Brainstorm Design Blog

The other day, I initiated a forum discussion asking people how they attracted followers on Twitter. One participant proudly explained how he went from 230 to 2300 followers in just a couple of months.

Well I have news for you. It really doesn’t matter how many followers you have. It’s the quality of followers that counts, not quantity. 

Are you running a competition or special offer? How do you remind your audience on Twitter without boring them?

Well the good news is that tweets have a very short shelf life, so anything you tweeted about yesterday has probably been forgotten.  Nevertheless, some members of your audience will be inquisitive and will read through all the recent tweets on your timeline. You don't want them to see that you're repeating yourself.

They way to deal with this is to rewrite the tweet so it appears that you are saying something slightly different each time.

If you want followers on Twitter, you need to follow people first. And you need to make sure they are the right people. If your tweets are interesting, some of these people will follow you back. 

For example, if you're a Dermatologist, think about who will be interested in what you have to say. You may want to follow health & beauty bloggers, Eczema charities, beauty bloggers, and Psoriasis support groups. 

How can I promote by business on social media without blatantly selling my services? Most of us realise that a sales pitch is an instant turn-off. 

One effective solution is to ask (and then answer) the questions you know your target audience will be asking. E.g. If you’re a high-end graphic designer, post a tweet starting with a question e.g. “Why would I pay £3000 for a logo when I can get one done for £1000?”

If you want more followers on Twitter, remember this golden rule: 

"People are attracted to people who have a great sense of humour"

Humour makes you look human, especially if you can laugh at yourself. So here are a few pointers to help you be more humorous on social media. 

1. Share a humorous quote.
2. Share humorous videos. It doesn't have to be related to your work: e.g.  Just for Laughs gags.
3. Humorous observations from your work. E.g. I posted a blog article about illiterate SEO consultants, by publishing some sample comments I found on my blog.
4. Describe humorous things that have happened to you.
5. Most importantly, never make a joke at someone else's expense. It's not funny, it makes you look unprofessional, and it will probably backfire.

Do you want to find Tweets within a certain geographical radius? Here is one way of doing it. 

Say you are looking for mentions of "Osteopath" within 20 miles of the centre of Manchester:

1. Go to http://maps.google.co.uk and find Manchester, UK - point to it on the map and right click. Select "whats here?". You should now see the geo location appear in the search box at the top e.g."53.490905,-2.235718".

2. Go to the search box on Twitter and type (without the quotes "osteopath geocode:53.490905,-2.235718,20mi"

3. If you want to change the radius, just change the "20mi" to the number of miles you want the range to be.

It's not completely accurate, but it works far better than searching place names e.g. "Osteopath Manchester" where you often get no results at all.  

So, you've launched your new Facebook business page. All your friends, relatives and even a couple of strangers have 'liked' it. What now? How do you continue drawing new fans to your page, giving it enough exposure to turn it into a useful business tool?

One way is to use other social media sites in order to promote it and drive traffic to your page. Of course, any time you post an item to your Facebook page - be it news item, poll, special offer or information -- you should post a link on Twitter. Hopefully, some of the visitors will decide to follow your Facebook page permanently.