How to Create a Strong Twitter Following for Your Company

Twitter is a social media platform that allows companies to share messages directly to their target audience with little to no cost.  Messages on Twitter are allocated strictly 140 characters.  Therefore, it is important that your company constructs your updates with proper keywording and hashtags as well as be enticing enough to get read or clicked on.  The larger your following, the more resources you have in spreading important company news, blog update, specials, giveaways, contests or helpful industry information.  There are many steps that your company can take to increase your following, consequently raising awareness of your brand and products or services.

Directing traffic from your other sites
Your website is a great opportunity to bring awareness to your Twitter page.  Just by simply visiting your website, you know that users have an interest in your company, brand and/or product or service. There are multiple places where you can place Twitter social media buttons to direct traffic and interest to your Twitter profile.

A Twitter follow button can be placed on your homepage or throughout your website’s pages.  This will direct users to your Twitter profile and make it easy for them to follow you.

Tweet buttons can be placed near newly shared content, such as press releases, blog entries, specials and contests or giveaways.  Making it easy to share your content on their own Twitter profiles helps to bring awareness to this new information on your website.Widgets can also be placed on your website and Facebook profile to actively share updated news feeds from your recent Twitter updates, favorited Tweets, search results in real time (i.e. live events, broadcastings, conferences or TV shows) or a list of favorite tweets in one list.

E-mail signatures
Twitter follow buttons or links to your page can also be placed within your e-mail signatures.  It is likely that a person that you are engaged with through e-mail is interested in your brand or company.  Providing a quick link to your page tells them that you have a Twitter profile and you are welcoming them to follow it.  Twitter social media buttons should also be placed within newsletter e-mails or e-mail marketing campaigns as a way to introduce your Twitter profile and generate a followership.

Hashtags are a way to show up in search results, helping people find your shares and follow your updates.  Hashtags are # signs that are placed within a Twitter share.  They consist of keywords or other unique phrases that people who searched on it would be interested in your share.  The ‘#’ is placed before the keyword or phrases, without any spaces (i.e. #marketing #socialmedia).

Engage with Twitter community
Another way to create a following is to actively research and follow others.  Search using keywords to find any news sites, groups or bloggers that are relative to your industry.  Do not follow competitors or random profiles that have nothing to do with your business or industry.  The key is to not just follow random people in order to create a larger following, but follow people that are relative to  or interested in your industry or business.  When you follow people, you are making them aware of your profile, and giving them the chance to follow you back.  Also, it is also important to engage with the Twitter community, such as re-tweeting or sharing other helpful information relative to your industry on your own profile.  This information can be found from your Twitter newsfeed and research from other articles shared (except from competitors) on bloggers’ or news websites.

Creating a strong Twitter follow takes time and is achieved through determination and commitment to the social media platform.  Updating your Twitter status often, at least a few times a day, is essential to being an active Twitter user.  Social media is vital in creating a strong social presence and helping your business get found online and generate more sales.