The Mistake Most Marketers Make in Trying to Build an Engaged Twitter Following
You will read and hear many a Twitter “expert” telling you that to get followers you have to follow others. They are right about that part.
You will also find many that tell you to (manually or using a tool like Tweepi) to find Twitter accounts that should appeal to the same niche or target market you are going after and then just follow all their followers in bulk.
This is a recipe for disaster and an almost total waste of your time.
Why?
Because many of those followers are the same bots and spammers you hate (#teamfollowback, etc…) are following them. What makes it even worse is the more followers the account you are using as your fishing hole, the bigger the chance that the spammers have found and followed them.
That type of account is not now and will never be customers of your company and won’t/can’t engage with you. Worse yet you have just spent time (and possibly money) following them. That type of account will eventually find you and follow you if you are active on Twitter long enough. You don’t have to go out there following them.
You will also be following MANY accounts that that are not active on Twitter in any way. Posting or even listening. Yes, you can unfollow them if they don’t follow back, but time is money and it takes time to both follow and unfollow them.
The True Value of Social Media
The true value of Twitter to a marketer is the reach multiplication factor of an engaged follower. They Retweet your links, they talk to you, they ask you questions. Then THEIR followers either click on the link or follow your account to see where it came from and if there will be more great articles coming down the pike.
No other marketing medium can provide the viral quality of social media.
So what should you be doing and who should you be following to build your Twitter audience?
Use one of the many Twitter tools to follow Targeted Twitter accounts that can either be your customer or refer prospects to you or give you ideas on how to market better.
I use Tweepi. It is a great tool that allows me to see the bio and stats on any account all on one page and then allows me to strategically follow in bulk those that are either:
- possible clients
- supplier or vendors in my industry
- Possible rainmakers
- social media influencers
- or those that are just plain interesting in my industry.
Now I am building a TARGETED following.
Yes, I will have some spammers following me. Some bots and porn stars too. What I won’t have is more than just the ones that organically found me and those I can block if I choose. Now I can measure my Twitter performance based on targeted followers, not just whoever was following someone else.
Avoid that one critical mistake and start building an engaged Twitter following today.
impressionsplus.wordpress.com 
Although I do use twitter now and then, it’s not a marketing tool for a contractor I know? It is good to try and make industry contacts, but honestly don’t really get the whole twitter thing?
I can certainly appreciate how you are thinking on the matter because many of our current customers had the same thoughts prior to working with us.
Twitter can be a very effective method of getting both your name and your message in front of prospective customers in your area. From the emails and messages I have been receiving, many of the contractors that read our blog are in the same boat as you in the level of understanding of how to use Twitter to drive business.
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