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Twitter has recently started to suggest people who you might like to follow, something new tweeters are often unsure about. It’s still early days to know if this will be a success, so we thought we’d offer a few more ways to find people to follow – and how to be found by others so they can follow you too!
To be found on Twitter, register on Twellow – the Twitter equivalent of the Yellow Pages. You decide the categories where you want to appear – just like the offline version. Obviously this is also a good place to search for people to follow.
Another popular place to find people and be found is Listorious. There are ‘tags’ or keywords (you can choose up to 6 for your entry) and many lists of Tweeters to explore, depending on your areas of interest.
Please don’t be lured by the many spammy sites that promise you hundreds of followers – they make look like fun but they won’t help your business. And please don’t ‘auto-follow’ people back, it only encourages spammers. Twitter disabled their version of this function last year, although a few third party services still offer it as a matter of course so if you use them, you’ll need to be sure & opt out.
It makes sense to check out people who follow you and then decide if you want to follow them. I like to look at their website, find out more about them as a person, or at the very least scan a few tweets first.
Once you’ve connected with a few people on Twitter with whom you have similar interests, take a look at who they have connected with and sorted into Lists. You can follow the same list of people with a single mouse click!
Twitter is getting very good at blocking spammers, so take care to avoid using the same kind of behaviour adopted by such people. This includes following many more people than are following you (it’s better for you to have more followers) and following large numbers of people in too short a time period. It’s no joke when you find your account has been suspended and you can’t tweet with your contacts any more.
To find out who you’re following that isn’t following you back – and vice versa – try Friend or Follow. It’s a good way to tidy up your Twitter account.
Most of these web-based tools will need to connect with your Twitter account before they can do their stuff. This is unfortunately also how spammers can potentially get control of your account and start blasting out unsavoury tweets in your name (I’ve seen it several times). Change your Twitter password often to minimise the risk of this happening to you.
About Louise
Louise Barnes-Johnston has been working in social media marketing since 2007 after realising that it was a powerful marketing tool which would enable her clients to raise the profile of their businesses on the internet, even when working to a limited budget. Her specialism is in researching social media practices; trying out the most effective online tools and then sharing the best of them with her clients.
