It seems as though everybody is trying to leverage on Twitter nowadays, or at least that’s how it appears, considering just how many times people ask me how they can get more Twitter followers. While there are many things you can do, I’ve gone ahead and compiled a list of what I consider to be the 8 most important things you need to do if you want to get more followers.

Rather than elaborate any further, here are the 8 ways which I consider to be the best:

1. Link It Up!

You need to link to your Twitter profile from every conceivable place where you have an online presence, such as Digg, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, forum signature, and even in your e-mail signature. Also, if you have a blog, you can provide a link or a button which visitors can click in order to follow you on Twitter.

TIP: A huge collection of free Twitter icons and buttons can be downloaded here.

2. Get People to Retweet (RT) Your Tweet

Not everybody is aware of the fact that they can “retweet” so you need to take it upon yourself to explain to your followers that it can be done, and you need to encourage them to do it, simply because it’s extremely beneficial to your personal brand on Twitter. The more people you have retweeting your tweets, the more places your name will show up, and the more followers you stand to gain.

One effective way to get people to retweet your tweet is to simply, ask! It’s as easy as saying, “Please RT” at the end of your tweet. It has been proven statistically to increase retweets! Just don’t overdo it.

3. Branding

The very first thing you need to do once you sign up for a Twitter account, is you need to upload your photo. In fact, I find it almost unbelievable that so many people simply continue using the default Twitter icon rather than their own personal photo. It’s a well known fact that people tend to have greater trust in you if there’s a face to your tweets. Furthermore, even though you don’t need to be extravagant, you should always add a custom background to your Twitter homepage rather than using the default background.

TIP: You can customize and download free Twitter backgrounds here.

Additionally, your bio is there for a reason, so use it. The bottom line is, your recent tweets and replies are meaningless to others if they don’t know you, and your bio is the only way for you to introduce yourself to others. Leaving it blank will tend to discourage people from becoming a follower.

4. Provide Value

If you’re tweeting simply for the fun of it then this doesn’t apply, but if you want to increase your Twitter influence then you need to give your followers something of value. Value can be described as when you provide something useful to people such as information, interesting links, news, education, inspiration, wisdom, etc.

Generally speaking, it’s much the same as when you try to grow your blog. If people stand to gain by what you’re offering them, they will be more likely to add your name and become a follower. That’s not to say you can’t ever have any light-hearted fun, but if that’s all you do, then even though you may get followers, it’s likely they won’t be following you for long.

5. Display Your Recent Tweets

If you have your own website or blog, then you should definitely use it to your advantage with regards to promoting your Twitter profile. You can do this by using a special Twitter badge (shown on sidebar) or widget which will allow people to view your latest tweets.

6. Add Yourself to Twitter Directories

Just as you need to get a personal website listed in directories in order to attract traffic, you also need to get your Twitter profile listed in directories. Fortunately, this is relatively easy to do. Even though this won’t generate a sudden avalanche of followers, it does help in the long term. Here’s a short list of Twitter directories to get you started:

• WeFollow
• Twellow
• TwitR
• TweetFind
• TweeplePages
• MyTwitterDirectory

7. Tweet Regularly

Obviously if you only to tweet once in a blue moon then surely you cannot expect to get many followers. Ideally you need to tweet as often as possible even though it can be time consuming. Also, when I say you need to tweet often, I don’t mean once or twice a week, but instead, I mean a few times each day. And remember to post quality content because you want to provide value as mentioned in tip #4 in order to maximize your visibility.

8. Show Some Love!

One way for you to get the message across to show that you really do appreciate your followers, is by offering them a free gift such as a quality ebook. You could also offer a gift to those who are willing to retweet a message when you ask them. When the message gets retweeted along with your Twitter username, you’ll be notified via your tweet mentions. Once you have received this verification, you can then send them a Twitter direct message along with the download link to the ebook.

Which of these are the most effective ways to get more followers? What do you do to get more followers? Please comment below.

Best,

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, please follow me on Twitter and retweet this post using the link provided below.

