This isn’t something I’d normally write.  Heck, I’m not even close to being an expert on Twitter, having only recently joined.  But a friend asked a question, I wrote an email in response, and then realized two things:

1. I had used up most of my morning writing time on that email, including doing some “mini” research for it.
2. Even though I’m no expert, what I said might be useful on the subject of how to find followers on Twitter.

For both the above reasons, I reproduce that email, with appropriate edits and some expansion, here on Unspun™.  For those interested in Twitter, but who don’t care what I have to say on it — why are you here? — there are links at the end of the article you may find more interesting.

You definitely want to try to get past your frustration with it and learn how to use it. It’s going mainstream.

The best way to get followers is to find people you want to follow, follow them, and to start posting “tweets” of interest. Don’t be too overzealous about self-promotion on that, either. Not that I have a ton of followers, but the following ideas have worked, so far, for me.

Find People You Want to Follow

Find people you want to follow – mostly lawyers for me, which I took from this list at JDSupra. There are other lists on the Internet for photographers, artists, etc. Here’s someone you might want to follow, but he’s not following me (yet, anyway)  And another is my friend JoniMueller. She’s from Texas. Be nice to her. Both those people are pretty web-techie. I don’t know Pearson, but I’m following him because he created the Thesis theme for WordPress, which is a quite impressive theme. I’m not using it yet for any blog, but I’m considering it. Joni is great. She’s posted comments to my blog before, so you may have seen her here. She’s a legal secretary-type who blogs and builds blogs. I actually don’t know that much about what she does in the legal world, but as a blog-builder, she’s QUITE knowledgeable. She gets paid for it, too!

Follow Other Followers

Look at people who follow someone you’re already following. There’s probably a reason they’re following. Birds of a feather flock together. If you like following one person, you stand a good chance of wanting to follow the people they’re following, or who are following them. Check out the links on their pages that show who follows them/is followed by them.

Tweet Sweet

One thing I do is try to find articles not written by me that I think might interest people I want following me. Again, in my case, that’s usually legal types. So I post links to articles on or relating to law that seem interesting, at least to me. Most URLs are too long to post directly, so I first go to http://tinyurl.com/ and paste the URL into the appropriate box, get my tinyurl that way, and include that.

Retweet

I also do “retweets”. Short-code for this is “RT @someone on Something URL”. Look at samples of ones I’ve done on my twitter page. I like to spell out “Retweet” when I can, but I think “those in the know” have no problem with the short-code of “RT.”  Again, see samples.  For more on re-tweeting, just go here. Retweeting is a good thing. It shows you’re not “all about me” and it’s like praising someone — as you know, that’s always something that’s good when you want to add them to establish a relationship.

Self-Promotion

I do also announce when I’ve made a new blog post. There are people who will not follow you if this is the only kind of link you ever post, so be sure to post other articles than just the ones you write, as noted above.  Don’t forget to tinyurl when necessary.  If it won’t fit in the 140 limit without a tinyurl, then you need a tinyurl.  (And I’m not saying you should post links to my articles. But I am saying I won’t mind. ;))

That should be more than enough to get you started. And, as with anything, Google is your research friend. So are friends who already know, of course! But may be areas I didn’t discuss above which Google will have info on. So if you’re interested in something else, just try googling “twitter” plus whatever that something else is!

Twitter, by the way, isn’t the only thing like it out there. There are others. Although I haven’t tried any others, I did run across this video discussion of Twitter vs. Pownce.

I’m no expert, by far, on Twitter, but I hope this helps!

More on Finding Followers

• How to Get More Twitter Followers: Some Methods That Work (doshdosh.com)
• How to Gain Followers on Twitter (flyteblog.com)
• Social Media: Building Brand and Followers on Twitter (ezinearticles.com)
• Okay, this one is just funny: How To Get More Followers On Twitter If You’re A Girl And Aren’t All That Interesting (seo-chicks.com)

Benefits of Twitter

• Welcome to my Twitter page (blogforprofit.com).
• 9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers (problogger.net)
• Ten Must Have Twitter Tools for the Blogger (blogforprofit.com)
• Three Ways to Learn from Twitter (Anjuan Simmons at transmyth.com)

Twitter for Photographers

• Twitter for Photographers: Part 1 (The BUI Brothers)
• 20 Photography Tips from Our Twitter Followers (dPS digital Photography School)
• Twitter: The new media photographer’s scanner (New Media Photographer)