We all know the frustrations of spending tons of time on Twitter; following people, retweeting, sharing your knowledge, and getting little to no followers from your efforts. That’s why I created a strategy, using a few simple tools, to teach you how to build a twitter following in only 5 minutes per day.
If you’ve ever asked the question, “How do I get more people to follow me on Twitter without spending hours of time on social media?”, this article is for you!
What You Will Need to Follow This Tutorial:
There are a few free (and some paid) tools you can use to help you. They include:
- Buffer: This is a (Free!) post scheduling tool. It’s amazing.
- ChatSalad: Following the trend of chat, this website shows you a calendar of upcoming Twitter chats.
- CrowdFire: CF is a Twitter/Instagram manager you can use to follow & unfollow people. But it’s so much more than that.
- TweetChat: A free website where you can participate in current Twitter chats.
Alternative Tools (In case you don’t like Crowdie or Buffer)
- FollowerWonk: Find users to follow. It has some nice features Crowdie doesn’t have (like detailed analytics), but it is more expensive and the free trial doesn’t allow you to follow anyone through the app. Of course, you can do it manually, but who has the time for that? You also can’t unfollow.
- HootSuite: A social media management platform. The free version gives you basic analytics and post scheduling, similar to Buffer.
Step 1: Sign Up for Buffer (Or Hootsuite)
Ready to dive in? Create your Buffer or Hootsuite account. For this tutorial, I’m going to be using Buffer. Once your account is created, they will ask you for your intended purpose as well as # of team members. We just want the free version, so don’t worry too much about it.
- Connect your Twitter account. (You can also connect Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ if you want to.)
- Allow Buffer to find your optimum scheduling times. If you haven’t posted much yet, this may not work and you’ll have to wait until your posts get more impressions (views).
- Get the Buffer browser extension (I use Chrome – Get it here).
- Start scheduling posts! People with more tweets get more followers. Just make sure they are quality posts, not just spam.
Step 2: Follow 150 People Per Day
When you follow someone, they get a notification that you followed them. This prompts them to look at your profile, and allows them to easily follow you back.
The key here is to only follow relevant accounts. If you just follow anyone, they won’t care about your content. You can do this easily using Crowdie (or Follower Wonk, but I use Crowdie). Create an account with them.
Unfortunately, Crowd Fire’s free account only allows you to follow 25 people per day. If you want to really invest in growing as fast as possible, you’ll need to upgrade to their premium account which offers a lot of value for only $10/month.)
There are two methods to find people to follow:
1. Search by keyword or hashtag.
I’m going to use the keyword “Internet Marketer” to find people to follow, because those are the people I share content for. Brainstorm a few keywords you can use for your business.
Quick note on who to follow: Look at their description. In the example above, Elijah Papas has no description, so I probably wouldn’t follow her. Look for a description like the one below; it sounds like a real person.
2. Copy Followers
This is a great way to find followers. Find a user who has the kinds of followers you want. For my example, I’m using Neil Patel, a well-known internet marketer.
Just go down the list, adding people that seem real. That’s all for this step.
Step 3: Unfollow 100 People Per Day
“Why would I want to unfollow 100 people every day?” you may be asking. The answer is because you don’t want to follow more people than are following you. There are two main ways to find the right people to unfollow:
1. Non Followers
Non followers are people you’re following but aren’t following you back. Obviously you want to give people you just followed a day or two to follow you back before you unfollow them, but if you’ve given them that time window then it’s time to give ‘me the boot. Careful not to unfollow people you want to follow even if they’re not following you (big names in your niche). Add them to your whitelist with the button in the bottom right.
Careful not to unfollow people you want to follow even if they’re not following you (big names in your niche). Add them to your whitelist with the button in the bottom right.
2. Inactive Following
These are people who follow you but aren’t actively tweeting. You may want to go back 3 or 6 months instead of just one month to ensure you don’t lose potential people just taking a break.
Step 4: Participate in Twitter Chats
If you can show yourself as an authority in your niche, people will follow you. The easiest way to do this is to participate in chat sessions. A twitter chat session is set up one specific days at specific times, and to get involved you simply have to create a tweet with the hashtag(#) being used in the chat. You can ask or answer questions, or just send some shout outs. Anything to get seen.
To find twitter chats to participate in, head over to ChatSalad. Here you will see tons of Twitter chats happening now and in the near future. You may have to dig a little to find a good chat, however. If you’re having a hard time finding an active chat there, another great resource is Tweet Reports. Finally, you can check out this Google Doc for a large list.
Once you’ve found a good chat related to your niche to participate in, head over to TweetChat. Type the hashtag in the search bar and you’ll be taken to the proper “room” for that chat, and be able to participate.
That’s How You Build a Twitter Following in 5 Minutes Per Day!
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! As a writer and small business owner, it’s important that I grow a large, engaged Twitter following.
The bigger my following, the more reach my content has and the more clients my business gets. That means more money in my pocket for less work. If you want more money for less work, you should be working on growing your list as well.
