Why Isn’t Anyone Listening to Me on Twitter?

15 Ways to Build Your Twitter Following

People often ask why isn’t anyone listening to me on Twitter.  The reality is that unless you’ve got a huge personal brand elsewhere because you’re a celebrity, politician or spokesperson for something important, no one’s waiting for your Tweets (including your mother.)

Therefore you need to build your Twitter following and get people to listen to you on Twitter.

Here are fifteen recommendations to build your Twitter following.

Show someone’s home

  1. Have a photograph. Show that you’re a real person not an egghead that people want to connect with.
  2. Provide biographical information. Let others know who you are and what you’re interested in. Add a quirky personal fact.

Learn how Twitter works.

  1. Listen to the conversation. Spend some time watching how people engage on Twitter and what people respond to.  This means avoid the trivial banal chatter such as what you had for breakfast or only providing updates, such as look at the cool places I go to (and more about me!)
  2. Learn the Twitter lingo. Twitter’s biggest challenge is that it’s got a language of its own. This means don’t auto-dm people for following you.
  3. Follow people who are influential and thought leaders in your areas of interest. Think in terms of people who you want to learn from. Include people you’re curious about who are on Twitter.

Participate in Twitter conversation.

This means tweeting.

  1. Respond to other people’s queries. Where you have knowledge to add to the conversation, answer people. Provide useful commentary.
  2. Share the Twitter love. This means retweeting other people’s tweets and content.
  3. Participate in Twitter chats. Once you’ve been part of a Twitter chat, connect with people you’ve engaged by following them.
  4. Recommend others in Twitter memes like #FollowFriday. Pay-it-forward by sharing the people you love to follow.

Develop a reputation in your area of expertise.

Be the go-to source for a specific niche(s).

  1. Provide useful information on a specific topic. This doesn’t mean talking about yourself. Instead, read widely to curate useful information; tweet blog posts and columns you find interesting and reference the author’s Twitter handle. (Bear in mind, Tweet buttons don’t always include this information but it’s important if you’re looking to build a connection with the author.)
  2. Tweet blog posts where you’ve commented.  This shows you’re an involved member of the social media community.
  3. Be featured guest on a Twitter chat. This puts you at the center of the conversation. Another option is to sponsor a Twitter chat. For example, #BlogChat has sponsors, especially for their live events.
  4. Use Twitter hashtags. Hashtags enable you to broaden the conversation.

Promote your Twitter presence.

Let people know that you’re on Twitter.

  1. Promote your Twitter handle across social media platforms. This means putting your Twitter handle in your profile. (Some active social media users connect their messaging across platforms.)
  2. Incorporate your Twitter handle on other forms of marketing. Include it on your website, blog, business cards, email and presentations.

The bottom line is that it’s not about YOU. It’s about building a social media community and engaging with them as people, not another marketing promotional channel. Therefore, offer consistent quality information either directly or via curation and be the kind of person that people want to partner with because your brand has to stand for quality over time.

What would you add to this list to build a following on Twitter and get people to follow you?

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen


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Photo credit: x-ray delta one via Flickr
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