How To Increase Your Following On Twitter

Image by luc legay via Flickr

Twitter meets my needs in ways Facebook does not. My problem was not that I had long lost friends; there were a few, but. My desire was that I wanted to meet new people. And Twitter is great for that. But then I hit a point when I realized Twitter is a party, but it is also a broadcast medium. I have a TwitterFeed account that feeds three external sources and my three primary blogs automatically to my Twitter stream.

• Netizen
• Barackface
• Nepal
• CNet
• BusinessWeek
• Time

Having 200 followers was no longer working for me. Now I have over 2,000. I want to hit 20,000. I want to hit 200,000. Heck, I want to hit 2,000,000. You do want a small circle that you watch more closely; for that you have TweetDeck. Otherwise your larger following is great a way to make your stream more representative of the people out there.

Image via CrunchBase

I am interested in these people who follow me. Once in a while I will go hang out. I will go to the Twitter pages of tens of people that follow me, and I will read and reply to some of their tweets. Some of those will reply back. We exchange a few tweets. A few of those end up friends. They know who I am. I know who they are. I notice them when they show up in my stream. Many of them link to their blog or website or LinkedIn page from their Twitter page, and when you click on them and read on them, you get a pretty good idea of who they are. These are real people. I have come across some very interesting people this way.

Look at how this seems to work. I cast my net wide. I say hello to many people to end up

Image via CrunchBase

with a few friends. That early hello part is like a politician shaking hands along the campaign trail. I am not pretending to be family to these people. I am just saying hello. Where is the smirk in that?

To many still, after all the Twitter buzz, the online thing is not real. The social media thing is not real. Real is offline. Online is not real. I am a huge fan of offline, I am a huge fan of in person. But it is not either or. Some of these great people I have met online I would never have met otherwise. Some people you meet online, you get to know pretty well, and then you meet them in person. Is that great or what? And then you realize, not only is this real, this is the only way. There is no other way.

Image via CrunchBase

Twitter as a tool to connect with old friends, and make new friends does not clash with Twitter as a broadcast medium. This tool is so simple and so very powerful. Simplicity is power.

Having a ton of followers is my stated goal. Only a few weeks back 2,000 followers sounded like a lot. Now I have it.

So I went ahead and googled up the question. How do you end up with a ton of followers on Twitter?

One way seems to be to be a celebrity, or become one. Many tech celebrities, and media celebrities and Hollywood celebrities are the top followed on Twitter. But you also have to note Ashton Kutcher is not the top grossing actor in Hollywood. His massive following is based partly on his name recognition, but it is also based on the fact that he is an active member of the Twitter community and his followers feel his presence and his love.

So, who goes there?

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I say stay away from those that are asking to sell you stuff that will increase your number of followers. But I admit to using a few tools. One is TopFollowed. It has a nonprofit feel to it. You sign up, others sign up. The service helps you follow each other at a steady clip. I think that is how I went from 600 to 1,600 and up. And they don't litter your stream with ads about themselves. Another tool is FriendOrFollow. There are about 100 people I follow who don't follow me back. And that's cool with me. But other than that, if you don't follow me, and I follow you, I will go ahead and unfollow you, or that checks my growth. After you follow 2,000 people, you can only follow 10% more than how many follow you. So you need some legroom to follow new people. I think I already have about 300 more people who follow me who I don't follow. So that is plenty of legroom right there.

I know how to go from 200 to 2,000, but I don't know how to go from 2,000 to 20,000 yet. Here is my guess. You manually follow new people. You give them a few days. Then you unfollow that 80% that did not follow you back. Having to follow and unfollow people one person at a time is a tedious process. That is where TwitIn comes in. You follow and unfollow people in batches. It does not always work for me. But I just followed about 50 new people and it worked.

Twitter has built in many checks and balances. You can only send out so many tweets any given hour, for example. I have hit that ceiling twice the past two days.

There are some of your followers, you want to read everything they have to say. There are some you want to read selectively. At the other end are followers, you are happy if they click on one of your links once, that's fine too. Think of social concentric circles. Not all followers are in the same circle.

