How To Get Your First 1000 Twitter Followers

Hey guys and gals,

Time to replace that “Merry Christmas” post with a new one. Feel a bit ashamed that I haven’t posted in January at all, especially given the opening in my last post

But aside from being on the Marketers Cruise in January, there is another reason for my lack of blog posts.

I have been heavily into micro-blogging, especially using Twitter – blogging is so much easier when you do it 140 characters at a time. Twitter is an extremely powerful way to connect with your contacts on a daily basis, and put that face on the marketer, in between blog posts and emails. If you’re not really sure what Twitter is all about, I recommend reading my Twitter In Plain English post (will open in a new window).

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to give you some hints, tips and tools that will help you get the most out of Twitter, both from a marketing and a social perspective.

First of all go to my Twitter page and click the button below my picture to follow me. (if you don’t have a Twitter account yet, you’ll need to sign up for free first). A few things will happen when you start following me:

1. I will automatically follow you back (more on that later). But that means we can see each others tweets and can send DM (direct messages) to each other.

2. When I see your tweets I can reply to them, and all my followers will see than I’m talking to you and you will probably pick up some followers from that. And of course you can reply to my tweets too.

3. When you follow me I’ll instantly send you a welcome DM with a bonus download.

But the real fun on Twitter only starts when you start getting a lot of followers. Here’s a few steps that will get you started.

Start finding people in your niche (in my case internet marketers) and start following them. Often they will follow you back, but no worries if they don’t start following you immediately. In my opinion you really can’t follow too many people.

Engage in conversation with the people you follow. You can reply to their tweets by starting your tweet with e.g. @SorenJordansen. In this case I would see that you have replied to something I posted. If I reply to you (and I usually will) my followers will see that I find you worth talking to, and a lot of them will click to see your profile and hopefully follow you.

You can catch the attention of people you would like to have following you, by helping them get their message out. For example if I post a tweet you can re-tweet that to your own followers. This is done by replying to the tweet and adding RT in front of it e.g. “RT @SorenJordansen some message here”. Most people will be grateful for the re-tweet and happy to follow you and/or return the favour at a later date.

When you start following a few people, pay attention to who they are talking to. Click to see their profiles and start following them, it’s a great way to find new business contacts, friends and followers.

But first and foremost… be interesting and egaging! Twitter is not just place to spam your links, if you treat it that way you won’t get any results. Reply to people, start conversations… Let your followers get a chance to see the real you. If you have some good tips and suggestions tweet them. Find a funny video, a great article, good blog post etc. let your followers know.

In my opinion the real power of Twitter is to use it to find new contacts, partners, friends etc. And to let your members and subscribers see the “real you” – you know building that all important relationship with your readers, and yes ultimately that will help your business.

But of course once in a while you can tweet a link to your new blog post, recommend your new product or service or even promote a product you are an affiliate for. If you are interesting enough that people want to follow you (and that’s really not hard at all), they won’t mind the occasional promotion – in fact they are likely to be interested enough to click and see what you are talking about. I would say that a golden rule would be at least 80% content and conversion and max 20% promotion on Twitter.

Here are a few cool tools that will help you get the most out of Twitter, make it less confusing and automate some of the tasks.

1. TweetDeck: is a very cool Adobe Air desktop application that makes Twitter a lot easier to use. For me the main benefit is that you can group the people you are following and have them in different streams. So you can have your friends, family, business, partners etc. streams – makes following and replying to relevant people a lot easier.

2. TweetLater: is another awesome tool. It’s what I use to automatically follow back people who follow me. And to automatically send new followers a welcome message. As the name implies TweetLater also works kinda like an auto responder for Twitter. You can add tweets to go out at a specific time. I don’t recommend using that all the time, but it’s very handy if you need to get a tweet out at a specific time and you are not around to do it.

3. TweetMyBlog: my own product (also free to join). It’s a WordPress plugin that will automatically send out a tweet with a link back to your blog, when you make a new post. You can also use it to integrate your own Twitter feed into your blog’s sidebar.

4. AWeber: my email autoresponder of choice now integrates with Twitter. Simply check the Syndicate box and enter your Twitter details when you send out an AWeber broadcast, and they will automatically post a tweet with a link to your email.

