I’ve had good success rapidly growing my Twitter followers from 100 to 1,200 between January and March of 2019, but it took me a long time to realize what I was doing wrong. Here are the Twitter strategies that have been helping me find more engaged, interested followers (without being spammy!).

To be a Good Leader, You Have to be a Good Follower…

I had an epiphany when I realized that my following tab also lists who is following me back and who is not. In addition to posting regular content, in January I began selectively following people who I thought would be interested in my music and brand. I try to follow no more than 20% more than my current number of followers. For example, when I had 800 followers I’d follow an additional 160 or so each week.

I began by locating Twitter accounts of regional music festivals I’d like to play, such as Imagine Music Festival or EDC Orlando, and then looking at their followers. I’d generally spend about 5-10 seconds per profile looking for keywords that align with my brand, such as: PLUR, EDM, bass music, DJ, producer, or other popular EDM acts. Finally, I would subscribe to those I found interesting and sometimes leave a like if I saw an especially intriguing post.

I started doing this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of each week which gave people between 2-5 days to follow me back including the weekend. Saturday and Sunday I continued interacting with them over Twitter through likes and comments. I thought 2-5 days is a reasonable time-frame for people to visit my profile and decide if they were interested in keeping up with me. Anything less than that felt spammy. If they hadn’t followed me back by Monday, I generally unfollowed them.

Stay Engaged

I tried to post original content daily, to include a mixture of photos, video, and text. I also engaged with my followers by commenting, retweeting, and liking their posts. Social Media today is less about quantity and more about the quality of your interactions. If you have 10,000 followers but no one is engaging with you then Twitter’s algorithm will punish you by not showing your posts to many people. This applies to Facebook, Instagram, and most other social media as well. This is why buying followers is a bad idea…. plus it may get you banned.

Use Emojis ?

I tried to include 1-3 appropriate emojis in most posts to help draw attention to them. Emojis can also be helpful in your profile. If your’e not sure what an emoji means or how to use it, Emojipedia is a great resource.

#Hashtags

Hashtags are an informal way of organizing related content on social media. I tried for 1-3 hashtags on most tweets. While there isn’t a limit on the number of hashtags you can use on Twitter, it looks spammy to use more than a that.

All Aboard the Follow Train

During my Wednesday through Friday follow-fests, I also actively looked for “follow trains” where people with similar interests were actively seeking followers. Follow trains are simple: someone announces one and everyone is supposed to comment, re-tweet, and follow everyone else who comments and retweets.

What About Bots?

I’ve avoided using bots for multiple reasons:

1. I don’t like giving out my account credentials.
2. Bots may act inappropriately, such as commenting “Awesome! ☺??❤” when someone just Tweeted that their aunt died.
3. Using bots violates Twitter’s Terms of Service and might get your account banned.

Bottom Line

This strategy should work well up to 5,000 Twitter followers, at which point I can’t follow any more people and I’ll need to figure something else out. Here’s a recap:

1. Post interesting, original content. I do this manually. I’ve tried Crowdfire and Hootsuite, but I find it easier to just post directly from the Twitter app. I’m not scheduling Twitter posts in advance, although I should probably start to improve my consistency.
2. Use hashtags and emojis in moderation.
3. Wednesday – Friday selectively follow people who might like your brand/product by seeking out similar products/venues and quickly evaluating their followers.
4. Monday – Tuesday unfollow people who haven’t followed you back. Try not to re-follow them later… that just annoys people.
5. Continuously engage with your followers. Like, comment, retweet, and DM. Engagement drives more engagement.

Want more?

Read my review of Imagine Music Festival, or take a peep at some of my favorite resources for music producers.