But if you are wary of a shallow followership and shallow online friendships, make the effort. Take time to say hello to new people, read their tweets. Take time to reply to people who reach out to you. Engage in conversations. Click over to their blogs. Read their blog posts. Get to know them. That takes effort and time. But I thought you wanted deeper friendships than mass follow and unfollow. The two don't run counter to each other.

If you are constantly hungry to meet new people, Twitter is one great, big party.

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Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?

Social is central to Facebook. A different kind of social is central to Twitter. But if Google Wave is going to be a mere appendage to the larger Google offerings, social is going to be peripheral. But Google is not trying to enmesh Google Wave to the rest of its offerings. If anything I get the impression Google is working hard to release the pigeon. Fly, pigeon, fly.

Google Wave wants to be fundamental to the web experience like Google Search has been fundamental to the web experience. The word wave is going to become like the word tweet, like the word stream. I like the water metaphors. Water is my favorite substance. Water best represents the inherent formlessness of a nimble mind.

So is a stand alone Google Wave capable of challenging Facebook and Twitter? I am not worried about the stand alone part. Google could not have kept Android in-house like Microsoft has kept Windows in-house. Google Wave is a creature of the wild west. It can not be kept in-house. But releasing the pigeon is also the best possible business decision for Google the company. A vibrant Google Wave will expand the Google space. A vibrant Android is going to vastly expand the Google space. A larger cloud, a more happening cloud just gives more and more room to Google ads. And that is where the money is for Google. Giving away is great business practice. Giving away is tens of billions in new dollars.



So does Google Wave stand to challenge Facebook and Twitter, the two services that seemed to have stolen the buzz from Google these past few years? The short answer is Google Wave is the next big thing.

Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?
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Just like Twitter stole the buzz from Facebook, Google Wave is going to steal the buzz from Twitter. Twitter will still be around like Facebook is still around and growing, but the sexy glow is going to shift over to Google Wave.

The question again pops up: so, what's the next big thing after Wave? The next big thing after Wave might no longer be in that 2D space occupied by Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wave. (Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures) Wave attempts something that is very close to face to face communication. Maybe the next, next big thing is face time itself. Maybe the next, next, next big thing is not in the technological realm, but in the human realm.

Or maybe I am a little premature in my declaration. If the next thing after the stream was the wave, maybe the next thing after the wave will be the tsunami. (Of Waves And Tsunamis) Tsunami might be a technological development. We might realize when a million or 10 million - or a hundred million Chinese - create waves, we end up with a tsunami, and that tsunami can not be intelligently handled by the current wave technology, it needs a whole new set of tools and massive, new capabilities. The sum is not the whole of the parts. The sum is a whole new reality. A cell is made up of atoms, but a cell is a new level of reality.

A Web 3.0 Manifesto

Twitter has been more interesting to me than Facebook for months now. I was up at 1500 friends at Facebook and Facebook went ahead and deleted my account. I created a new one. I have less than 600 friends now with about 70 friend requests I have not approved.

My number one urge at Facebook was I wanted to say hello to people I had not met, but wanted to say hello to. I wanted to meet new people. But I kept hitting glass walls and ceilings.

At Twitter meeting new people is all the rage. That is why I like Twitter so much.

You create a wave by inviting people, so you start out by limiting yourself to people you already know. But person A knows person B knows person C knows person D, but person A does not know C and D. So a wave can be created with a group of people who don't all know each other. And ultimately a wave can be published like a blog post. At that point anyone can participate, not necessarily in the same wave, but there are comments sections, you can link to a wave, you can quote from it.

Twitter was an answer to a major gripe I had with Facebook. Why can't I meet new people? Wave might be an answer to my other Facebook gripe. Why can't I deepen my relationship with my existing friends? A wave lets you deepen your understanding of people around you. Conversations and collaborations like never before become possible.

Of course the wave is social. So if the wave is social and if it is the next big thing after Facebook and Twitter, does it stand to challenge Facebook and Twitter?

Yes.

