Wednesday Wing – #TwitterTips Part 1 Getting More Followers #wwwblogs

Welcome To Wednesday Wing

Rosie's Notebook

Here we pass on Tips and advice to the Book Community

Today Terry Tyler is bringing us Part 1 in a series of #TwitterTips follow Terry @TerryTyler4

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#TwitterTips

 

Part 1: Getting more followers

Rosie @rosieamber1 asked me to write a few short guest posts about how to get the most out of Twitter, so I’m starting with the basics—getting followers.

Much of Twitter’s effectivity is down to how many eyes see your tweets—so whether you’re promoting your book or your blog, growing your business or just hoping to entertain people/get your voice heard, it makes sense to give that number a boost now and again.

At the time of writing I have 72.3K followers, with very little effort – and no, I didn’t buy them! Don’t ever be tempted to do that, as those for sale are not real profiles, but spam accounts. Yes, a proportion of my followers are accounts trying to get me to buy followers, or porn stuff, people who don’t speak English or general spamming, but I do get followed by many real and interesting people every day.

I’ve found that once you get to around 10K followers, and if you are active on the site (using it most days, retweeting others), your following grows automatically, because you appear on the ‘Who To Follow’ lists.

Here’s how to expand your following:

    • Follow others. Sounds obvious, but many don’t bother. Pro-active following will make you appear on ‘Who To Follow’ lists, too.
    • How to find the right people? Enter the subjects that interest you into ‘Search Twitter’ at the top right hand side of the screen. For instance, you might choose ‘bookworm’, ‘book bloggers’, ‘history’, ‘reading’ ‘traveller’, etc. Then click on ‘People’. This will give you a list of all the people with that word mentioned in their bio.
    • You can also put hashtags into the search, for instance #bookblogger #author #SciFiWriter #TuesdayBookBlog #bookreview, etc, and seek out People in the same way.
  • Just following 10 or 20 accounts every time you log on will soon get it all moving.

 

  • When you RT people on hashtag days such as #TuesdayBookBlog or #MondayBlogs, follow them, too, and follow anyone who RTs you. This helps to expand your reach out of your usual circles.
  • You’ve seen #FF, the Follow Friday hashtag? Use it! Click on any user names mentioned—any mentioned by others will be active Twitter users who interact, retweet and post interesting stuff.
  • Click on your ‘followers’ every day, and follow back anyone who looks useful/interesting. Don’t follow back spam or pointless profiles, or you’ll end up getting followed by more and more of them; it’s best to block them.

That should get it all moving! I started trying to grow mine about three years ago, just before I started a free promotion for a book; I was determined that as many people should see it as possible, so made it my aim to get to 10K followers. Just out of interest, I’d like to mention that my proofreading sister, @ProofreadJulia, has developed her whole successful business entirely through Twitter, from my original tuition about the site. Of course she is very good at what she does, and has a good business sense, but this just goes to show how powerful Twitter can be if used to its full potential.

 

Next Week: Expanding Your Reach

Here are links to previous Wednesday Wing Posts

Checking your WordPress is linked to your Twitter helps others share your posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7L2

Writer’s Craft books by Rayne Hall full of REALLY useful tips http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Ma

Hyperlinks, Short links and Linkys http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Rl

Making your post titles easy to share on Twitter to maximise views. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7SA

Creating Twitter pics that fit http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Y4

Creating a slideshow on WordPress http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Yo

Getting the most out of Google+ posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7YM

Automated Tweets, LOVE ‘EM or HATE ‘EM? make use of them http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Za

What’s Your Book Genre? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84S

Should you write dreams into your work? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84Q

What can I read in the first 10% of your book? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84W

Dialogue – he/she said http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-87T

Creating Twitter Lists – http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-8ck

Making best use of your Twitter “Thank-You” http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-8cn

Should you write a book series? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-87R

Book Clubs Love ’em? Or Hate em? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-8JQ

Blog in a Slump? Give it some TLC http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-8LI

Let’s talk about Libraries http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-8NP

Getting The Most Out Of Twitter Share Days http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-8Pa

Easy Templates To Help Readers Write A Book Review http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-8ZP

What Do Those Book Review Star Ratings Mean? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-90h

 

26 thoughts on “Wednesday Wing – #TwitterTips Part 1 Getting More Followers #wwwblogs

  1. Good points. I try (and fail) to do most of this. Another good way to find followers is to be on the Tweetalong of you favourite TV/radio progs. I’m regularly on #thearchers, #youandyours #moneybox and #PMQs …you soon pick up followers, as they are not selling their books/blogs, they frequently buy/read mine!

    Liked by 2 people

    • Absolutely, Carol! I used to find that when I joined in with the one on The Apprentice – not that they bought my books (or if they did, I didn’t know about it), but it was another way of getting more followers and breaking out of the ‘writers corner’ 🙂

      Thanks for reblogging, Judith 🙂

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  2. Good tips, Terry. It’s true that at some point when you have enough followers people follow you no matter what. I don’t find Twitter very good for selling books (at least mine) although Carol is right, one of the things is that many of my followers are also writers trying to sell their book…

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    • In the post I’ve written for next week, Olga, I’ve talked about expanding your reach, in which I’ve made the point that if you only follow other writers, then it’s likely that they will make up your following, too – you need to follow readers! A tip – go to a successful author who writes in a similar genre to you, and follow their followers. Rosie has also asked me to write something about effective tweeting, which I’ll do in a future post. 🙂

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  3. No, seriously. This REALLY works. It’s like social media magic.

    I’ve been the guinea pig. Starting less than three weeks ago, I’ve been trying these tips (well, most of them anyway. Okay SOME of them…). Results? I’m up over 150 followers. I’m sure if I was more organized and really followed all the tips regularly, those numbers would be even higher. (But Rosie told me to aim for 50/week, and I ALWAYS do what she tells me!)

    And the unexpected, wonderful bonus is that I’m also seeing a corresponding increase in blog followers.

    These tips are really the gift that keeps on giving!

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  4. Thanks for your useful advice, Terry. I always appreciate a refresher from you. You remind me of something I had forgotten, or tell me something new!

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  5. Great suggestions, Terry. Twitter is a good way to make connections and keep in touch with other authors and bloggers. If we keep a presence across social media, we show up more often on search engines. That alone is reason enough to maintain a Twitter account and stay active.

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    • Linda, absolutely. My blog posts, even old ones from 3 years ago, are still getting views, and I think it must be a lot due to my diligent use of all the Twitter can offer. Thanks for reading and commenting 🙂

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  6. Excellent how to tips but then what. What do you do with all those tweets from the people you follow?!?
    Do you use TweetDeck, something else? (I tried that and Hootsuit years ago and never quite got it working how I wanted of course that was so long ago they are probably totally different now.) That’s what I need tips on that.

    While I’ve been on Twitter for years I’m terrible about following new people because a prolific tweeter or two will bury others peoples tweets that I really want to see. Then I get overwhelmed and do a “following” purge. I could be the poster child for how *not* to gain twitter followers! 😉

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    • Jesse, I’ve never used TweetDeck or Hootsuite, I don’t even understand them. Twitter is not Facebok, it’s a numbers game. You can’t keep up with everyone; as with every community, some people will end up being your friends, some people you might have really got on with will (sadly) pass by unnoticed. If you want to see a certain people’s tweets, you can just click onto their page. That’s what I do, anyway. I now follow 50K people (you can’t expect loads of people to follow you if you don’t follow them, unless you’re a Kardashian, or something!), so have no hope of seeing everyone’s tweets via the News Feed; thus, I just ‘work’ from the Notifications and Mentions.

      Liked by 1 person

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