Why we really follow on Twitter

By now you understand as a marketer how important it is to grow your list of followers on Twitter.

But how do you do it? The truth is, most marketers are doing it all wrong.

Below you will find 3 tips to help you grow your Twitter followers list the right way so that you will build a responsive audience for years to come.

1. Follow Only Those You Are Genuinely Interested In

This is simply being genuine. If you are interested in Internet Marketing, do not follow somebody who is into bass fishing (unless you are into bass fishing as well). Many marketers blindly follow anyone but this is a bad strategy. Inevitably you are creating tweets filled with content that many or most of your Followers do not care about.

When you follow people who are interested in similar things, they will be more inclined to follow you back as well.

Stick with building relationships with people that have similar interests to yours.

2. Don’t Spam Your Audience

When you tweet, it should be mainly with the purpose of providing useful content to your audience. Sending out a series of links for your products or services will only turn people off. Remember that people love to buy things but hate to be sold.

Sending out constant sales pitches will only alienate your audience and hurt your sales efforts.

3. Be A Valuable Content Provider

The saying ‘content is king’ is equally true on Twitter. You do not need to have tons of original content however. There are a ton of sources online that you can use to be on the cutting edge of your niche and provide timely, relevant information.

Consider sites like digg.com and technorati.com where they rank hot new content in every niche daily. Simply pointing your audience to these sources is very valuable indeed. It does not have to be more complicated than that.

4. Tweet individuals often but thoughtfully

You can and should send tweets to individuals that you follow to direct a message solely to them. Make sure that you are not breaking the 3 rules above however when you do so.

Personal tweets get the attention of not only the person you send it to, but all of their followers as well. A well placed, valuable tweet to someone with a large audience can result in 10′s or hundreds of new followers for you!

When you begin to treat your Twitter audience properly and be one of the ‘go to guys’ in your niche, people will find and follow you. More importantly, they will come to know, like and trust you.

When they trust you, they will happily buy from you and tell others about you, growing your list even faster.