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I am not predicting the death of Facebook, I am not predicting the death of Twitter. But the two have just been told they are but niche products. Ultimately all products are but niche products.

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Facebook's Ad Space Is Different

Image via CrunchBase

I have never doubted Facebook will make gobbles of money. And I have been perfectly comfortable with their scaling the service first. Scale it first, worry about revenue later. None of Facebook's early investors have come across as impatient. Zuckerberg himself came out a few days earlier saying he is in no hurry to take the company public. That perhaps is a nod to the bad shape economy, but also to the fact that with or without the economy Facebook is not ready yet.

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Facebook is different from Google and it is different from Twitter. Facebook came after Google and before Twitter in the genealogy of things tech.

I think the Facebook site is pretty nifty in terms of technology, I mean look at that font size. But Facebook's number one contribution is not the technology, it is the social graph, as the Facebookers like to call it. It is not search like it is for Google, it is not the stream like it is for Twitter, it is the social graph.

Facebook does not compete with Twitter. Facebook is better off taking the social graph concept to new levels. Okay, so I can stay in touch with my friends through Facebook regardless of if they are in the same town or country or not, but can I deepen my existing friendships through Facebook, can I have social concentric circles? Not all friends are equal. Some are inner circle friends, some are not so inncer circle. Can I have that on Facebook? Can I have a core of status updates meant only for immediate family?

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In digging through the data and making sense of a user's social connections and social activities, Facebook stands to create that special ad space. Google's attitude is, if you did a search on smartphones, maybe I should show you ads on smartphones, and you will click on one of the ads and make me some money. Facebook's attitude will be, you have been interacting with Iqbal and 10 others more frequently than with any of your other 500 Facebook friends, and Iqbal just bought a smartphone, I think you will too if given the opportunity, what if I show you an ad for a smartphone, or better, what if I get Iqbal to show you an ad for the very smartphone he just bought? Let him brag about it. Let me stay out of it.

What Should Facebook Do

That is lucrative ad space. Facebook will keep getting a better and better idea of any user's social graph over time. And the better it is, more defined its ad space is, and more lucrative that ad space. It is new and it is different. It sure is early stage. But once they get onto it, I think they are going to be minting money. Facebook is going to take the idea of online shopping to a whole different level.

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I for one can imagine Facebook becoming bigger than China. It might take a few years, but it will get there. It is okay if it takes more than a few years, if it takes a decade, that's fine too.

Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived

My long held Facebook fantassy has been that it should not just be a place where you keep in touch with people you are already friends with, it should also be a place where you meet new people to become friends with. Facebook added a Like button. How about adding a Hello button? We might not know each other, but what if I want to say hello?

The Unfacebook
Facebook

And how about Facebook Enterprise? Could the site offer team building tools?

Facebook needs sociologists, and ethnographers and anthropologists and social activists as much as it needs programmers and technologists. It is a social graph company not a tech graph company.

In The News

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What Just Happened?

Yesterday I had 700 plus followers. This morning when I woke up I had 800 plus followers. I was pleased. But only a few hours later now I have over 1400 followers on Twitter. What just happened? This is rather drastic.

I am not complaining, quite the contrary. But I don't know what brought this about.

Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess
Job Hunting And 2.0




I hope my blog traffic sees a similar jump in traffic.

I can't put my finger on as to what brought this about. But, for the record, I am not going to stress about it. I don't need to know. As long as this keeps happening, I want you to know, I am o-k-a-y.

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The Stream, The Lifestream, The Mindstream
Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter
Twitter Is Not Micro
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
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The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
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Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess

How do you market your blog posts?

https://twitter.com/growline/status/1773172868
David Risley: Confessions Of A Six Figure Blogger

(1) Search Engine Optimization

If you got a great blog, most of your traffic is going to come through search engines. Tags are important. External links are important. Hyperlinks are important. For all three these days you got Zemanta. Use it.

Great, regular content hence is also good marketing. Content is queen.

(2) Mailing List

Got to build a mailing list for your blog. The one that I started using for this blog is over 9,000 strong. I decided on it yesterday. And look what I got.

