How to Find Targeted Twitter Followers (Part 3)

With Twitter’s 330,000,000 million active monthly users (as of Q4 2017), is it possible to find targeted Twitter followers?

That would seem like looking for a needle in the [digital] haystack, right?

But yes, it is possible to find the right followers on Twitter for your business.

Is this about that vanity metric-thing? Nope!

Just really quickly let us tackle the benefits that your business can reap out of using Twitter.

If used correctly, Twitter is a great tool to amplify your message, increase awareness about your business, and potentially get more leads.

According to a few major digital marketing players:

• If you want referral traffic to your preferred landing page that contributes to brand awareness and potentially more leads: “link clicks account for 92% of all user interaction with tweets. Link clicks are the low-hanging fruit of Twitter, and they’re your strongest chance of gaining views and shares for your content.” Source
• 80% of Twitter users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet, and
• 69% have bought something because of a Tweet that they saw.

Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but not if you do not have the right followers.

The right followers are the ones who will read your posts, then maybe share it, talk with (or about) you, and perhaps buy what you are selling.

Your targeted followers are the ones who will help your brand grow on Twitter.

Yes, there are millions of users on Twitter and your right followers are on there. You just have to know HOW to find yours.

So here are…

5 easy to follow tips to find targeted Twitter followers

Do these steps proactively and regularly to find your targeted Twitter followers and in no time your brand will grow:

Research

It is where we are all supposed to start before joining the Twitter frenzy. It is not too late though.

Some call it as listening or monitoring.

Listening should be an ongoing and active process for every business.

You know, there is wisdom in our having two ears and just one mouth.

Listening takes time, but it will save you lots of time in the future if you have this taken care of.

Now, amid the digital white noise on Twitter, there are ways to research for your right followers.

So what are ways to find your targeted followers on Twitter?

a) Advanced search

You can go to this link to get there: https://twitter.com/search-advanced.

You can search by keyword, location, and hashtags.

It would be convenient bookmarking it if you consider listening on Twitter (read: research and monitoring) as an essential part social selling for your business.

b) Using Twitter’s search formula

You can use these search booleans at search.twitter.com. Yes, it is a different URL from advanced search.

c) Harness tools

There are so many tools that can assist you when finding the right followers.

• commun.itIt categorizes your engaged followers, supporters, new followers, and retweeters. These are your VIPs that you should pay attention.

• Moz’ followerwonkIt sorts social authority of each account and how long it’s been on Twitter.

The above tools allow you to test drive it for free for a few days, and each has its strength so I can’t call it an apple to apple comparison.

No, I am not an affiliate in case you are wondering.

d) Use Twitter’s “Who to follow”

It is determined by the Twitter algorithm as it detects what you are doing on the platform. You can find it either on the left side or right side of your Twitter timeline or feed.

Pay to play

a) Paid influencer

Look beyond the number of users of an influencer. Look for the quality of content they are sharing and who it is that may be engaging with them.

Sometimes money is not everything for influencers. There are values and a company culture that some influencers look into.

Make sure that if you are going this route, you have a plan with a goal and social media KPI in mind that you may want to measure to gauge success.

I know some accounts pay influencers without checking those “influencers” digital presence nor had set up ways to measure this type of campaign’s success. Don’t be that company.

b) Promote your Twitter profile

When you run a Twitter ad, your Twitter profile gets seen by more of your potential followers.

If you are going to run a followers ad on Twitter, there are options in the Twitter ad dashboard where you can refine the demographics based on events, interests, follower look-alikes and keywords.

Use it well, so you do not waste your money by showing it to an audience that is not your targeted followers that will be using your product/service.

If you do a Twitter ad campaign, your Twitter handle will be grouped under the “Who to Follow” section, but it’ll be more prominent than the rest of non-paid handles.

Follow the hashtag-trail

Every savvy social media marketing maven understands its value. Basically, to get you and your content found.

But you can also use the hashtags to find your targeted Twitter followers proactively.

How do you find Twitter followers using hashtags?

a) Click the market-specific hashtag that you are using.

You will see all sort of things happening, conversations and images shared and more when you click it.

Of course, you will most likely find your competitors using it, but the beautiful part about it is that you can “watch” how they are using it and who they are tweeting with. That’s all public on Twitter.

So if you are a material handling expert and you are using #materialhandling, see who else is using that hashtag.

b) Click ancillary hashtags

Now going back to our material handling niche mentioned above, some of the potentially related hashtags are #manufacturing #mfg #shippingsoftware about your industry.

Like the market-specific hashtags, follow the trail too of your ancillary hashtags to find your relevant Twitter followers.

c) Search hashtag within a specific location

This tactic is helpful when you want to connect with anyone within a specific area. Remember URL for this is under “Research.”

Let the content find them

Content lends so much to exponentially growing your brand‘s Twitter visibility, and follow-worthiness. Hence, endeavor to share as many non-promotional contents as you can.

I can’t stress this enough: helpful contents attract followers, and it gets retweeted often.

That also means the more your potential targeted Twitter followers will find you.

So how do you find non-promotional posts to find the targeted Twitter followers?

a) Curated Content

These are articles or posts not written by you or your team. You can use Feedly and Pocket to do this.

Or, you can simply bookmark it from your computer.

b) Created Content

These are articles that you or anyone on your team wrote.

This one is premium with plenty of returns (in different forms).

If you want to rock inbound marketing and grow your authority to gain targeted followers, friend you have to create your own content, not just curate them.

Go back to basics

Authentic engagement is the core of social selling.

Engagement is key because according to a survey 77% of Twitter users feel more positive about a brand when their Tweet has been replied to.

Twitter has four different forms of engagement that you can use to find and attract the exact followers that you want for your business:

a) Mentions – It is mentioning another Tweeter by including their Twitter handle in the post.

b) Replies – It is when you reply to someone’s tweet.

Don’t forget to check whether you have followed that Twitter already.

You do not have to find these followers. These are low hanging fruits!

c) Retweets – It simply means resharing someone’s content. There’s free content for you, in a way.

Now, additional bonus for that: it puts you on the radar of the Twitter whose tweet you just shared.

d) Favorites – It is an expression of appreciation. This is the easiest and no-sweat form of engagement on Twitter.

As an aside visibility is also a way to find your Twitter followers, I have written extensively about making your business visible in your niche on Twitter.

Over to you, how do you find your targeted Twitter followers?

Photo cred: [pixabay.com] | [twitter.com]