When I started at Bauen Solutions we did not have a Twitter account. Being in the tech industry, Twitter seemed like a good fit but starting a new account can be intimidating and organic follower growth can be slow. However, by following these steps I was able to grow our Business Twitter following from 0 to 700 within 3 months.

Content

Right before I started the Twitter account we had completed a web redesign and decided to start blogging. We set a rule that we would release a new blog post every week. This is not always easy because like many small businesses we have a small marketing department and blog posts can be time consuming. There is no magic secret to maintaining a blog it just takes commitment. For the most part we have been able to stick to one new post a week which has been really helpful in growing our social media accounts and increasing traffic to our website.

Post regularly

The more you post on Twitter the better, literally you can post every hour and it wouldn’t hurt. Unlike other social media platforms, the lifecycle of a tweet is so short that there is no negative correlation due to over posting. If you have a small marketing department though, this probably isn’t going to happen. We try to tweet once a day, Monday- Friday which has proven to be enough to engage our followers. The formula I normally use is tweeting 4 blog posts and 1 retweet of targeted content from a reputable source. I know what you’re thinking, and no I do not blog 4 times a week. I blog once a week and the other 3 are past blog posts with new images, quickly created in Canva.

Look the part

A background image that clarifies what you do and an about us section with appropriate hashtags so your profile is searchable. Also have a link to your website to help support your legitimacy. Make your account look like a reputable source of information and people will be more likely to follow you. Have members of your staff retweet the company’s Tweets on their personal accounts to get the ball rolling. People are more likely to engage with a tweet if they see other people are.

Engage followers

I cannot overstate how important this is. At a previous company I worked for, despite having a blog with steady traffic, we were never able to grow our Twitter following by more than 100. We posted regularly but for some reason did not put a priority on engaging potential followers. After successfully growing a couple of Instagram accounts by 2,000 – 3,000 followers by putting emphasis on follower engagement, I was hopeful that I could use the same method to grow our Twitter followers. I can break this down into two parts, who to follow and who NOT to follow:

Who to follow

Download an app that allows you to monitor who is following you back. Then go to a competitor or a business that is similar to yours Twitter account and follow 50-100 of their followers. Careful, if you follow too many at once Twitter will log you off and may you verify that you are a human and not a spam bot. Then wait 24 hours and see how many of these accounts have followed you back. You can then choose to unfollow those who have not followed you back. We do not unfollow people/accounts that have followed us because it gives the vibe that you are just using people to grow your follower count rather than actually trying to engage and connect with an audience. It is called social media for a reason. So be social and like your followers posts and retweet relevant information.

Who not to follow

Okay so let me clarify, this is how you set your business page up for follower growth, not that their aren’t any benefits from following these type of accounts. In the past we would follow industry leaders and huge industry news/blog accounts. The problem with this is they are most likely not going to follow you back. If you want to grow your follower base you need to follow people that will follow you back.

By following these steps we were able to successfully kick off our business Twitter account. After a few months of putting a lot of effort into social media we have been able to focus on other things because we are happy with the Twitter presence we have. Have other digital marketing questions? Contact us here!