Step-by Step Blueprint to Rapidly Increase Your Twitter Following                    Manual and Automated Strategies

By Billie Ray  May 10, 2009

In order to be part of the Twitter Top 1000 as listed on http://www.twittercounter.com you need to have approximately 14,000 people following you. This article is a description of how to achieve that number within approximately two months by either manual methods or automated methods such as with a product called Hummingbird.

99% of twitter users fall into one of two categories. Chances are these describes you. You have 200 followers or less or you have stalled out at somewhere around 1500 followers. The first group is what twitter was designed for – having a small following and telling everyone often what you are doing. The second group is making an active effort to increase their following but has encountered limits imposed by Twitter.

Twitter recently imposed a follow limit of 2000 people. Actually they allow 2001 to be exact. This was to prevent people spamming. Consequently you will see thousands of people with approximately 1500 followers. To achieve 1500 followers is quite easy (explained in a moment) and can be done manually.

Step 1 – Search under Find People – Put in the name of what you are interested in. For example type in the word “Dogs.”  The people with the most followers will return at the top of the list. Here is an example:

1. dogstrust / Dogs TrustTweets by Web Editor, Alex Goldstein (alex.goldstein@dogstrust.org.uk) and Jacqui Darlow, Digital Manager.

4,925 followers · from London · updated 8:32 AM May 8th

You will notice that dogstrust has 4,925 followers.  Click through on dogstrust and then click on followers. In theory these followers also have some interest in dogs although some percentage  

Simply start checking the Follow box of each of these people. When you have clicked 2001 people Twitter will give you an error message saying that you have exceeded your limit. Actually you will probably first hit a daily limit of 1000 but just come back 24 hours later. The process is simple albeit tedious. I had one of my children sit at the computer and help me do the clicks.

No matter what your profile says, some percentage of people, perhaps 20%, will follow you just because they are happy that you are following them. If your profile is a very close match such as your login name is I_LOVE_ALL_DOGS you will get about 50% of people to follow you back.  So you follow 2001 people and now you have perhaps 1000 people following you. Not bad for a couple hours of work!  But now you have hit the first wall. Twitter will not allow you to follow more than 2001 so you must now unfollow everyone (this will upset people) or unfollow those who do not follow you.

The easiset way to do this is to go to your own profile, click on “following” and then unfollow everyone. However, many people track who is following them and you will immediately see up to 20% of your followers drop off.  But, then just repeat the process listed above and follow another 2000 people.

But there is a catch - You will again immediately have a new problem. You will now start following and unfollowing some of the same people since you have no real way to keep track. Do this enough times and this will put you in spam court eventually.

In summary, if you want 1500 or less followers manual is tedious but doable. Above 1500 followers use an automated tool such as Hummingbird.

Note: If you actually get 2000 people to follow you Twitter will slowly raise the limit of people that you can follow to perhaps 2200 people so you can continue forward.

Automated Tools

Automated tools (more correctly in my opinon  these should be called semi-automated tools) provide immediate massive benefits. Of highest importance is that the tool does all of the clicks for you for both follow and unfollow and automatically keeps track of those people you have already followed and unfollowed. Automated tools still have to follow all of the Twitter limitations but also allow you to quickly grow you list.  Of even higher importance is that automated tools allow you to create a VIP list. No matter what, you will never accidentally unfollow your mother if she is on the VIP list.   I also add anyone who retweets or responsds back to my post to my VIP list.  Automated Tools like Hummingbird also allow one to create and track multiple Twitter accounts for you and your friends.

Creating Quality to Retain Followers

It is one thing to get lots of people to follow you but another to keep them. If you write 20 times a day – “My dog is going outside to pee” you will quickly lose followers. If you write things of real interest and acknowledge good responses your dropoff rate will be close to zero. Ignore the myth that you must tweet 20 times a day – this is nonsense. I have built several lists of followers exceeding 10,000 people with only 50 posts, but all were quality and value-add.

Gauging Quality

Knowing if you are writing quality tweets is easy. If people are retweeting or acknowledging what you write, it is a great compliment and you are on the right track. If your follower list is dropping off like flies you are not meeting the mark.

Following a Subset

If you follow 10,000 people there is obviously no way you can read what everyone is writing. You can use a free tool like Tweetdeck http://www.tweetdeck.com that will allow you to segment people by groups. Put your mother in the must read group so you don’t miss what she is saying

Direct Messaging

As you ramp up your following, about 30% of your followers will send you a direct message introducing themselves or promoting some type of product. While most are self serving and can be sent immediately to the trash, I encourage you to read all of them because people often respond back to your posts with good questions or comments.

The Self Fulfilling Prophecy

When your number of followers moves above 5,000 your success becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Your name beings to start showing up at the top of many searches. Also many people begin to retweet your posts which immediately attract new followers.

The 2000 – 5000 Follower Dilemma

When you have between 2000 and 5000 followers unfortunately you will have to unfollow some that are following you if you want to expedite the growth process. Once you reach 5,000 followers, this is no longer necessary. Between the natural growth of followers, the normal unfollowing of some and limit increases in the number of followers allowed by Twitter due to your follow count it will no longer be a problem.

Summary

Anyone can have 1500 followers within a matter of days. Follow people that have close interests to what is listed in your profile to get the maximum number of followers. Write intelligent posts. Check out Hummingbird to automate all of your tasks and to help keep you out of spam court. Above 10,000 followers is easily attainable within six weeks to two months.