It’s your job to know how to capture people like a rare Pokémon hiding in bushes. And to do that, you’ve got to understand people. And therein lies the holy grail of online marketing wisdom. Or the line you hear people bashing into your head over and over again….
Know your target audience.
There is absolutely no point in having a large Twitter audience if all of your followers speak foreign languages, are ladycallers or spam business accounts.
Step one is to know who you want to hit that follow button. Whether it’s chick flick readers, tornado chasers or men who wear fuzzy hats to bed, if you know who you want you can work out how to get them to follow and like you.
Discover everything about them, know what they like. Heck, know what they hate! Work-out what they do in their spare time and do the research. You have to know what they do, who they love and where they go for days/nights out. The best way to do this is to troll forums and Facebook groups.
Become a part of the click, talk like them, engage like them, take a real freaking interest in them by commenting, re-tweeting and Tweeting things they talk about.
If you can get into their world, you won’t have to drag them kicking and screaming into your world. In fact, you’ll be marketing from the inside like the stealthy creative ninja you are, sending them back to your blog whilst they THANK you.
You can also check out which hashtags are trending on Twitter, by looking on the left-hand side of the homepage. Being able to Tweet something relevant to these hashtags will give you huge exposure. Try doing this in a clever way, be funny and witty and you’re bound to find plenty of new fans.
Once you know who they are, what hashtags they use, what they talk about, and you know how to speak like THEM. Then you can get followers to follow you and engage with YOU. You gotta give a little love first, see?
You got to take a look at top Tweets in the hashtags you found by searching the hashtag in Twitter. Is it quotes? Is it pictures of fuzzy kittens? Is it random memes?
Get creative, stating you’re a: Business owner. Entrepreneur. Dog lover. Parent. Won’t tell us anything. Dig deeper. You’re a business owner doing what? What else is unique and different about you? Use short sentences that expand such as, I’m the owner of X business which brings Y into the world for X. Give people a quick snippet of insight without being bland.
And there you have it! How to get an engaged Twitter following without being spammy.