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Don't Buy Your Followers From Twitter Pimps

 

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By now, most marketers understand that Twitter can have a significant, measurable impact on leads and sales.

But how do you build an account that has that kind of impact? Can you purchase followers?

That's what Donald Dahl asked in a recent forum thread on InboundMarketing.com.

In the discussion that followed, InboundMarketing.com community members explained why buying followers from Twitter pimps (even those with fancy bling and classy orange threads) won't help your business.  

Forum members agreed that Twitter networks are only valuable to your business if they're populated with the right people. They suggested the following ways to build a Twitter network organically:

1. Follow Others

The best way to get followers is to go out and follow people that you're interested in. You can find these people by looking at who your friends follow or by searching for users who tweet about topics you're interested in.

2. Include a Bio and Link on Your Profile

Be a real person.  People are more likely to follow you back if you let them know a little bit about yourself and the value you can bring to the relationship.  

Data from Twitter Grader has demonstrated that users with a bio average eight times more followers than users who don't have a bio. Additionally, users that include a link in their profile experience 7.5 times more followers that those who do not.

3. Reply to Other Users

Use @replies to make a connection with the people that are putting out content. One-way attention will not help you build a network. 

4. Find Thought Leaders

Find the influential people in your niche and communicate with them often to gain both knowledge and exposure to those in their networks.

5. Post Great Tweets 

Above all, make sure you share great information on Twitter. As forum member Steve Early put it, "If you have interesting things to say, you will grow followers over time, and they will follow you for your VALUE, not because you entered the Follow Me Lottery and won."  

photo credit: larrykang

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Posted by Rory Stanton on Fri, Aug 21, 2009 @ 07:29 AM

COMMENTS

Great article. I chose to search hashtags, found a few twitters that were wanting to talk about the same subject as me, read they bio, their tweets, etc. If I liked what I read, I followed them and hoped for a follow back.  
 
Also there are some great simple programs that match you to other Tweeters 
 
Wefollow & Mr.Tweet work well, they give you suggestions of who you could follow, and who your friends are following.  
 
I added FriendFollow to find out what my friend were sharing, which takes you a little outside the Twitter realm 
 
And ReFollow to find out who is not following you, so you can re-reach out to them again. 
 
Re-tweeting the same rubbish over and over again does not make me want to follow you, be informative or witty, or post great articles. Don't over post or post 20 articles in 5 seconds. Be of some worth to your followers and more people will follow you. 
 
That's all I have learnt so far. @smoothape

posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 at 8:40 AM by Andrew Rodgers


Thank you for this post. I really appreciate the detail in the content. These may be common sense ideas and perhaps I should have known them, but honestly, I have not seen these tips before, basic but beneficial!

posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 at 9:06 AM by Joe Machuta


Great headline, Mike...it really captures the tactless approach some marketers take with Twitter. 
 
The race mentality -- "I want to accumulate as many Twitter followers as possible, as quickly as possible" -- undermines effective marketing. 
 
It's not about building a massive database. It's about connecting with people who will buy your product, give you feedback, promote you to friends, and influence others to do business with you. And, if you do it right, it's also about LISTENING to the feedback and improving how you do business. 
 
But, if you want to whore yourself out, there are plenty of hucksters happy to show you how...

posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 at 11:05 AM by Scott Hepburn


Another pet peeve of mine: unfollowing someone just because they didn't follow you back. I mean really. Why follow someone in the first place? Because you want to know what they have to say. I know a lot of Twitter folks do this because they are merely trying to build a following ... they don't care what the folks they follow have to say. And that just isn't what Twitter is about. Besides, since I manually look through all my follow notices and choose to follow each one on a case-by-case basis, it can take me a while to follow someone. So now I get an email box full of people re-following me after I finally got around to following them. Erg. Really chaps my hide.

posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 at 1:31 PM by Carma


Great headline & nice pimped out pic!  
 
I agree that buying Twitter leads is ridiculous. There are also those companies out there that will tweet for you. I mean, seriously...how can YOU form a relationship with those in your community if it's someone else tweeting for you. It just drives me nuts. 
 
MY two favorite ways to find new followers is by using Twitter search to look for those in my niche, or like Andrew said, I will search hashtags. The other method I use is paying attention to who comments on the same blogs I read. If they leave an interesting comment on a blog we have in common, chances are that we will hit it off.

posted on Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 2:38 AM by Coree Silvera


Nice tips. It will be very helpfull for Noobs. I already have 4000+ followers in One & Half Months

posted on Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 3:37 PM by Asif2BD


Great post. This needs to be said so urgently. The "secret" to building a network of valuable, real relationships with real people is that there is no "secret." It's worth investing the time in contributing to people, and vice versa. 
 
I address this exact issue in my post, "Google, Maslow and Yoda." http://tr.im/wMF5 I invite the Hubspot community to read + share their thoughts.

posted on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 11:48 AM by Michael Russell


So am I the only one who thinks putting up a picture of Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, WSOP ME Champion and one of the owners of FullTilt Poker, is hilarious?

posted on Saturday, September 05, 2009 at 9:20 PM by Dekel Media


 
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posted on Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 2:15 AM by furcoo


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