Many people and businesses start on Twitter and don’t have much of an idea as to how to get followers or start interacting in a way that will add value to their lives or add customers to their business.  The first step is thinking of it as “growing community” rather than “attaining followers”.  I mean, you could simply follow a thousand people then unfollow the ones who don’t follow you back OR even pay someone on fiver.com to get you 3000 followers by midnight (but, actually, please don’t. stay tuned for a rant on the subject).  What’s the use in having a false following of unengaged, unconcerned people who will never engage with you in an enriching way and never set foot in your establishment? Here are some actual, helpful tips – that when executed in a genuine fashion – can get your community growing:

1. Pick A User-Friendly User Name

If you’re going to be identified and recognized by your name, make sure your twitter handle is your name.  If you need to add in underscores or numbers due to your name being taken, do so at the end of the handle to ensure it’s still easily searchable and can auto-populate when people are mentioning and searching you.

2. Search For People To Follow

Searching for current and potential contacts and customers can be as easy as searching your business’s name or searching a hashtag with the airport code for your city (ie: #yqr = Regina).

3. Know the Lingo

Know it but don’t become a slave to it.  Maintain your own personality!

4. Know Who You’re Interacting With

Taking the time to read the bio and recent tweets of a person you’re replying to or striking up a conversation with can make the difference between a message that is remembered  and a message that is forgotten or received negatively.

5. Add Your Twitter Handle To All Signatures

Show your existing contacts that you’re on Twitter by including it at the end of email messages and putting it in your LinkedIn profile

6. Reach Out

We’ve heard of many reputable marketing and business people actually making a list of people they want to get to know on Twitter and taking an intentional approach to interacting with over time in order to build mutually beneficial relationships.  Try it.  Times are changing and people are more receptive to this kind of interaction.

7. Promote Others

Want to get your own tweets retweeted and encourage people to interact with you? There’s no better way to do so than to first help others out by answering their questions and spreading their value-laden work.  While doing so, make sure you don’t water down your content by relaying sub par, non-remarkable content.

8. Share Your Best Info

Value, value, value! Before hitting the tweet button, ask yourself if what you’re tweeting will be of any benefit to the people who will read it.  If it’s not funny, informative, or remarkable, think twice. If it’s only going to be of interest to a few people, consider tweeting it at them directly or choosing a different medium.

9. Practice Etiquette

Avoid correcting people’s grammar and trolling others. Err on the side of positivity. Negativity can get you unfollowed faster than Usain Bolt can complete his final 50 metres.