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Here is a list of the top 35 Twitter acronyms and abbreviations that often appear in tweets:

1. RT = Retweet

2. DM = Direct Message

3. @ = Reply to [username] / at (as in location)

4. PRT = Partial Retweet / Please Retweet

5. FTW = For The Win

6. FTL = For The Loss

7. IRL = In Real Life

8. FTF or F2F =  Face to Face

9. IMHO = In My Humble Opinion

10. b/c = because

11. w/o = without

12. JV = Joint Venture

13. OH = Overheard

14. NP = No Problem

15. LMK = Let Me Know

16. LOL = Laugh(ing) Out Loud

17. LMAO = Laugh(ing) My Ass Off

18. BTW = By They Way

19. Plz or Pls = Please

20. FYI = For Your Information

21. FB = Facebook

22. J/K = Just Kidding

23. Tweeps or Tweeple = Twitter Users

24. PPL or Peeps = People

25. TTYL = Talk To You Later

26. TTYS = Talk To You Soon

27. OMG = Oh My God / Oh My Gosh

28. Ur = Your

29. U = You

30. NSFW = Not Safe For Work

31. YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary

32. RR = Re-run

33. RE = Reply

34. TY or TU = Thank You

35. YW = You’re Welcome

What other acronyms or abbreviations have you seen on Twitter that I didn’t mention above. Please add them below in the comments section.

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I myself had been using Twitter for a while before I started to discover how I could use it for marketing, and trust me, it is something I’ll never regret. Using Twitter is kind of like using Facebook, but with much more potential.

1. Get Followers!

Essentially, the whole thing about Twitter revolves around following others and being followed by others. Obviously, the more people you have following you, the more people you can reach with regards to your marketing campaign. If you can master the art of getting targeted followers, then you will be in a position to market your products directly to them, while at the same time getting a vast amount of people visiting your websites with each and every tweet.

2. Become A Follower!

Take it from me, when you first start using Twitter for marketing, it can be compared to shouting into an empty room. However, the easiest way for you to start getting followers, is for you to start following people who share a common interest, or those who are involved in a similar type of business.

3. The Art of Tweeting

The golden rule with regards to marketing with Twitter is that you never ever spam. Of course you have every right to tweet your website updates, but one should bear in mind that Twitter revolves around much the same type of etiquette as what you would come across in forums. Basically, the more valuable your contributions are, the more willing people will be to listen to you. It’s hardly surprising really, that some of the most successful tweets rely heavily on making observations, telling jokes, or taking a particular stance.

4. You Have Followers, You’re Following People, and You Know How To Tweet… Now What?

Your goal now is to deliver your message to the vast masses while at the same time incorporating interesting and valuable tweets to the equation. While adding interesting tweets to the mix, you should promote your latest products, website updates, or even blog posts. You will soon notice that once you start gathering a large following, the amount of visitors to your websites will be quite unbelievable. Remember, the more people you have visiting your website, the more popular you will be with the major search engines, and of course, the more the search engines favor you, the higher your page rank will become.

5. Promoting Products and/or Services

You can be rest assured that if you really want to make the most of Twitter with regards to marketing your product or service, you should seriously consider teaming up with a group of people who also have an interest in promoting. When you do this, you’ll be able to engage in dialogue with each other, relating to your various business adventures.

It is only once you’ve established a group of people willing to cross promote, that you’ll be entering the beginning of a profit center on Twitter.

6. Tracking Twitter Tweets

You can do this simply by using some type of URL or page analytics such as Bit.ly, Budurl.com or Google Analytics. If you have been following me on Twitter, then you’ve probably noticed that my favorite URL shortener is Bit.ly. It has plenty of features and is free to use as well.

Your fundamental goal is to establish which types of posts generate the most interest amongst your followers.  Perhaps one of the key easiest ways to do this is to include links within some of your posts and then count the clicks. You can be rest assured, that after a while you will soon be able to focus your attention on tweeting in a particular style, and one to which the audience responds to.

What is your best kept secret (something not widely known) for using Twitter in marketing? Please post your comments below.

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Now, while I may be wrong, there’s a good chance that many of these “gurus” simply obtain their information from some or other online list. The Internet is full of such lists which are not only easy to understand, but also easy to follow, even if you only have a minimum amount of experience. However, knowing how one “shouldn’t” use Twitter, is another ballgame altogether.

1. Don’t take the update question literally!

There is no need to answer the question of, “what are you doing”, in a direct manner, even though the main update box asks for it. Unlike in the early days of Twitter when it was essentially there for friends to stay in touch with each other, it has since evolved considerably and as a result, many Twitter users now prefer to answer the following question instead:

What are you able to share that will interest others?

