Grow Your Twitter Community

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One of the most important things for you to understand is that quality is more important than quantity with Twitter followers. As you build a strong community, your follower count will naturally grow. There are some things you can do to help your strong community expand to new people.

Before You Start: You have a business Twitter account.
Learning Level: 3 | Building Skills
Article Last Updated: Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Twitter Business Goals and Community

When you first start out on Twitter, it’s natural to want to add Twitter followers. But it’s critical to think about your Twitter community based on your Twitter goals instead of simple numbers.

If you haven’t take the time to write down your Twitter business goals, do that now. Your Twitter goals should be specific to your business and the target audience you want to reach. You may have several business goals, and you may see your Twitter audience broken out into groups.

Get really clear about your target audience. When you can define the kinds of people who make up your target audience, you can begin to really engage and grow your Twitter community.

Twitter Follower Count

You may want to have tens of thousands of followers. However, if you stay focused on your business goals for Twitter, you will see that it’s the quality of the followers and not the quantity that truly matters. If you have a thousand followers, but none of them are customers or potential customers, how does that help your business?

People decide to follow you for their own reasons. Your job is to use Twitter to engage your current community based on your Twitter goals. The more you engage your current Twitter community, the stronger it gets. A strong community always expands.

Reach Out To Expand Your Community

One of the easiest ways to have someone notice you is to notice them first. Find great people to follow and incorporate them into your community. You can’t control if they follow you. But if your conversation adds value to their Twitter experience, you can be sure they will check you out and share your tweets with their community.

Here are some suggestions for ways you can reach out to new Twitter people.

Stay focused on who you follow. You decide who to follow on Twitter. The choices you make determines the tweets you read, a big part of your overall Twitter experience. If you are not happy with your current Twitter experience, change the people you follow!
Keep looking for new people to follow. Every week, spend at least five minutes looking for new people to follow from your tweet stream. Did you see an interesting retweet? Check out that person. Really like the tweets from a person? Check out who they follow.
Use Twitter search to find people. Create a list of terms and products related to your industry, and your neighborhood if you have a storefront. Use Twitter to see who is talking about these topics, and save the searches for easy reuse.
Check for hashtag (#) conversations. Are you attending an industry or community event with a Twitter hashtag? Use the hashtag to find other people involved with the event.
Follow your favorite writers. Each time you visit a blog or read an online article, check to see if the author is on Twitter.
Check Twitter lists. Did someone list you? Check them out, and see who else is on the same list.
Use Follow Friday (#FF). On Fridays, many people recommend other Twitter users who contribute value to their community. Pay attention to the tweets from people you enjoy, or do a hashtag search.
Find local Twitter users. There are many advantages to getting acquainted with good Twitter users in your local community, even if you don’t have a storefront.