How to Grow Your Twitter Followers without Being Annoying

Twitter can be an excellent platform for growing your online brand, establishing yourself as an authority, and of course, promoting your Hubs.  But before you can reach and influence lots of people on Twitter, you’ll need followers who actually see and engage with your content. There’s a lot of bad advice on the internet about how to grow your Twitter followers. Some articles suggest following people indiscriminately, even when you have nothing in common. Others advise Retweeting everything you come across or Tweeting your own Hubs over and over. Some even advocate engaging in hashtag spam (the overuse of hashtags and/or the use of unrelated hashtags in your Tweets). But the truth is, those practices will likely drive away more followers than they attract, and the followers they do attract are more likely to be other selfish Twitter users who are also looking to grow their audience at any cost.

So, how does one grow a community of like-minded followers with whom to share (among other things) Hubs on Twitter? The simple answer is to always act in the best interest of your followers. You don’t need to abstain altogether from using tools like hashtags and Retweeting, but you should do so in moderation and be sure that your content is relevant. Here are a few quick-and-dirty tips for growing your Twitter following… without annoying the pants off anyone:

• Engage with other users… but not indiscriminately! Follow organizations and people you care about, comment on their posts, and Retweet things that you genuinely think your followers will enjoy. Following lots of people you have nothing in common with is probably not going to garner the engagement you want. But if you like to write gardening Hubs, following a gardening site, commenting, and occasionally Retweeting is likely to be rewarding.
• Share often… but don’t spam your followers! Tweeting your own Hubs over and over will only drive people away. Your Tweets should be a mix of Retweets from the people you follow, your own thoughts and comments, and your Hubs that you think your followers will like. It’s a good idea to Tweet several times a day every day in order to keep your audience interested.
• Drop names. Mention the people, brands, and organizations you tweet about. For example, if you want to Tweet about HubPages, use @HubPagesDotCom to tag us in your post. If we see it, we may Retweet it!
• Use hashtags… but don’t engage in hashtag spam. Only include 1-3 truly relevant hashtags that actually reflect what your post is about.
• Care about the community. This one is the most important. You want to cultivate a community of like-minded people to engage and share with regularly, not a herd of followers to exploit for the sole purpose of propagating your Hubs. If your heart is in the right place, the rest will come naturally.

You can also encourage readers who find your Hubs to share them on Twitter with their own followers, even if you’re not an active Twitter user. Of course, what makes “Tweetable” content varies considerably depending on the niche and target audience, but in general, these tips should help you create Tweetable Hubs that people will be excited to share:

• Use interesting, eye-catching photos. Most of the sharing on Twitter involves photos. Your Hub’s first photo should be as interesting and eye-catching as possible. The better the photo, the more people will want to share it on Twitter.
• Write on subjects that appeal to a broad audience in a variety of situations. Your Hub on how to replace the brake pads on a 1998 Honda Accord may be a rockstar with search traffic, but it’s only useful and interesting to people with a 1998 Honda Accord who want or need to change their own brake pads (which does not apply to most Twitter users). You should totally still write that Hub, but you may also want to write one about the Top 10 Personality Traits of Honda Drivers, which will be perfect for Twitter.
• Tweetable content has heart and meaning. A positive message is much more likely to be shared on Twitter, especially if it makes people feel good about life and themselves. Write about good things, amazing things, and heartwarming things that have inspired you, and they will be more likely to inspire your readers to Tweet. In other words, make sure your Top 10 Personality Traits of Honda Drivers are good traits (Honda drivers are economical but not cheap, Honda drivers are family-oriented, Honda drivers are dependable, etc).