5. Mr.Tweet: I just dicovered this last week and it’s very powerful. All you have to do is follow @MrTweet and they will automatically send you a DM, with a report on your Twitter account (every 2 weeks). This report will recommend people to follow based on who you are already following. And you will be added to that network too, so other people will get recommendations to follow you. You can also also use it to send out recommendations like this, ask other people to recommend you… and a lot of other neat stuff.

Allright I think this is enough for now and I have some Tweeting to do

I hope you found this post useful and feel free to use the link below for comments, questions or for throwing rotten tomatoes at me.

Of course you could also tweet about this post (here’s a cut n’ paste tweet for you):

How To Get Your First 1000 Twitter Followers by @SorenJordansen http://tinyurl.com/bc8gjz

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the follow
@SorenJordansen

Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comment on this post (33)

33 comments

Posted by Rich 6th February, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Hi Soren, don’t feel guilty about not posting in January, I’m guilty of the same.
I currently am not using twitter but after reading your post there seems to be a lot of possibilities to use this as a marketing tool, and to build relationships with other marketers.

Thank You for the information
Rich
Posted by Andrew Stark 6th February, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Hi Soren

Update your sociable plugin to have the TwitThis showing up.

Otherwise this really compliments my advice, and this is content people should be tetweeting.

Andrew
http://andrewstark.com/2009/02/05/10-twitter-tips-for-bloggers-please-retweet/
Posted by Sylvia Outlaw 6th February, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I did post in January and made new contacts through my art group and have been reading everything to get ahead.
Like your advice very helpful.
Posted by Robin 6th February, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Hi Soren

Your post was so good I dugg it.

http://digg.com/tech_news/How_To_Get_Your_First_1000_Twitter_Followers

I can’t make it digg popular on my own.
Posted by Andrew McGovern 6th February, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I’ve been a member of Twitter for a few days now but I have been able to learn a lot from your post. I’m following you now so I look forward to receiving your tweets.
Posted by Mike Erwin 6th February, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Hey Soren, thanks for all the info. I have just started learning how to use twitter and this will speed up the process. Thanks again, Mike
Posted by Soren Jordansen 6th February, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Thanks for the feedback everyone, glad you like the post.

And thanks for the Digg Robin
Posted by Lucie Bellemare 6th February, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Hi Soren,

Thanks for the great tips and for the links to the various Tweet services. I have retweeted your blog post and have started following you.

Thanks once again!

Lucie
Posted by Soren Jordansen 6th February, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Thanks for the RT Lucie
Posted by Jack Sparrow 6th February, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Hi Soren, thanks for the great tips on How To Get Your First 1000 Twitter Followers. I joined twitter 5 days ago, have not done much Twittering yet but happy with my results so far. Your tips will help… thanks. I am also following you…
Posted by Mike Paetzold 6th February, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Good to see you finally blog again sir. Twitter is a great resource especially for bloggers and I did a whole series on using it in conjunction with your blogging a few weeks ago.

(Probably where you found the tools
Posted by Soren Jordansen 6th February, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Thanks Jack

And it could have been Mike – but for once it wasn’t you. It was a bar talk with Simon Leung on the cruise.
Posted by Mike Paetzold 7th February, 2009 at 1:07 am
That explains why you missed WP-Twitip-ID plugin. You can grab it at http://www.fiddyp.co.uk/wp-twitip-id-plugin-add-a-twitter-field-to-your-comment-form-easily/

Great plugin to add to your blog.
Posted by Delords 7th February, 2009 at 3:14 am
Thanks SorenJordansen,
This is a great help i appreciate the tips and i have started following you, my username is delords and my twitter page is http://twitter.com/delords

Thanks
Delords.
Posted by Soren Jordansen 7th February, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Cheers Mike, that will come in handy
Posted by Serene Ng 7th February, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Thanks for the info. Before reading your article, I was working on 2 out of 5 tips you shared. Now I can enjoy the 5 tips. thank you and hope to see 1000 followers soon in my tweets as I complete the other 3 tips.
Posted by Travis Millward 7th February, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Good post Soren,

I’m glad to see the blog is live again.
Posted by THEMUSTANG 8th February, 2009 at 4:04 pm
thanks that was very helpfull
Posted by solcarina (solvi) 9th February, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Hi soren,

Thank`s for all your nice message.

