Becoming a leader in social media

On March 21, 2006, Twitter cofounder Jack Densey posted the very first tweet.

Back then, the site was still called Twttr and a tweet was described as a ‘short burst of inconsequential information’.

Fast forward 11 years, and Twitter has over 300 million active users, with hundreds of thousands of people signing up every day.

Twitter, it’s fair to say, is now a very powerful tool that’s used in different ways by different people.

Some use it as a source of breaking news, some use it as a market- ing tool for promoting their brand, and others bore everyone senseless by tweeting about what they had for lunch, complete with pics.

If you’ve recently signed up to Twitter – or are thinking about it – you might be wondering how to get followers. It’s a salient question.

Building a large Twitter following takes time – but if you follow these simple steps and put effort into engaging your audience, you will quickly gain new followers.

The first step to gaining more Twitter followers is to upload a clean, high-resolution profile photo. This makes it clear that you’re not a fake user – or worse, a serial spammer.

When people are deciding who to follow they will scan a user’s bio to see if what they tweet will be relevant. State what you do, where you work, and include a URL. You are your own brand, so promote yourself creatively.

Many make the mistake of thinking others want to know what they had for breakfast, or see pics from their holiday in Lanzarote – no one cares. If you’re not tweeting anything worthy of reading, no one will want to follow you.

You must engage your followers, because no one wants to follow someone who last tweeted three months ago. That said, tweet too often and you will risk annoying followers by clogging up their newsfeeds. A good habit is about three to five tweets per day, a few hours apart.

If you retweet other people, they may follow you as a ‘thank you’ and return a retweet later on. It’s a proven way to get new followers.