5 Tips to Increase your Twitter Follow Backs

Image by: Slava Baranskyi

Working in social media means my own accounts sometimes lag behind in maintenance. I just finished a major follow back effort yesterday in my Twitter account. I spent a fair amount of time Sifting through the 1,000 or so people who I have yet to follow back making split second decisions on whether or not I should click on the follow button. I came out of the experience thinking several things:

• There are a lot more brands and companies using Twitter than in the past.
• There are a lot more spam bots and less than worthy accounts than in the past.

My decision process for following people back is pretty rapid. I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this task, so a few things become very important. These are things that you should consider for your own account to ensure you get the people you want to follow you back.

1. Post a real picture of yourself – This helps make the experience much more personal. I find that I quickly skim past accounts that do not appear to have a real picture. I am looking for real people to follow on Twitter. My main reason for being on social media is to connect with real people, so branded accounts get less attention. I do look at branded accounts to see if I have interest in what they “sell”, but those accounts get much less attention than the accounts with a picture of a person.
2. Your name matters – I look at the account name immediately after scanning the Twitter  handle and picture. I often make a decision on following based on the name the person provides. If they don’t provide a name I will often pass them by.
3. Location matters- I love following people from around the world. It is one of the things that make Twitter so sexy. But let’s be honest, we all like to connect with people in our backyard. I quickly follow back people who are in Minnesota. They are my neighbors and I want the opportunity to get to know them better.
4. Your profile is important – Use the 140 characters to tell me something valuable about you. I like to know who a person is, what they do for their livelihood and what they are about. If you don’t give me something substantive here I most likely will pass you by.
5. Your tweets matter- Make sure you are tweeting and retweeting. I like to see that people are active and using Twitter to connect. If their page is full of broadcasting type tweets it is easy for me to pass them by.

What are some tips you can share about increasing Twitter follow backs?