Perhaps you wondering if I read them, and yes I do. If I not travelling…))
Sending love and light, from Norway.

Pls. visit my blogspot.

solcarina
Posted by ismabera 9th February, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I will twitter you.
You can twitter me to
- ismabera

cheers from Slovenia
Posted by James Elliott 13th February, 2009 at 6:36 am
Hi Soren,

This is great. I am on Twitter and I think we are following each other. I will check and see and go from there. I am catching up on my saving emails and downloads. This give me more information how to do the tweets. I get so many emails that sometimes I read fast and save then go back and read the ones that offer good information and not just trying to sell to me. I have Jeff’s already.
Keep the great Information comeing. I thank you very much for all you have helped me.

James
Posted by trackermo 25th February, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Great Post, Soren. It seems you are becoming the TweetGuru! Way To Go!
Posted by Adelia Reid 2nd April, 2009 at 12:49 am
Hey there,

You can teach tweeting well. I’m a
follow and retweet as well. Want to
Firepow also. That is just way, way
cool. You go, go, guy. I’ll be watching
ya. Adelia
p.s. my tweeter is deebird.
Posted by Felix Makmur 4th April, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Really great and informative post on how to attract massive followers via Twitter. I can surely pick up some good tips and tricks here that I can use to increase my Twitter followers. Anyway, thanks for the great article.

P.S. I just also followed your Twitter as well.
Posted by George Pennells 7th April, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Yes, you must be areal twit not to tweet. Those not using this great way of getting followers and building up relationships will lag behind. Keep up the great work Soren. Thanks for some nice imput with the comments on this post as well.

PS Are AWeber the only email autoresponder that integrates with Twitter at the moment.
Posted by Dave Bartlett 28th April, 2009 at 6:48 am
Hey Soren,
Great content and advice like always.

Maybe Paul will let you do an AF seminar about Twitter… but we know how he feels about the ‘T’ word

We always like to see you in there.

Cheers!
Posted by faisal majeed 30th April, 2009 at 6:29 pm
The Completely Automated Twitter Growth & Money Making System for People That Want to Set Up A System ONCE, Forget About It, and Have it Grow and Make Money EVERY Day!
Posted by Eileen Davidson 14th May, 2009 at 9:17 am
Love to join your happy group
Posted by manly 20th May, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I would also say,”My head is also spinning and I was checked in to the Pysic Ward and I kept saying, all those blue binders, over& over, so they gave me Shock Treatments.” I then said that their treatments were nothing. They said, What, I said Jordansen give’s the BEST shock of
Anyone!! I thank you for your kindness and help
Manly Flores.
Posted by the_guv 30th July, 2009 at 11:53 am
nice intro Soren .. appreciated

.. and followed!
Posted by Mark 14th October, 2009 at 6:56 pm
great read, there are other programming ways as well.
Posted by http://twitter.com/PrayMaddyMcCann 10th May, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I think Twitter is one of those unusual places where talking to random strangers really is the norm!!

It is mad how it is so accepted world wide but that’s the beauty. Ofcourse the real joy is being followed by lots of people and being able to send a Tweet knowing full well that it will be recieved by thousands and thousands of people! That is what I feel is the amazing beauty of Twitter!

Although having tons of followers is fab, don’t get carried away with it. If you tweet normally and follow people who share your interests I feel you’ll get far further in whatever mission you have that hoping that you’ll get lots of random followings.
Don’t get me wrong, having lots of people follow you is awesome! But you should try to make sure the majority of these are valuable followers who really will be interested in what you’ve got to say!

If you would like to Follow Me, I’ll follow you back very fast!

I’m raising awareness for Madeleine McCann and have over 28,360 followers currently!

My Twitter is:
http://twitter.com/PrayMaddyMcCann

Hope to see you there! x
.-= http://twitter.com/PrayMaddyMcCann´s last blog ..PrayMaddyMcCann: Who is who? @zrowedaartist =-.
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This is the best web blog I have read.