Ask yourself this question, “Do my followers / friends add value to my network on a day to day basis?” Hmmmmmmm. I’ve been through the motions and i can tell you from experience that chances are apart from your friends, they probably don’t.
For example I have roughly 23k followers. Wow right? WRONG. Out of those 23k followers i would only interact with about 300-500 of them on any given day (which includes other peoples RTs’ as well).
For me this is good news and its exactly when I started seeking for newer people that add more value to me and my network. (Thats not to say i won’t be there for my present followers and friends, but adding a new dimension wouldn’t hurt). Out of all the recycled content we see everyday, I’ve realized that i wanted something more fruitful and meaningful with my daily twitter routine.
What makes it worse is that there is only that much quality content out there, and chances are I’ve already seen it. After all tweeting ahead of the Western World has its pros and cons.
Ok enough about me here, lets take some simple steps to help you add more value.
- Follow 1 person for every 10 who you follow.
- Tweet Less, concentrate on blogging and/or reaching your target audience in different ways.
- Do simple background checks of your new followers, see what they are interested in – do they match your description?
- Formulate a simple strategy, see if it works and if it does stick to it.
- Define yourself and be as exact as you can on your Twitter Profile so that others can clearly see what you bring to the table.
- Follow lists curated by the best on Twitter. This is the best way to find interesting people without having to digg too deep. Try Robert Scoble’s if you’re into tech or head over to listorious.
- Start reading the articles you tweet not just the titles and descriptions.
- Don’t be fooled by people with alot of followers. What you should look for is the follower/following ratios. Just because some people have alot of followers doesn’t mean that they will add value to you.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions to people you respect or admire, even if they don’t get back to you.
- Stick to it, be consistent with your approach and strategy. The value will surely follow.
- Be opinionated.
Try the above steps out, I really feel that they will help you out. At the end of the day if you feel you add value to others then you deserve the same in return, but its up to you to filter it out. One things for sure and thats Twitter is changing, for the better. Go ahead and evolve with the system, Good Luck!!
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makes sense. good peice of advice to tweeples. thanks ahad for sharing it with us.
Hey thanks for dropping by man, you’re welcome bro..
Good Post. Its all about value, what made you think of this now?
This should be a must for every twitter user. Wonderfully put into simple yet powerful words. Value is everything. I can’t help myself but to agree with all of the points mentioned above.
Ruhani, coming from you bro its very much appreciated. You’ve worked on your value and network and bro its paid off. I’ve learned a great deal from you, seriously!
Good advices! But I am not sure about the Tweet less part. You are right, only a small ratio of your followers for interact with you, but then again the more you tweet the more chance for your tweets to get noticed, get people’s attention, and get retweeted. But then again, when you tweet a lot of links, you will have less chance to be retweeted! There is not simple formula! One has to try to balance
Great post, I adefinitely agree on “Tweet less and do other things like blogging” it’s easy to tweet for hours on in and lose sight of what’s really important, not that tweeting isn’t important, but getting back to things like blogging, writing articles, building your email list etc is more productive in the longrun, the more you forget about doing those the more a bad habit it will become.
Nice Article! I completely agree with you. I also think that another way to attract more followers is by having a nice twitter background that is able to portray your interests. There are plenty of websites offering free twitter backgrounds. One of them is http://www.chicbackgrounds.com
to me twitter is wastage of time..you cant focus on work if twitter notification is on..it bugs every time and will never let you do your work properly
@Terrance – Thanks for stopping by, and no doubt forming the right habits are essential to progress, especially in IT.
@Fadi Good to see you here man, you’re always welcome.
@Sophie Oh yeah, I totally agree with you. Spent some time doing my background and it not only helped me getting followers, but also defined what i tweet about.
@Naveed I will say thats quite a statement, and i couldn’t disagree with you. However if you spend about 15 minutes 2-4 times a day that should be enough to get your tweet on, engage and learn from others around you. Twitter still has alot to offer, but no doubt you need to focus on work first.
Hi Ahad,
Great tips and advice on adding value to our Twitter experience. I really liked your suggestions on using Listorious and I am definitely in agreement with #11: Be opinionated. Very important since robots don’t have opinions and friends love to share them with you.
Thanks for sharing~
Welcome.
Wow, that was really useful for me, and what was really good is how easy the way you explained, it is like the best tutorial, i appreciate that, thank you, am visiting your blog so often, thanks again.
Simon Pearce
http://www.johnbeljar.blogspot.com
http://www.bargainsalespot.com
@Simon Happy that you found some use of my off and on content. Appreciate you dropping by.
Ahad, excellent post. We think alike. And the tide is turning from the quantity being important to *quality* being important. In Twitter, I’d rather have 5000 followers and be on 300 lists than have 20,000 followers and be on 100 lists. The more influence you have, the more value you have. By the way, I retweeted this post to my friends in Twitter and it’s gotten quite a few retweets from their followers.
@Lori – Thanks & thanks for stopping by, it’s a pleasure to have like minded people here and in my network – Glad we share the same perspective.
Yes i noticed that on twitter, i hope you got my tweets thanking you and your friends. See ya there!