If you are an old-time visitor of this blog, you know I have had an article with the exact same title i.e. “How to grow your Twitter followers organically?” a couple of years back. And, yes, it used to rank on page 1 of Google — stupid me deleted all the posts 🙁

Anyway, the reason why I am bringing that article here is because of the way it started. It began as, “Twitter, the fourth most used social media site(after Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram) is one of the best people-centric marketing platforms. Maybe, Twitter is losing the attention of the modern Generation. But, it still remains one of the best when it comes to marketing.”

Though most of the tactics I will add here will be similar to those then, the introduction will fail due to one reason: Twitter is no more the fourth most used social media. In fact, it’s not even in the top five.

However, Twitter is still the same people-centric platform it was, and hence is a necessary platform to be included in your marketing. And, the most effective way to grow Twitter is organically. “Why?” you ask.

Here’s why you should grow it organically:

The biggest reason why you should grow Twitter followers organically is that the only other way is to buy them. Running user-targeted ads is another story.

There’s no ROI on getting fake followers. However, if people follow you because they like or believe in your brand, chances are they are your prospects and ready to invest in you.

And, to make that happen, you have to grow them by putting some effort. Here’s how:

Grow Twitter Followers Organically:

There are several tactics that one can utilize to grow their Twitter following. Here are the most prioritized of those:

1. Engage followers from other platforms:

If you are new to Twitter and are trying to increase followers, ask people already following you to join you on your Twitter journey.

• Add your tweets to your Instagram stories.
• Write a Facebook post about your Twitter journey and what they will get different there.
• Add a follow button on your site/blog.
• Send mail to the subscribers to make them aware of your Twitter handle. Also, add your Twitter in your email signature.
• Tweet something informational/educative and share it with your professional networks like the one on LinkedIn.

2. Tweet & Retweet:

Again, Content is the King.

Most of the people who follow you on Twitter expects content from your side. Provide them that! Tweet something funny, informative, or educating. If you don’t have the time to do so, merely Retweeting such tweets would be better than nothing at all.

Twitter is all about a casual conversation with your clients/customers or prospects. Tweeting means to start that conversation.

If you don’t have any ideas or sources to post on Twitter, use apps like Feedly or Pocket to store & discover industry-oriented information.

3. Engage:

Engaging is the ultimate tactic to grow your Twitter account organically. Sure, it isn’t easy. Of course, it’s time-consuming. But guess what? Every bit of Twitter ROI lies under engagement.

Be a part of the community. Retweet others’ tweets. Add your two cents on relevant tweets. Be funny. Treat your handle like customer support. There are several ways to increase your reach with engagements, in short.

One of the best Twitter handles to learn engagement, or utilizing Twitter in general, is that of Wendy’s. They promote their product, help & roast their customers, and trash their competitors on Twitter. You can do your version of the same.

“Content is the king, but engagement is the Queen, and the lady rules the house.”

Another way of engaging is tagging, tweeting to, or replying to popular influencers in your arena.

E.g., If you are a digital marketer and you add your two cents on Rand Fishkin’s tweet, there is a subconscious effect on people’s minds. This can lead to enormous growth over time. Also, replying to popular handles increases your reach. So, it’s a win-win anyway.

Here are stats from one of a new Twitter handle that gained quite a few impressions just on the basis of engagement(Not much but for 100 engagement by a SaaS product with a very niche market, these stats are good):

4. Follow:

One of the common things with non-celebrity Twitter handles with a good amount of followers is: They follow others.

I am not just filtering & picking here. You can check the whole of Twitter and this will be a commonality in most of them.

In short, start following others, even if they are remotely related to your brand. Chances are they will follow you back.

5. Hashtags:

Tweets that include hashtags can result in as much as a 1,065% increase in engagement compared to a similar tweet without hashtags.

Source

Using hashtags increases discoverability. People use hashtags to find like-minded people, solutions, etc. Therefore, you must use it. On the other side, you can search for hashtags in your niche to find people to follow and increase engagements.

You can use trending Hashtags to best increase the reach of your handle. Also, you can find relevant hashtags using tools like All Hashtags or Autogramtags

Another popular way to leverage hashtags to create brand awareness and increase brand value is custom hashtags.

You can ask your followers to use your hashtags while they are at your event, or want to enter your Giveaway or ask something to you, or many other things.

The last time I wrote this article, Garyvee’s #60secclub & #askgaryvee was booming. You can create something similar, too, once your brand is established.

6. Final tip (yet the first thing to do):

Create relevant profile.

Your profile should show who you are, what your business is about, and what will the followers get from your tweets.

Ann Handley’s Twitter is a perfect example of creating a relevant profile.

You can only write a few words in your profile, so better make best of it.

Final Words:

Twitter is one of the most powerful social media platforms out there. Increasing Twitter followers organically means increased brand awareness indirectly. Therefore, use the tips I shared above, be consistent in your efforts, and you will surely see a positive ROI of this 300 million+ platform.

And, yeah, please follow me on Twitter. Goodbye!