Of course, you could choose to provide a thought, quote, an article, a video, a photo, a provocative question, or even a funny phrase. The best way to enjoy your twitter experience is to develop your own unique way of giving your followers something they appreciate.

2. Don’t Over Tweet!

Essentially, you don’t want to tweet every little event in your life because there are already far too many people doing just that. If you start doing the same, you’ll have no chance of standing out in a crowd. Let’s be honest with ourselves here; people could care less about how cute your puppy is or that you got a haircut on the weekend.

The bottom line is, if you’re going to go ahead and tweet every little thing in your life, you can be rest assured people will soon start ignoring you. When it comes to something such as Twitter, people in general are selfish. That is just the way we as humans are, so do yourself a favor and save those little personal tweets for a special little group of people who already know you.

3. Don’t Use A Product Image for Your Profile Picture

Please, for your own sake as well as for the sake of everyone else who uses Twitter, Never do this. As far as Internet marketing is concerned, this must surely be one of the seven deadly sins.

4. Don’t Use All 140 Characters for Your Tweet

Rather than use all of your characters, you should leave spaces for at least a “RT @YourName” so that other users can retweet you. For example, my maximum tweet length would be 127 characters in order to allow space for someone retweeting to pre-pend it with “RT @TomDuong”. Of course, you can also stand to gain from multiple retweets if you keep your posts even shorter.

5. Don’t Tweet Affiliate Links Only

For example, if your niche is fitness, then you should tweet about things such as weight loss, workout routines, or how to lose that belly fat.

Such things will be appreciated by others in the fitness niche whereas regular products simply aren’t. What I’m trying to say is, if you only tweet affiliate links, it’s unlikely that you’ll make any sales.

Your primary goal is to give people enough reason to want to follow you and the only way you can do that is by providing them with interesting information. On the other hand, if you only tweet about affiliate products, you will simply be seen as a spammer.

As with so many types of Internet marketing, you will only make money with Twitter if you’re able to provide people with a product or service they really want. Before you ask, there are thousands of people out there that art looking for those products which you promote. The thing to remember though is, they don’t want you to try and hard sell them.

What other Twitter “don’ts” can you think of? Please let me know by commenting below.

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This is more than likely the most common phrase ever regarding Twitter, and the fact remains there are still a vast number of people who simply have no idea as to what it is. This phenomenon which is known as Twitter, and which is used for both fun and business purposes, has undeniably taken the world by storm.

Unlike many people think, I can assure you that Twitter is a lot more than a website with a strange name. Instead, Twitter is in essence a social website where one can post “mini-blogs” in order to allow anyone and everyone to answer the question, “what are you doing?” Because Twitter has become such a source for instant news, it has also become an ideal place to market your products or services, although one shouldn’t forget that Twitter is essentially used as a fun social networking community.

So, now that you know that Twitter allows a global community to answer the question, “what are you doing?” it’s interesting to note that their answer has to be 140 characters or less. Providing you use Twitter properly, you can use it to promote a variety of things such as, seminars, promotions, and even sales. In fact, Twitter can by all accounts become the fundamental driving force behind your company’s marketing, and this of course can result in a huge boost to your profits.

What you need to realize is, most people knows how to use Twitter but not everyone knows how to use it for business purposes. Not only can Twitter help you to find new customers, but it can also help you to connect with your existing customers.  Furthermore, because other Twitter users can comment about your company, it’s a great way for you to judge the success level of your company, products, or services.

Twitter’s value as an instant news source was made even more apparent with the recent plane crash which saw an airliner crash into the Hudson River. Before regular news crews even arrived on the site, some of the survivors who use Twitter provided numerous details of the crash. Interestingly enough, Twitter has also been credited with saving a U.S. citizen which was being held captive in a foreign country. U.S. officials were alerted when the tweet was heard around the world.

Essentially, Twitter is also a great resource for driving traffic to your blogs or to your website because when you post links to those sites on Twitter, you can quite literally reach thousands of users.

Because we can use Twitter either for fun or for business, it’s hardly surprising that there are now some large business corporations that are starting to appreciate the potential of this micro blogging phenomenon which has taken the world by storm. These large corporations fully understand that they can use this tool in order to grow their businesses. The bottom line is, Twitter can be extremely beneficial to your business if used correctly.

Got Twitter? Follow me on Twitter to get the latest tips, resources, and inspirational quotes to help you build a successful online business.

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