Building up a Twitter following is hard work – especially when it kind of feels like a thankless job. There’s so many people tweeting interesting things and so much going on in that Twitter box… how are you to ever compete?
My Twitter account @AlluringTweets is fairly new. I’ve had it for a while now, but only recently started getting serious about using it (long story short, it’s not my only account and I found keeping up with a “normal life” and “business life” Twitter to be exhausting since certain posts became redundant for friends following both). Starting fresh makes me feel like I’m less than fashionably late – the hors d’oeuvres and the good wine have already been served and that crazy, drunk girl has already been sent home in a cab.
I remember a day when Twitter was just a baby and people followed basically anyone and everyone who seemed interesting for all of two seconds. These days, you have to dig deeper and work harder for your followers. I’m okay with that. I’d much rather people follow me because they find my posts continuously interesting. After all, they are spending several moments of their day reading what I have to say – the least it can be is enjoyable. And yet, it’s still about attracting the right followers – the people who not only follow, but engage in conversation with you and possibly more importantly, re-tweet your posts.
I’ve been using a website called Crowdbooster. Basically, it gauges your Twitter usage – follower growth, impressions, re-tweets, mentions… then breaks it all down and tells you what posts did best at what hour of the day. Then it gives recommendations based on that information and tells you what hours of each day you should schedule your tweets (and even allows you to do it from their website) in attempt to reach the largest audience.
I can’t say that it’s particularly working, although I have appreciated the insight. But I don’t think I’d have gained any less followers if I weren’t using it. Those who follow me tend to be people who are designers or WordPress enthusiasts. I imagine they found me simply based on my hashtag usage or through others who already follow me.
I’m interested in your experience with Twitter. Do you use any third party tools like Crowdbooster? What has worked well for you? Leave comments below!