Many people have asked me how I got more than 22,000 followers on Twitter, partly because most Internet marketers see Twitter as “free Google adwords.” Well, that’s not quite the way to look at it. In this post, I’ll show you how to build a following on Twitter, but more important, how to use Twitter to increase your success on the web. Let’s start with the basic “rules” Twitter has: 1) you can only follow so many new people a day until you pass a certain number of followers (I think the initial number is still 50, but look in the “Help” section of the website to find out more about their rules). 2) Once you are following 2,000 people, you can’t go beyond that unless you have at least a 90% ratio of followers to followed. After that, the rules ease up a bit until you reach 10,000. Then it’s pretty much an open field. Now there are various types of software out there that claim they can get you 20,000 or more followers in a month, and maybe they can. But I don’t recommend them. Like similar claims for Facebook, it’s best to build more slowly. There are some free tools you can and should employ, because you do want followers. It does you no good to tweet if nobody’s listening.

1. Use Twollow.com and TwitterSearch.com to automatically follow people (Twollow) tweeting certain keywords related to your market niche or to manually find such people (TwitterSearch). You can also go to the profiles of leaders in your niche and manually follow people who are following them.

2. Now that you’re following others, you want them to follow you back. Also, when others follow you, you want to follow them back. Some people out there don’t follow back. They are usually referred to as “Twitter snobs.” But face it, certain famous people understandably don’t want a huge incoming Twitter stream. So there are some people you should follow (like Mike Dillard) who will not follow you back. Deal with it.

3. The best automated way to follow back those who follow you and to delete those who don’t is SocialOomph.com (formerly known as TweetLater). This tool allows you to do many things, but I recommend you use it ONLY to automatically follow those who follow you, unfollow those who don’t, and send a welcome message to new followers. The welcome direct message (DM) should be brief and friendly – NO SALES PITCHES! At most, it should refer them to your blog with a shortened url from tr.im.com. Mine says (verbatim): ” Thanks for following Dr. Dick. Looking forward to your tweets! Learn more about me at http://tr.im/BAt6.” By directing new followers to my blog, they can actually learn more about me. If they subscribe, it builds my personal LIST. I do not recommend you use SocialOomph to generate automated tweets beyond the one welcome DM unless you want to be branded as a spammer.

4. SocialOomph is not perfect. Especially in the “pre-2,000 follower” days, you may need to go to FriendOrFollow.com to unfollow some people who are not following you back. You can see who’s following you that you’re not following back, too. Excellent tool, and like the others I’ve mentioned, it’s FREE.

5. By far the most useful Twitter tool I’ve found is TweetDeck. This software greatly simplifies tweeting, retweeting, DMs, @ messages, Facebook feeds, etc. You can download it for free at TweetDeck.com. One more thing: I do not recommend that you feed your tweets into your Facebook feed. Most people on Facebook find this extremely annoying, because it overwhelms their feed. It’s even worse when the tweets are automated. Once you get tagged as a “spammer”, it’s hard to overcome the label.

Having said all that, you can make use of Follow Friday and other time-honored Twitter “traditions” to increase your followers. Now there are lists, twibes, etc. to add to the mix. But understand this: many of the people you automatically follow will not be real people – they are robots with Twitter accounts solely for the purpose of spamming affiliate links, capture pages, etc. These are called fauxllowers. If you want to restrict your followers to only real people, the best tool to use is TrueTwit.com. TrueTwit has one drawback, in my opinion. It requires that any new follower click on your link to that website and fill in one of those annoying little “validation windows” with words you can barely read. A fair number of real people won’t bother to do that, and you will lose them as followers. Personally, I think the best way to deal with major spammers (you can tell when you see message after message pimping a website or business) is to unfollow and BLOCK them.

Realistically, it takes time to build a large following on Twitter. I’ve been at it for more than a year. Much like a network marketing downline, it goes slowly at first, then builds later. Now that you’re on your way, let’s look at some other Twitter tips:

1. Your profile page should have an actual picture of YOUR FACE – not a logo, your dog, your kid, etc. (Same is true for Facebook, by the way. It ain’t DOGbook, KIDbook, or LOGObook!) Pick a picture and stick with it. If you change it every week, people won’t recognize you. The profile should include your website url (strongly recommend your blog, not your capture page or business site). It should include a cleverly written bio that actually says something about who you are. Mine says: “Dr. Dick: Scientist, Entrepreneur, Musician, Husband, Father, Grandfather, Nutrition, Fitness over 60, Major Smartass, (Col, USAF-Ret), Passionate Lover of Life” (describes me to a T, right?). Especially in the beginning, your profile will largely determine who follows you and who doesn’t.

2. Be careful what you tweet! Obscene language, strong political or religious opinions, putdowns of other tweeters, etc. all turn people off. Like your Mama always told you: BE NICE and respectful of others. Avoid “Twitter feuds” like the plague. You’re not there to stir up controversy.

3. What should you tweet? Funny quotes (but always follow the “Elvis” rule: don’t be crude!). Inspirational quotes (but try to avoid the most common cliches). Comments about your favorite sports team, the weather, your new grandchild, etc. Stuff that gives people a window into WHO YOU ARE. Twitter is a party. I tell my wife it’s the “world’s largest singles bar.” (Not sure she likes the analogy, but it’s pretty close to the truth.) When you see something cool that somebody else said, RETWEET IT. The proper protocol is: RT @[other person's Twitter name] “[their tweet]“. It is permissible to edit the tweet if you need to keep it under the 140 character limit. Retweeting will get you a lot more followers and friends. TweetDeck makes RTing especially easy. When people RT your tweets, send them an @ message thanking them.

4. Marketing on Twitter should be subtle. Include a minimized url for your blog along with some of your quotes. NEVER include it in an RT of someone else’s tweet. Effective Attraction Marketing offers useful information (“value”. I always tweet my new blog posts. When people come here to read the post, they are also exposed to my Opportunities section. They can subscribe and join my LIST. But blatant marketing pitches paint you as a PEDDLER. Be an Attraction Marketing expert. Give value, not sales pitches.

5. Try to engage other tweeters if you can. For example, you see a post about tonight’s basketball game. You saw the same game on TV. You comment back about how well so-and-so played, how the season is going, etc. Or somebody tweets something that’s truly inspirational to you. TELL THEM SO! Many of these “conversations” won’t be in real time, because the other person may be halfway around the planet. But they establish you as a real human being. That’s what you want.

Finally, bear in mind that once you reach hundreds or thousands of followers, any single tweet you send out will only be seen by a fraction of them. One of the drawbacks of having 15,000 followers is that I only catch a few TweetDeck “snapshots” of what’s happening on my feed. If you want a specific person to see your tweet, send it as an “@” message or a DM. The “@” allows everyone else to see it, too. Twitter is one of the most effective traffic generation tools available to you, It’s FREE (at least for now) and it’s effective. Use it wisely to build your following on the web.

Dr. Dick

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