♫

"My name is ______ and I graduated Columbia J School in 2008 where I concentrated in broadcast. I work at ABC News in DC now (the network) and I am working on this idea of Job Hunting and the Internet--pretty much exactly what you posted in your blog below. I am wondering if maybe we could talk on the phone about this idea."

One email a day, with five links to five blog posts: do you think that will work?

(3) Comments Sections Of Other Blogs

Like minded blogs. Celebrity blogs. If you are passionate about what you are passionate about, it is not possible you don't regularly read at least a dozen blogs that share your passion. Engage your favorite bloggers in their comments sections. Link to your blog from their comments sections. That helps jack up your Google rank. And that is a good thing.





JP, Confused Of Calcutta, is a big shot. I have never met him, but I think of him as a friend. He is CIO of British Telecom. I once came across a list in some magazine where Google CEO Eric Schmidt was number six, and JP was number 12. I really like his blog, that is why I visit his blog and participate in his comments sections. But that participation also jacks up my own blog's Google rank. I am not complaining.

I grew up watching Amitabh Bachchan. This here is me in 1993. Amitabh just so happens to be the most recognized face on the planet. His blog lets me interact with him and read his mind the way a handshake will not. In his comments sections, I have hope I will meet him one day. And, by the way, Amitabh was in Calcutta before he moved to Mumbai.

I am a New Yorker. I take pride in the New York Times. It is a good idea for me to leave comments in some of their blog's comments sections and hyperlink my name to my own blog.

• Krugman
• Laugh Lines
• Gadgetwise
• Executive Suite
• Pogue's Posts
• Bits

I really like it that when I link to an article on the Google Blog, my blog shows up at the bottom of that post at the Google Blog. I am flattered, what can I say?

Mark Cuban is a loud mouth. I think that is a good thing for my blogging.

Huffington Post does Facebook and Mashable does Disqus. They don't make me create a separate account with them or fill up basic info before I can leave a comment. And they both have huge traffic. So it is a very good idea to participate in their comments sections. Read a post, then say what you have to say, and leave a link to one of your blog posts that might go with the theme. Or just leave a link to your blog.

And, by the way, Disqus is like Zemanta, a must have, also Add This. Also Google Analytics.

But primarily, you are looking to make friends in comments sections. Passionate bloggers with small traffic might have time for you. Get to know them.

Another way to figure out which comments sections to visit is by using Blogsearch. Make a blog post, then search the key term for your blog post. Relevant blog posts will show up. Read and comment and link back to your blog post. The weirdest part of the exercise though is that most blogs out there don't do Disqus, at least not yet. But the nice ones just ask for your name, email address, not to be published but required, they say, and website address. The not nice ones expect you to register with them. I almost always walk away when I see that red flag.

(4) Twitter Is A Versatile Broadcast Medium

Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter was a good decision. These two have been helping me expand my base: TopFollowed, MyTweetFollowers. And then you got SocialToo, Adjix, and TweetDeck.

The reason you want to follow everyone who follows you is because the Direct Message option is a great one. It is like a politician saying hello to you on the campaign trail. That is not shallow. He/she is not pretending to be family.

My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher

Twitterfeed is as grand as TweetDeck. Thanks to Twitterfeed, as of yesterday, my Netizen blog, this blog, BusinessWeek, CNet, and Digg will all feed my Twitter feed without me doing anything about it. Manual feeding is history.

(5) Facebook Notes

My blog is integrated with my Facebook account. So a new blog post shows up as a note in my Facebook stream. And I like to tag friends to those notes, so I show up in their Facebook stream as well. That is a fancy way of saying hello.

(6) Feeds

Don't allow feeds access to your full content. Give out the first paragraph. Let people show up at your blog if they want to see the whole thing.

Content Is Queen
Blogging: Monkey Business?
Blogging = Learning + Teaching + Churning + Entertaining
Spamming Om Malik
Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
Blogging Several Times A Day
Blogging Tips
A Blogger Is Also An Editor
Blog Daily
Where Have You Placed Your Ads?
Sites That Pay You To Blog

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