Grow your Twitter account by "stealing" followers. Here's how.
It's very difficult for smaller accounts to gain followers. Most of what you tweet goes on to the twitter void and gets lost.
But what If I told you you can actually steal someone else's followers? This works for personal and brand accounts.
Let's dive in!
Who can you "steal" followers from?
You want more followers, sure, but not just any kind. You need to steal the right kind of followers.
And who are those?
- Good follower: an active Twitter user which is interested on your industry/niche. For example: indie making.
And where do they hang out? You will probably find them close to TOP accounts on your niche.
Those accounts are our target.
Researching our target
But careful! Having a lot of followers doesn't mean anything.
You need to search for someone whose tweets are full of engagements, specially replies. By doing that, you are making sure that you are stealing active followers.
Execute
Now how do we actually steal them?
Everytime one of this top accounts posts something, reply or RT with comment.
Easy no? But there's a catch.
You need to ADD VALUE on top of the original post
And how exactly do you add value?
- Add your take to the original post
- Ask a thoughtful question so the original poster can reply
- Spark a conversation or join an existing one
Here's an example on how yesterday I stole 20 followers from Jack Butcher
Reap the benefits
By implementing this strategy, you will:
- Get attention from people in your niche
- These people will check out your profile thanks to your reply and probably follow you
- You might create relationships with the top account
Protips: Timing and optimized profile
The perfect heist requires perfect timing.
- Set up notifications for those accounts so you know when to attack
- Be fast. Try to be one of the first accounts to comment
And, you have to keep in mind, that once people see your comment, will check your profile. You need an optimized profile. I talked about this on my twitter account before. Take a look!
Avoid doing this
- Don't just rephrase the sentence
- Don't reply too much, too often. Find a balance
- Comment only if you have something valuable to add
Take action
What's stoping you from targeting those top accounts? You can start today, just go make that list and start adding value!
If you enjoyed this article, please go give some love to the original thread!
Also, feel free to send me a DM on Twitter if you want to chat or discuss about this :)
This is just like the old school blogging days.
How to get inbound links and traffic? Leave a helpful comment on people's blogs.
Very true! Overall being a contributor always helps on the internet!
Ahaha, I used to do that as well! Is it still working?
Dunno, I've been trying it get back into it wherever possible. I don't really track it, but as long as you are helpful then there can be no harm.
Comments on blogs are the best!
No need for the click-baity headline, this is simply how you are supposed to use twitter properly. There's no need for the sensationalist "steal" title.
I didn't find the title to be click-baity. I think it's a cool way to stand out from a lot of the crappy posts on IH. You are doing a great job Alex.
If you have seen the actual thread you will see that the title it's because it's "heist themed", using pictures of a popular TV show. Plus, a week ago, I used the "steal" title on another thread that worked well on Twitter and people seemed to like it.
Anyway, I understand what you say, thanks for the feedback! Maybe it's not the best approach for IH. I will keep it into account for my future articles here.
Fair enough! The "Heist theme" didn't come across in this post, though.
Totally right, your comment made me realize it. I have to work on better adapting my threads into articles. Thanks for your feedback!
This also works for sales, as I found out by accident the other day when I tagged an account and got some sales from people who read that person's reply.
Great to hear! Twitter is awesome, it gives you a reach no other platform gives you for free.
It's very dangerous and you must want to go down that route.
It's very good to leave a good comment, but I personally hate the shameless self promotions on my threads, it's just rude to be honest.
With this strategy you are meant to provide actual value, not promote yourself. That's just spammy.
Don't forget to tweet as well, with valuable content!
If they see your RT but your profile is kinda empty you won't steal anything 😉
Exactly, they need to see that you provide value ALSO on your profile!