Five Every Day Actions Grow Your Twitter Followers

I've been on twitter since 2009 and right now my twitter followers are growing at a rate of about 100 new followers a day. While I have many followers, I continue to take several simple and quick actions every day to add to my followers.

1. Refollow

Every day I use a simple tool called Refollow (which I've described in detail before. Follow this link for the details). I use it faithfully because it allows me to follow 800 new people in less than five minutes—but not just anyone—people who are in my target market. I'm targeting individuals who are interested in publishing (books or magazine). It is a critical aspect of using this tool.

About once a week, I'll get an error message that Twitter says I've maxed out my new followers and I can come back tomorrow. I looked and I had only followed about 190 people instead of 800. I've learned to wait about 30 minutes and return to Refollow. Then I repeat the process and follow more followers and the tool begins again to reach new people. Don't believe the error message and persistence pays off with reaching 600 more people than Twitter was going to allow me to reach.

2. Manage Flitter

A second tool I use every day is Manage Flitter. I've also described the use of this tool in detail. Follow the link. I use this tool to eliminate people who have not set up their profile, don't speak English, and are fake or spam followers.  Also it allows me to quickly unfollow people who are not following me back.

3. Scan Your Twitter Home Feed

About once a day, I will scan through home feed on Twitter. I do it on my desktop computer so it is easy to see. I'm looking to block porn, non-English tweets (non-Roman scripts) and anything offensive. This process is quick and I page through my feed. I know I don't catch everything but it is something simple that I do to maintain my followers.

4. Respond to Direct Messages

I use Hootsuite to monitor my direct messages from followers and respond to them. This tool is free and easy to use. The engagement is one of the key reasons to use Twitter. Also notice my Twitter profile includes my personal email address. Often my new followers will email me for help—and I always respond point them to my blog, my free teleseminars, my other free writing resources.  My personal goal is to answer these emails within 24 hours and often I do it quicker. These writers are surprised that I answer since most publishing communication goes into a black hole (no answer) and I provide solid writing resources.

5. Tweet Valuable Content (mostly not mine)

I use Hootsuite to schedule my tweets almost every hour throughout the working hours of a day. Throughout my day I read content of other people and I pass along this valuable content about publishing to my followers. My active tweeting builds followers (and it will for you as well). Also notice for almost every tweet, I include an image (which is part of Hootsuite). It's been proven using images gets more attention for your tweets. 

These simple actions do not consume a lot of time but the fact I do it every day (repeatedly) builds traction and a following on Twitter. I've recently gone over 158,000 followers and have no plans to stop growing my following. You can follow the same steps with consistent action. It will give you more credibility with other writers, catch the attention of literary agents and editors—and help you in ways you can't even imagine. 

I spend most of my days working as an acquisitions editor at a New York publisher, Morgan James. If I can do these steps, then you can find a few minutes to do them. Be encouraged and let me know how it is working for you.

Tweetable:
Learn 5 Every Day actions to Grow Your Twitter Followers (Click to Tweet)