Twitter can be a great social media platform to connect with potential clients and to network with fellow insurance professionals. According to Statista, 500 million tweets are sent per day. Junaid Farid Khan, Assistant Marketing Manager of Asia Advisers Network, shares the six steps he took to grow his organic twitter followers by a thousand in four months.
Whether you are an experienced twitter user or just sending out your first tweet, it is important to grow your followers to maximise reach and results.
I got my 1,000 authentic followers in just 4 months and I am sure this marketing strategy can help you to connect with your customers and online community on a much deeper level! (While I started a twitter account since 2010, it had been left dormant until recently.)
Source: Twitter Counter - From 682 to 1,270 followers over the last 2 months.
Complete your profile
First important step – you should have a complete social media profile. Your profile is possibly the first encounter that someone is going to have with you, and you will want that first impression to be golden and make the visitor want to know more about you. A complete profile with quality images better conveys your product or service and builds credibility. I score A+ for my profile (as tracked by Grade your Social).
Know Your Target Audience
Take time and care in analysing your target audience. Twitter has 328 million monthly active visitors. You cannot follow everyone.
You need to target people who are related to your business or personal objectives.
Also, understand what kind of content is of value to your target audience. Keep track of the type of content which is getting high engagement with your followers and see if you can share more of those.
Create a Marketing Strategy
Once you know your target audience, then the second important step which many companies ignore is the Marketing Strategy. Marketing without a strategy is the noise before failure. You need to understand the market and your products and then map out a strategy to meet the needs of your target audience.
The marketing strategy will help you to set specific measurable goals and timeframes for your twitter activities. The planning will also help you to position your brand, products and services so that your target market sees your business as better than, or different from, the competition.
Know What and When to Post
Making your voice heard in that noise is no easy feat. According to a survey by the American Press Institute, 40% people use twitter to keep up with news in general, while 28% people use twitter to see what people are talking about while watching live events.
I use twitter as a communication as well as a broadcasting tool. Compelling content will help you attract new followers and keep them engaged over time. When you decide on your content, try adding an image, video, or GIF to your tweets as it adds a touch of personality.
Incorporate relevant hashtags as they are a powerful tool allowing you to expand your reach and tap into relevant conversations. Focus on keywords that are relevant to your business.
“Tweet quality” is more important than “Tweet quantity”. I have sent out just over 370 tweets in the last 4 months, with 95% of my tweets retweeted by others (as tracked by Grade your Social). Having said that try to tweet at least 1-2 times a day so followers or would be followers know that the account is active.
After a few months of twitter engagement, you’ll start to think about your followers like an old friend. You’ll have a good idea about what the followers like, what they don’t, and what they are interested in.
Follow and Retweet
You need to follow influencers, competitors and other people related to your business. Many won’t follow you if the odds of you following back are too low, unless your relevance and influence are high.
Make sure you have a proper bio and a profile picture. Twitter allows you to “protect your tweets,” which means that your twitter feed is only available to those whose follow requests you have accepted. To me, that completely defeats the purpose of twitter and should be avoided.
You also need to retweet. When you share someone else’s tweet, you’re doing much more than hitting a button. You’re participating in the building of public knowledge necessary within your own social network. However, you need to decide which retweet is best for you or your business objectives.
Grade your Social
Grade your social is a free tool from Hootsuite that tells you how good you are doing in terms of reach, engagement, audience, content and your twitter profile.
Use it weekly to analyse where you need to improve.
If your followers do not grow as fast as what I’ve experienced, don’t be disheartened. As long as you keep at it and follow these six steps, your followers will grow steadily and surely.
Junaid can be found on twitter with the handle @junaidfaridkhan
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