We all want more followers on Twitter.

As a business owner, the more followers you have, the more successful your business will appear to the outside world, and the more people will see your marketing messages.

Having a large, engaged audience can transform your business.

See also: We grew our Twitter account to 20,000 followers in a year

Below, we’ve rounded up five of the best ways to grow your follower count on Twitter.

These ideas are only the tip of the iceberg, but they should give you some food for thought and help you to grow your online presence.

 

Follow people in bulk

If you want to grow your Twitter follower count and don’t have the money to spend on an expensive advertising campaign, then you could look to following people in bulk.

Although this practice is against Twitter’s terms, it’s a technique that millions of businesses around the world continue to follow, as it allows them to find lots of new followers in a short space of time.

The idea behind following users in bulk is that, if you follow them, they’ll likely want to see who you are, and might follow you back in return.

So if you follow 1,000 people a day and only 10% of them follow you back, that’s still 100 new followers every day – all of whom could be potential customers and want to buy products or services from you. That alone makes it worthwhile.

If you are going to follow people, make sure you exercise caution.

Accounts can be locked or suspended if they’re caught following users in bulk – and Twitter’s automatic spam detection rules seem tighter for new accounts, which may limit the number of users you can follow.

You should also consider the downsides to following people in bulk.

Not only does it take time, but it fills your timeline will lots of additional content – content that may not be relevant to your needs or your business. What’s more, some users become irritated when brands follow them out of the blue, so it’s important that you only follow people you know will be interested.

There’s also the act of unfollowing those users who don’t follow you back.

There are some free unfollower tools online, like iUnfollow and Who Unfollowed Me, but the majority of unfollowing tools are paid-for, and require a monthly subscription in order to use.

Weigh up the benefits before you get started, or you may be left with no choice than to pay to unfollow people in bulk.

 

Take part in Twitter hours

One way to improve your presence on Twitter and increase your chances of new followers is by taking part in Twitter hours.

These daily or weekly networking opportunities allow you to put your business in front of other people, encouraging retweets, replies and other engagements.

Whilst the benefits of Twitter hours may be smaller than they once were (many businesses now use the hashtags to promote their own products and services, rather than using them to engage in a genuine discussion), it can still be a great way to get involved and join a new community.

Location-based Twitter hours, for example, can be used to chat to other local business owners and potential customers, whilst generic Twitter hours, like #UKBizLunch, are great for making new contacts and promoting blog posts and new videos.

Finally, industry-specific hashtags, like #BrideHour, for example, allow you to connect to key decision-makers within your niche; if they see that you’re an authority within your niche, they’ll naturally want to follow you to find out more information.

 

Post quality, engaging content

You could have all of the followers in the world, but if you’re not posting quality, engaging content that sparks debates, generates clicks and boosts your brand awareness, then there’s no point in being on Twitter in the first place.

Rather than adopting an ad hoc approach to managing your account and posting only when you have a spare minute, you should sign up for a social media scheduling tool such as Buffer, or consider the social media for small business services offered here on our website.

Having a clear and consistent approach to posting will make you a more attractive figure on the social network, and as a result, people will want to follow you and interact with your content.

And that can lead to even more followers – if you post a tweet that does well and is retweeted by lots of other people, you’ll naturally gain new followers as a result.

It really is that simple. Focus on posting quality material that you know your followers will want to read, and you’ll be rewarded in the long-run.

 

Experiment with Twitter Ads

Another way that you can grow your follower count on Twitter is to experiment with Twitter Ads.

Whilst many marketing experts favour Facebook Ads over Twitter Ads, the platform can still be a great way to expose your profile to potential customers and find some new followers in return.

Just like all social advertising, Twitter ads works on a bidding system.

The business that has the biggest budget and is prepared to pay the most will be shown, and those with smaller budgets will reach a smaller audience, and you can set caps to stop you from spending too much.

You can run Promoted Tweets, which put one of your tweets in users’ timelines, enabling them to like, retweet, or reply to your tweet as if it was any other tweet that shows up in their timelines organically.

Alternatively, Promoted Accounts adds your account to the ‘Who to Follow’ box – this will likely be the most beneficial if you’re looking to grow your follower count.

One of the biggest downsides to advertising on Twitter is cost. A click on Facebook may cost you anything from a couple of pence to a couple of pounds – on Twitter, it’s at least double that, and conversions are usually much lower because Twitter is a different social network and user intent is often very different to the average Facebook user scrolling through their feed.

Still, if you’re struggling to put your business in front of new eyeballs and you want to try something new, then Twitter Ads could be a way to grow your Twitter follower count.

 

Run a competition or giveaway

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the social networking handbook, but it’s repeated time and time again because it works so well.

Running a competition or giveaway from your Twitter account is a sure-fire way to grow your audience and find new potential customers; after all, you’re giving away something valuable, and people are happy to go out of their way to receive free goodies.

A great example of a Twitter giveaway

 

This giveaway from Simply Supplements, for example, asks users to follow and retweet for a chance to win a shaker bottle.

Not only will the giveaway help to inflate their follower count, but spread the word of their giveaway, encouraging even more people to follow and retweet.

In just a couple of hours, the tweet has already received more than 200 retweets (meaning around 200 new followers), and lots of replies from interested followers, and as the competition continues over the week, they’ll see hundreds of entries from future potential customers.

This allows the company to increase brand awareness and grow their follower account without spending much money.

A shaker bottle will likely cost the company less than a pound – much less than the cost of a Twitter advertising campaign, proving just how effective giveaways can be.

 

If you’re looking to grow your Twitter presence, get in touch with the team at Muffin Marketing today. We can manage your entire social media presence from as little as £150 per month, posting relevant, engaging content on your channels and boosting your follower numbers.