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Now more than ever, having an active presence on Twitter is vital to giving your brand a voice and interacting with those in your industry. Whatever (positive) news is happening within your company, your Twitter followers should know about it.

You can no longer rely on folks reading your press release, reading your HTML emails or visiting your website to get the latest information. Why? The reason is pure and simple – time. Time is money, and folks just don’t have enough of it.

However, if you’re going to spend time spreading the word through the Twittersphere, you also need to work on building up your follower list. After all, you can have the most interesting tweets out there, but if you have 20 followers, then why spend the time?

Below are six simple tips for how to boost your Twitter followers that work well whether you’re tweeting as an individual, or on behalf of your client or business.

1. Update your Twitter bio. If under your Twitter handle, your description reads: Tom Jones – I like hockey, reading and long walks on the beach, update it immediately. This is not a dating site. No one will follow you if they don’t know who you are. These few little lines define your brand – and are perhaps the most important step in making yourself searchable to the folks that you want to be able to find you.
2. #Hashtags are your friends. Use Twitter or Google to search what hashtags – symbols used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet – are used by the most influential people in your industry. This is not only the easiest way to stay on top of what’s trending for your particular subject, but also boosts the number of people who are likely to see your tweets when you tweet using the same hashtags as those in your space. Better yet, you may get new followers out of it!
3. Who you follow, matters. Many of us in PR manage our clients’ Twitter accounts. Know the major influencers for your subject matter, and follow them. You’ll also want to see who they follow because you’ll find others that are a good fit. If these same people see that you contribute worthwhile content, they’re likely to follow you back. You could also end up in some Follow Friday (#ff) posts, which is a great stamp of approval for your tweets.
4. Be consistent. There is no right number for how many times to tweet per day or per week. The key is to be consistent. If you go from tweeting 3 times a day to 3 times a week, or tweet every day, then take two weeks off, your followers will think you’re inconsistent and may unfollow you. With so many cool people and organizations out there, there is only time for those who keep our interest.
5. Be of value. Are you constantly self-promoting yourself or your client? That spells boring. Want to advertise? Buy an ad. Instead, share interesting articles, or pictures taken at the conference you attended, or better yet, ask your followers a question – you’d be surprised by how many respond to requests to engage.
6. Retweet with caution. Retweeting is a good thing. It aligns your name with the information you are sharing and shows your followers who you think posts valuable information. You also may want to mention the name of the original poster, to show respect and gratitude for the juicy content. Just don’t go overboard – retweeting too many times just looks like spam – and that’s one quick way to lose followers.

What strategies do you use to add followers? Let us hear what works well for you.

Post by Colleen Devine
Zer0 to 5ive Senior Strategist
@devinecolleen