How to Get More Followers on Twitter - 8 Proven Ways to Grow Your Audience

Twitter is changing. Platitudes and one-liners no longer bring the engagement they once did. Recent changes such as the removal of the 280 character limit are leaning more towards long form content. But how do you break through the noise?

Let's take a look at how to get more followers on Twitter in 2023.

1. Optimise your profile

All the work you put into producing killer content will result in one goal. Profile visits. So you want to optimise every ounce of your effort by producing a profile users will follow.

We can break the profile down into six sections.

• Bio / Description
• Header Image
• Profile Image
• Pinned Tweet
• Call to Action
• Feed

I've gone into detail for each of these in my article on Optimising your Twitter Profile. Check it out for a comprehensive breakdown of getting the most out of growing your Twitter following.

2. Engage with big accounts

This is a game-changer for small accounts. When you're below 1000 followers you'll basically be tweeting into the void. Engagement will be around 0-3 likes per post and you'll be lucky to get a retweet. That's because the algorithm only shows your post to a small percentage of your followers.

Look at the accounts getting 40-50 likes per post. They'll have over 10k followers. A good engagement rate is around 0.5%.

However you can beat the system by engaging with large accounts. When you comment on a post from a large account, all of their followers can see that comment. If the account engages with your comment directly, that's a massive boost to your visibility.

Aim to add 10-20 comments per day. The easier way to do this, is to create a list of 30 large and medium accounts you want to engage with (choose content that's relevant to your niche). Then once or twice per day, load the list and start commenting on anything you can make a valuable contribution to.

Avoid replies like "that's cool" or "nice". Try to contribute to the conversation. If there's nothing to add, move onto the next post.

3. Tweet regularly

It's always important to have original content. When users visit your profile and skim through your feed they'll notice if you're not posting regularly.

Maintaining a constant feed of fresh content helps build your brand and only grows more important as your followers increase.

It's much easier to maintain this momentum if you schedule content ahead of time.

With Social Sidekick you can define a content schedule and simply "push" new posts to your queue for low effort consistent posting.

Check it out the Social Sidekick Scheduler

4. Threads

Threads are the OG long form content of Twitter. They've been popular for a while, and they still work. Particularly with the introduction of "Bookmarks" which allow users to save a thread for later reading.

When it comes to threads however, it's all about the hook. The first post in a thread which hooks the user into reading more. If you get this wrong, they'll just scroll past and miss that juicy content inside.

A good hook contains these elements:

1. Good formatting
2. Well positioned idea
3. Emotional trigger (if you don’t click X will happen)

Example 1:

I doubled my app sign ups in 30 days.

All from following these 5 simple steps.

Here’s how you can do the same (in half the time):

Example 2:

Everyone’s using ChatGPT.

But almost everyone's STUCK in beginner mode.

10 techniques to get massively ahead with AI:

(cut-and-paste these prompts👇)

@thatroblennon

It's recommended to post 2 threads per week. As with all good things. Don't overdue it.

5. Giveaways

Giveaways are a great way to collect emails or gain followers in exchange for something free. This post alone gave me over 300 followers. When users engage and follow, just DM them a link to the giveaway. Everyone wins.

6. Time your tweets

Generally twitter is most active around the working day. So in the mornings between 8am and 10am. during lunchtime between 12pm and 2pm, finally after work between 5pm and 6pm. Think how often you use twitter during your daily commute. It's a common trend.

I've gone into much more detail in my article on The Best Time to Post on Twitter

7. Direct messages

Don't be afraid to reach out to people through DM's. Here are a few ways to take advantage of a feature you probably rarely use:

• DM giveaways as mentioned above.

• Send a DM to a user who's just followed you. Introduce yourself and ask them to check out your profile.

• DM one non-follower per day. Don't ask for anything but just start a conversation. You'll be surprised how well this can lead to new followers.

• DM existing followers to build your relationship. Pick 5 random followers a day and reach out to show your appreciation for their content.

• Ask to collaborate with other creators, you could partner on giveaways or swap retweets.

Try these out and see what works best for you.

8. Create a content plan

Being consistent with your content can be difficult. It's easy to run out of ideas if you don't have a content plan. A schedule of content you loop through weekly or monthly.

Here's a simple example:

• Monday: List, Thought
• Tuesday: Question, Thread
• Wednesday: Shout out, Thought
• Thursday: Question, Thread
• Friday: Question, Thought
• Saturday: Thought
• Sunday: Giveaway

Here we're creating 12 pieces of content per week, but since we're changing the kind of content daily, it makes it much easier to be creative and not run out of ideas.

9. Bonus: Auto-retweets

Auto-retweets are a great way to get more engagement on your posts for free. When you schedule any post with Social Sidekick we'll automatically retweet it for you after 8 hours. This is a great way to get more visibility and engagement on your content, especially for users in different timezones.

Don't worry, we'll also un-retweet after a further 8 hours to keep your feed looking fresh. Check out Social Sidekick for more details.

That's a wrap.