Last week my name was mentioned as a resource (again) by someone on Facebook for Twitter advice.

A third party asked:

Anyone have any tips to increase the number of one’s twitter followers?

Humbly, I’m going to address the original question with a disclaimer. There are lots of people who are making a living, or at least supplementing their income by offering and charging for social media advice and guidance.

I’m not one of them.  I do all of this online stuff as a communication tool.  I started several years ago writing a couple of blogs which grew into 5 or 6, then recently scaled back one update per day, on one website, instead of the 40+ weekly updates I was doing previously. I did work for about a year with digital marketing agency Cirrus ABS and was recruited due to my media, marketing, sales, and social media credentials.  However I decided to return to the radio advertising business this year to earn a living.

The person who asked the question on Twitter about adding more followers is also in the mass media business.  I did some research on him and the company he works for.

They are both on Facebook and with respectable numbers of Likes and Friends.  The company had 2716 and he personally had 2301 when I checked a couple days ago.

(In comparison, one of my radio stations has over 8,000 likes, the other has around 1,400.)  My own Facebook page has 850 Friends, my wife has under 100 and so on…

But back to Twitter.  This person’s company has 142 followers and follows 208.  He has 61 followers and follows 49.  I understand why he wants to increase his numbers, but I’m not sure he understands why.

Last week I wrote about the primary reason I use Twitter. I said it is my preferred conversational social media platform.  Click here to read why I used those words.

But conversation is not the only reason I Tweet.  I also listed 6 additional reasons the next day.  You can read them here.

The main reason I am on Twitter is to engage back and forth with others on Twitter.  I joined Twitter around 4 years ago.  I have Tweeted over 36,000 times.  That averages out to around 25 times a day.

You don’t need to Tweet that much.  But as they say “results may vary”.

Here’s why I believe you probably want more Twitter Followers:

You want to connect with more people and have them connect with you.

So, this sounds silly, but it’s also obvious.  Follow more people.

When I had less than 500 followers I always followed more people than I had followers.  Eventually the numbers flipped.  I have more followers than I follow.

Every time I get a new follower, I check their Twitter profile to see if they are real or just spammy, and usually follow back.

Two other things to do to increase the number of followers that I’ve mentioned:

Tweet more and converse more. 10 times a day isn’t all that difficult if you are building relationships.

And finally you need to keep at it.  This whole twitter thing, in my book, is about building relationships with other people.  If you disappear for a few days or weeks, you are weakening those relationships.

When I started most of my online activity, I was just as green and new to this as anyone else.  I sought out advice, and I applied relationship principles.

Anyone else have some advice?