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How to manage Twitter followers – free Twitter app

After a fairly busy news period for Twitter last week, I thought it was about time I shared something which was useful for managing your Twitter followers and people you are following.

To be honest I have many different strategies for managing my Twitter followers as it can be a time consuming process if you have a lot of people to manage. I use a variety of different Twitter clients (like Tweetdeck) but if I am looking to Trim my followers I use a free service called Twitter Karma.

Twitter Karma allows you to see who you are following and who is following you back. If you are following lots of users but they are not following you, you might decided that the best thing to do is trim them back as Twitter looks at your follower to followee ratio. It prefers you to have 1:1 and be engaging regularly as often as possible.

OK, so it won’t win any beauty competitions for it’s fantastic design but it is a useful free application and it describes itself as:

A Flash application that fetches your friends and followers from Twitter when you click the “Whack!” button, then displays them for you, letting you quickly paginate through them. By default, the list contains all your friends and followers and is sorted by last update, showing those who most recently updated first. You can sort the list alphabetically either ascending or descending by Twitter ID. You can filter the list in several ways: only friends or only followers, all friends or all followers, and mutual friends.

Twitter Karma is a good little free tool but it does have its drawbacks. For instance because its free, it does break quite a bit and you don’t get the pretty FAIL Whale, so be patient. My advice would be to try it and if it breaks come back in a few hours as it may have fixed itself.

There are other Twitter applications which help you manage your followers but I have found this one to be really simple and easy to use.

I will be posting about another interesting and useful Twitter app  for this area tomorrow.

The art of knowing how to get people to follow you on Twitter

No-one ever said it was going to be easy knowing how to get people to follow you on Twitter. It takes a decent amount of skill, a lot of patience and you still need the likeability factor.

Skill – this extends as far as understanding how Twitter works. There is no point signing up to it if you don’t have a clue what you’re doing, because you could fall at the first hurdle.

Read up on Twitter and have a browse for who’s on there already. Is there someone famous you’d like to follow? The majority of the celebrity world is on Twitter, so it shouldn’t be too hard to try and find someone you like. However, a key element of knowing how to get people to follow you on Twitter is understanding that the people you follow won’t necessarily follow you back. If you’re a 16 year old tweeting away at home then you’re unlikely to have Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles following you, and so on. Take it with a pinch of salt. This is where the skill comes in.

Patience – in some respects, you have to play the waiting game with Twitter. The app is generally very quick and easy to use, but attracting a large amount of followers all in one go simply isn’t. You have to be patient when it comes to gaining followers. Post twenty tweets in a day and you’ll see them instantly appear online, but the followers will take some time to flock to you. We usually recommend between 3-6 tweets a day as often 10 can be too many and you could lose your audience.

Likeability – this is a term banded about on the X Factor quite frequently. It’s about being likeable enough so that people want to follow you and take an interest in what you have to say. Being cocky, arrogant and selfish won’t get you anywhere on Twitter and lets face it, the only people that can get away with something like this is if you’re a celebrity. In fact, there is no celebrity yet that has put a foot wrong on Twitter – it seems to be very forgiving. Being yourself and being likeable are the best ways to get people to follow you on Twitter.

Manage Twitter Followers: Have A Spring Clean

Some easily get carried away with Twitter, following everyone under the sun thinking it will boost their profile in the popularity stakes. Actually, you’re not going to get anywhere doing that. If you have already been labelled a ‘mass Twitter follower’ isn’t it time you had a spring clean so you can properly manage Twitter followers? It will be worth it in the long run.

The thing is, if you don’t manage your Twitter followers properly on a regular basis, you could end up with a long list of people that you are following that has little or no relevance to what you’re all about.

Managing your Twitter followers can work in two ways – you can spring clean the people you’re following on Twitter, and you can also spring clean those who follow you if you wish.

Manage Twitter Followers That Follow You

If multiple people that you don’t like are following you on Twitter, you don’t have to have it that way. You can select ‘block’ from the Twitter settings next to that follower. It’s quite simple. If you have been pestered by someone you know and don’t like, or don’t really fancy someone who’s into rabbit shooting following your ‘I love rabbits’ profile, then you have the control to do what you want with your Twitter profile, so you can manage Twitter followers properly.

…And The Ones You Follow

On the other hand, it might be that you have had a crazy mass following session and ended up following 500 people. It can be difficult to follow this many people unless you use a Twitter client to group your followers. It just makes for more catching up on other people’s updates and not only that but you could look like a bit of a spammer if you don’t engage with them properly. This is especially true if you’re a brand trying to break into the social media market. Using Twitter can benefit you, but only if you do it right. Too many businesses have the preconception that if they follow hundreds of people then each one will follow them back. If only it was so easy. You have to work for your Twitter juice, it’s always quality over quantity, and it really does pay to have a spring clean every now and then so you can manage Twitter followers. If you think you’ve been a little bit too hasty with the number of people you’re following, its time to get the virtual duster out.

How To Get A Good Twitter Following

Everyone wants a good strong list of followers on Twitter, but there is no quick way to the top. It takes time to perfect a profile worth shouting about and get the Twitter following that you feel you deserve. So, here are some pocket tips of what you need to do:

Be light-hearted – Twitter is a social media platform that people are supposed to have fun with, so the last thing you want to do is start telling people how depressed you are and what’s wrong with the world. People won’t want to read it and you will lose your good Twitter following quicker than you think. Be light-hearted, and interlace serious posts with some humorous ones to give your profile wider exposure. This is particularly true if you’re a brand – people don’t want to hear all about ‘you, you, and you’; they do want to hear some things about you yet equally some things off the cuff and on topic. If you can pull that off, you increase your chances of having a really good Twitter following.

Be relevant – if you’re not up with the web 2.0 generation, face facts that you don’t have a place on Twitter. That means that if you have no idea how to use it, what the little blue bird signifies or why everyone in the pub is talking nonsense when they refer to ‘tweeting’, it’s probably best that you find another outlet with which to express your creativity and show your relevance.

Follow people that are interesting – if you follow people on Twitter that are interesting, chances are that some of them will start to follow you back. It’s a bit like a reciprocal link in SEO terms. The web is built on friendly, similar interest foundations and the idea of helping each other succeed, so getting a good Twitter following is all about seeing who interests you to then find out someone might be interested in you too.

Twitter followers – the race is on

There seems to be something of a competitive nature about Twitter these days. It’s no longer just about ‘following’ people and seeing if they follow you too, its now all about the number of Twitter followers you have. This competitive streak started with celebrities trying to race to have the first 1 million followers. And it wasn’t someone that is even super-duper A list that won.

  Ashton Kutcher claimed the ‘most Twitter followers’ title simply by being himself and posting regular, interesting Tweets. This just shows that it’s not all about being a big celebrity if you genuinely have nothing to say. Why would people follow someone who doesn’t have something to say? In general, they won’t. Ashton Kutcher had Britney Spears hot on his heels in the most Twitter followers’ race, and with her varied and rather spontaneous actions, it is easy to see why she attracted so many Twitter followers.

So, in essence, Ashton Kutcher has already won the race for having the most Twitter followers, but that doesn’t mean that other people can’t aim for the same. The race is still very much on. Having as many Twitter followers as possible boosts your profile, network and level of popularity, so naturally people are going to continue trying to claim as many Twitter followers as possible. It’s harmless and it makes the use of Twitter exciting. Its even becoming the hot topic for bar conversations, when someone says “I have 100 followers, how many do you have?” Let’s be honest, you’re going to feel pretty rubbish saying “2”. So, keep on Tweeting and keep on gaining followers. If you’re an interesting person, people will find you.