Grow your Twitter following by thousands – 10 easy ways

As I recently hit 7k followers and now get paid to tweet on Twitter I thought I would do a little post on how I have grown my Twitter following. I saw on timehop yesterday that I had reached 2k a year ago which means my Twitter has grown by 5k in 1 year. I’m no expert at Twitter but in just over a year and a half I have figured out quite a lot. This is an honest insight into how to grow your Twitter following by thousands in 10 easy ways.

1. Follow people in the same field as you. For example if you are a parenting blogger, look for another parenting blogger follow them and then have a look at who they follow and add them too. 
2. Follow brands that you like, tweet them and they may follow you back.
3. Interact with people you want to follow you. My Twitter moves so fast I often miss new followers, however if someone interacts with me I will always check to see if I am following them and if I’m not already then I will make sure that I do.
4. Join in with chats. If you are unsure of what a chat is, it’s very simply a group of people who will chat together at a set time each week using a #. You can join in by tweeting and including the # then search for the rest of the conversation with the same # or set up a column on your Tweetdeck so it’s easier to follow. It’s a great way to find other people and to help them find you. I sometimes join in with a few blogger ones #mblogchat, #pbloggers, #lbloggers and also some local ones, #MKhour, #Northantshour, #Bedshour.
5. Don’t just spam your followers with blog posts. I post pictures and tweets about my daily life too.
6. Ask questions and comment on trending issues, using relevant hashtags if there are any.
7. Do not send automated DM’s the majority of people I know don’t like them and may even unfollow you for doing it.
8. Retweet other bloggers or companies, spread the love.
9. Be polite, don’t swear or get into huge arguements if you want to work with brands.
10. If you run competitions add ‘follow me on twitter’ as an entry option.

Some other little gems of wisdom I have learnt are;

• If a blogger doesn’t immediately follow you back don’t get the huff. I tend to not follow people back if they have less than 1-2k followers. Why? because a lot of bloggers stop doing it after the first month or so. A higher following suggests they have been doing it a while longer. If however you try to interact with someone more than once and get met with radio silence each time then unfollow them, that’s just rude! 
• Set up lists. This is so important once you are following a few thousand yourself. For a long while I didn’t like Twitter, I would find it too hard to keep track of. One day I spent a while setting up a list of friends and people I like interacting with.I have almost 100 people in my list and have it set up as a column on my Tweetdeck which means I can now keep up better. I only wish I had done it sooner. If you are on your mobile you can also view your lists tweets by going to your profile, click the circle, select view lists, then click the list you want to be able to see. 
• Use Tweetdeck, set up columns with your lists and also # you want to follow. Great for when you are joining in a chat or are part of a campaign.
• Do not pay for followers or do the follow, unfollow. Everyone knows who has bought their followers and no one likes it if they follow you and then you unfollow them. 

I hope this helps you to grow your Twitter following by thousands. I’m putting together a little series on blogging tips so if there is anything you would like me to cover, let me know in the comments below.