How to get a lot of followers on Twitter

We all wanna be big, big stars but we don’t know why and we don’t know how
- Counting Crows

There’s a lot of hype in social media these days.  Everybody, everywhere wants to be the belle of the ball.  To have the most followers, the most “likes,” the most “insert a hip and trendy benchmark,” that’s what we all want.

Organizations figure if they can just get people to start following them or like them or Facebook, that the battle is won.  While having a large number of followers can increase your true reach and your message being heard, the truth is that just because some poor fool may be following you doesn’t mean he cares what you have to say.

Ask yourself one question.

Honestly, take a moment and ask yourself this question.  Are you ready?

If somebody (an actual person) follows you, do you automatically follow them back?  For a long time I did.  If someone would follow me then I would follow them.  I would Tweet and they would inevitably ignore me.  Much to my chagrin I realized that just because someone follows someone else doesn’t mean they care what you have to say.

There’s this general consensus that you need to follow people that follow you.  The good news is that if you follow a lot of people, you’ll get a lot of followers in return.

So if all you want is a lot of followers on Twitter, I have two easy suggestions.

1. Follow lots of people.  I mean a lot.  Not 10.5.  Not 84.  Follow thousands and you’ll see that a lot of people will follow you back.
2. Tweet about Twitter.  The biggest conversation on social media with the most devoted adherents is about Twitter itself.  Join that conversation.  There are tons and tons of people all over the interweb that will gladly follow you if you talk about Twitter.

As a word of caution I’ll have you know that just because people follow you doesn’t mean they care what you have to say.  Most likely they are just as egocentric as me and are taking advantage of the system.