breakfast you just had probably isn’t going to resonate with many people. Before you hit that “Tweet” button, you should first ask yourself, “Will my target audience find this interesting?” If your answer isn’t an immediate “Yes,” you might want to fine tune the tweet or scrap it entirely. We have a great article about finding your niche and while it’s geared towards bloggers, a lot of the tips can be applied to any content creator.
Post Relevant Content Regularly
Once you have established your niche and target audience, you should stick to publishing relevant tweets. On top of that, Twitter recommends posting at least twice per day, which is more aggressive than most social media networks. A content calendar combined with social scheduling software will save you time while keeping you on track with posting (check out our article on social media management tools to learn more). You can diversify your content by adding media, creating threads, hosting Twitter chats, and retweeting content your followers will enjoy.
Teach, Inspire, Entertain, or Provide Value
While humans are complex creatures, we can be highly predictable in terms of content we’re likely to retweet and share with our friends. Entertaining, funny posts are currently dominating Twitter for going viral, but posts that educate, inspire, or provide value in some way are also likely to attract engagement. If you’re about to publish a tweet that doesn’t fit any of the above criteria, see if you can find a way to tweak it until it does. For example, if you’re a fashion blogger and want to tweet your outfit of the day, add value by tagging the brands you’re wearing or linking to the items so your followers can easily find them.
Add the Right Amount of Hashtags
Hashtags are important for helping your content get discovered on Twitter, but too many can make your account look desperate or spammy. Twitter recommends no more than three hashtags, with two being the “sweet spot.” If you can, at least try to put one hashtag related to your Twitter community, which brings us to our next tip…
Find Your Twitter Community
There are communities all over Twitter and most of them use their own hashtags. For example, English speaking VTubers use the #ENVTuber hashtag. To find your community, start by following accounts that relate to your niche. VTubers will want to follow other VTubers, digital asset artists, and BGM composers while an aspiring chef should follow other chefs, food critics, popular restaurants, etc. Don’t just follow either: be sure to network by commenting and retweeting too. With time, you’ll see common, useful hashtags which you can incorporate into your own tweets.
Set Daily Goals
We’re not talking about follower goals: we’re talking about time and intent goals. To get to know Twitter, you have to spend time on the platform. For some, it’s easy to get sucked into several hours of endless scrolling but for others, it’s tempting to drop a couple of generic comments in a half-hearted attempt at networking and call it a day. Neither of these methods will help your account grow.
Try setting aside a chunk of time every day, say 10 or 20 minutes, to network on Twitter. In addition, set small goals in regards to retweeting and networking. An example of such goals could be, “Find one new account to follow, retweet three tweets that my followers might enjoy, and comment on at least five tweets from users in my community.” Not only will you be using your time on Twitter effectively, you’ll feel accomplished knowing that you made progress towards growing your account.
While it can be tempting to painstakingly craft tweets in an attempt to go viral, your time would be better spent by taking small, consistent steps towards growth. Like any social media platform, you’ll attract followers by keeping your audience and their needs at the forefront of every tweet. Twitter is a valuable tool and if you use it purposefully, you can expect to see steady growth over time. Good luck and happy tweeting!