Your Twitter Tactical Plan: A Strategic Guide to Gain Followers
The Psychology Behind Gaining Followers
Trying to grow your presence on social media? Good!
Read other articles on how to build a following? Good!
Having trouble gaining followers? Not good!
The standard advice works, so we’ll repeat it. But then keep reading for our take on how to grow followers. Gaining Twitter followers is like playing chess; to win you must use the winning strategies that were learned over time, but you must understand the psychology of your opponent to utilize the best strategy.
Standard Advice for Gaining Twitter Followers
Actively post at least 1-2 times per day
Research and use hashtags that make sense for your post
Look at trending topics and tailor some of your content around those hashtags
Make a solid profile with picture, banner, and information about yourself
Include images in your Tweets
Post on your other social media / upload your email contacts to get followers of people you already know
Mention influential people / Retweet your followers / Like & Comment / Engage on Twitter
The standard advice for gaining Twitter followers makes sense. More of that advice can be found on this Forbes article.
In order to gain a following, you have to be engaged. You have to have a standout appearance.
The combination of engaging on Twitter and having a solid appearance should make you have more followers, right? Not necessarily.
According to a June 2016 study, the average Twitter User has 707 followers. Unfortunately that is the most up-to-date statistic we could find. Vastly different from another January 2016 study claiming the average user has 208 followers. Hard to know which stat to believe as 68% of statistics are made up on the spot, so let’s go with 707 average followers per account.
Now we enter the realm of psychology to help us uncover why your follower growth may be stagnant.
Brand Awareness
Narcissistic Ego and/or Insecurity
Trust
Brand Awareness Builds a Following
Are you a celebrity or a well-recognized business? Do you have a verified Twitter account? If you answered no to these questions, then you are at a severe disadvantage for rapidly gaining Twitter followers.
Maybe you get lucky and one of your Tweets starts trending which will gain you a bunch of followers, but there are 500 million Tweets per day so good luck with that. Or maybe you have a boatload of cash to spend on paid advertisements, but you’d have to be in the 1% to have success with that.
Looks like you might be a Twitter pawn like the rest of us, having to build your brand and gain awareness one follower at a time.
Hindered by Narcissistic Egos or Insecurity
It appears that many Twitter users are hindered by what is either a narcissistic ego, insecurity, or both. Maybe you suffer from this without realizing it. In no way is this meant to diagnose you or put you down, but to help explain how Twitter users hurt their chances of rapidly gaining followers.
How can some Twitter users be deemed insecure or to have a narcissistic ego? Look at a variety of Twitter accounts and pay attention to when they created their account compared to their number of Tweets sent, accounts they follow, and number of people following them. The trend we see is that many active accounts that have been around for years follow about a third less of their total number of followers.
Real numbers for an active Twitter account: Joined February 2012, 672 Tweets, Following 10 accounts, 92 Followers, and near 0 engagements on their Tweets. This account has been steadily active since April. We do not want to provide the handle as we are speaking negatively about this account.
As a comparison, Wexford joined Twitter in April 2018 and has 191 Tweets, Following 2,143 accounts, 1,901 Followers, and 0.5% engagements on Tweets.
The difference between Wexford and the other account is the Following to Follower ratio. Unless you have more than 10K Followers, we recommend a follow-for-follow mentality.
The narcissistic ego or insecurity comes into play by feeling good about having more people follow you than people you follow. Gaining a follower provides a warm & fuzzy feeling because someone cares about you. This is similar to getting a Like on Facebook, as described by Sean Parker, the Founding President of Facebook. A.K.A. the guy that Justin Timberlake played in The Social Network.
Gaining a follower and not following them back might make you feel good, whether due to insecurity or a narcissistic ego or another psychological principle, but it will not help you to rapidly grow your following.
Trust is Key
Why would someone follow you on Twitter? Maybe you are posting captivating content. However with 500 Million Tweets per day, the chances of a lot of people seeing your Tweet is going to be slim. Similarly with so much content, how original is your content? Why follow your account and not another account?
Assuming you follow the standard advice, some people will see your Tweets. What do they see when they find your account and see that you follow significantly less people than follow you? A lack of trust in that you will follow them back.
Remember that other people like the warm & fuzzy feeling of gaining a new follower just as much as you. If you don’t have a lot of followers AND you show that you probably won’t follow them back, why would they want to follow you?
The moral is to follow people back to show other accounts that they can trust you will follow them back. They’ll scratch your back if you scratch theirs. Then once you gain over 10,000 followers, you may not have to follow this strategy. Why? Social conformity. Obviously if you have over 10K followers you must have something incredibly cool & important to Tweet!
A Follow for Follow Strategy
Need more advice on how to implement a better Follow for Follow strategy? Great! Download our free Twitter Tactical Plan: A Strategic Guide to Gain Followers. Just enter your email and check your inbox for a detailed guide on what type of accounts to follow, ratios to follow based on your number of followers, and metrics behind follower growth rates.
Credits: A quick shoutout to FreeVector.com for the Candy, Owls, Like Badge, little chalk board, and Calendar Icon. Good stuff!
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