Retaining your twitter followers is not as easy as it seems. The reason is that people do not understand that twitter is not a market place. It is a place to share your ideas and network. This means that you have to provide value for your following or they will start to unfollow you. If you are not familiar with twitter read my beginner guide to twitter to get started.

I follow back practically 95% people that follow me. Some people say that it is not a good policy, but I disagree. Following people back is a way to show appreciation for the people that took time to follow you. Anyway, here are my concepts on how to get twitter followers to stick.

Tweet For Value

When you tweet, your message must be interesting for your followers. It can either be funny or in someway related to your niche. If you are using twitter the right way, then most of your followers will be targeted. These targeted people are normally looking for targeted tweets. Always think that would your followers want to read this, and you will be well off.

Tweet also some of the popular stuff that is around. These tweets have normally pretty good content and most people love them.

Tweet Regularly

Do your tweeting regularly. I would suggest to tweet at least once every day. If you tweet only once a week, some more active tweeters may decide to unfollow you. This is especially true now that there are tools that can automate the process of removing inactive tweeters.

ReTweet Stuff from your Followers

Many of the people that follow you also make valuable tweets. By tweeting the stuff that your active followers have tweeted, you show them appreciation. This only applies when your follower is a more Joe Average, than a mega tweeter.

Do not Overly Advertise

When you use twitter, you can and should tweet your own posts. It is a way to notify your following that you have new stuff available. This does not mean, that you should tweet the new post 10 times every day. If you continuously tweet only your own posts, then people will get tired and unfollow you.You can retweet your posts again, but do not over do it. As a rule I would not tweet more than two of my own posts per day.

Conclusion

Twitter is a place to network. It is not a place to spam. Always keep in mind, that will your followers like your tweets and everything will go just fine.

All comments are welcome. What do you do to make your followers stick?

The whole test has been a bit too much for me. I have started to realise that I am coming almost addicted to the whole thing. I have been tweeting for hours and  I have had a lot of fun. Gotta tell you that I would recommend it to anyone. Just keep in mind that your spouse may not like it so much if you tweet all the time. At least the feedback I’ve received from home has not been that positive.

Statistics at this point

• Followers: 165
• Following: 744
• In-clicks 8 (Google Analytics, unfortunately a day late)

Interaction is the Key

When you interact with people, you can get readers. If you do not talk to other people, then nobody will be interested in your tweets. You’ll be like one in a million if you do not interact. I have honestly commented on other peoples postings, when I have felt that  I had something to say. Spamming is not an option, because real people will block you in a heart beat.

Getting Followers

This time I have mostly used lists that other people have made. For example my site is about blogging, so I find bloggers. This list is a great place to start: @davidsbain/bloggers. Thanks a lot davidsbain from http://www.brandingapps.com/

The tools for searching people are totally useless in comparison to these man made lists. Use them if you need to find people to follow.

Lessons Learned

Interact, Interact and Interact some more. That is the key.

When talking to people, try to stay on top of things. Funny thing happened when I talked with SEO expert Rich Currie from pro website maker. He was asking people what to write about next on his blog. I of course asked him to write about blog link building. The reply came: “I have just done two videos about that”. He flat out refused. In my opinion he should have made even a third video, just for me

Thanks for the nice chat Rich!

What next

• Interaction
• More interaction
• Following people from other peoples lists

Test is moving a long just fine and I believe I am well into reaching my goal of getting 1000 followers in one week. I have used digitalpoint forums to get advice and the advice has been helpful. Finding people to follow has been my main aim, and I believe I have been quite good at it.

The best thing so far: I was added in a list called WebDorks . Thanks for the thumbs up.

Statistics at this point

• Followers: 70
• Following: 419
• In-clicks ZERO

Help from forums

I have posted this experiment to digitalpoint forums to ask for help and info.  Through there I have gotten some great advice. Special thanks to all you guys there! Here is a recap of the best tips

• Add twitter widgets here (done)
• Interact more with other twitter users (Working on it)
• Announcing all blog updates on twitter (done)

Ways of getting followers

Tweetmeme
I have continued to use tweetmeme to find people who have posted similar content as I have. This has worked just fine although it is quite slow.

Lists
As my blog is about blogging I have used the list of bloggers who tweet from problogger. That is a big list and I have not added all of them yet. Hopefully part of them follow me back.

Tools for finding followers
Twellow has been working great. On twellow you can search for people with keywords. It works so that twellow grabs publicly available tweets and then categorises users based on their tweets. Excellent service so far and I am hoping to get a lot of followers from there.

Lessons Learned

The whole thing is about conversation and interaction with people. Having a lot of followers won’t cut it. Interacting with other people is probably the only way to get serious readers. After I have gotten around 1000 followers I am going to start really actively interacting with other people.

What next

• I am going to follow rest of people in probloggers list.
• Following people with Twellow
• More interaction with people