How to Grow Your Twitter Followers Using Social Media Marketing Services

Six years ago, Twitter was just a newfangled tool for intrepid marketers who wanted to expand their online reach. Today, Twitter boasts 140 million active users; a single tweet from a celebrity or company can become headline news in an instant. The trouble for in-house marketers is, while a celebrity like Lady Gaga can acquire 20 million Twitter followers in a single weekend, most B2B companies struggle to accruing their first 1,000 over the course of a year.

If acquiring quality Twitter followers presents a challenge for the over-strapped in-house marketer, a marketing services partner can co-manage the client’s account and build the initial following. In this blog post, we share some specific social media marketing services a client can hire out for an increase in company Twitter followers.

Reach out to Influential Industry Blogs

Influential industry-specific bloggers have the power to magnify messages through social media and search engines. That’s why it’s important to comment early and often with thoughtful comments and questions on their blog posts.

The first step in any blogger outreach strategy is to form a list of thought leaders and bloggers who use Twitter. A marketing services agency can minimize much of the initial legwork by researching the client’s industry and discovering some active blogs on which to comment. The final product might be a spreadsheet which lists the name of the blog, a URL, the head writer’s full name, and a link to their Twitter profile. The marketing services agency may even create a file that makes it easy to import the blogs into Google Reader. It goes without saying that you should start following these bloggers on Twitter.

Once the list of blogs have been researched and agreed upon, the social media marketing services agency can begin to comment on blog posts with gusto. After every comment, the marketing services partner leaves a signature with a backlink to the client’s Twitter profile. Even though the first few posts may not attract the attention of the blogger him/herself, other influential readers might. Commenting early on in the conversation is essential as that most readers seldom venture beyond the first page of comments.

Answer Questions on Quora

Hire a social media marketing services partner to:Quora is a social networking service that connects people who have questions — to experts with answers. It’s a free service where anyone can join, make a profile, and begin answering questions on topics that interest them. For marketers, Quora can be a great place to generate fresh leads for their business, build thought-leadership, and attract new followers on Twitter.

• Spend some time building a Quora profile for an individual in your company.
• Optimize the profile with important keywords to your industry.
• Research and follow important topics.
• Begin providing helpful answers to questions or discover which questions are worth answering every week and send you a digest on which questions to answer.
• Discover interesting thought leaders who use Quora and also have Twitter. You might ask your marketing services partner to follow 10 influential people or prospects each week.

Note: To increase the likelihood of generating an increase in Twitter followers, the marketing partner should add the client’s Twitter profile to their Quora account and include a link to your Twitter account in the signature when answering a question.

Engage in Groups on LinkedIn

Many B2B companies see significant results when they engage on LinkedIn in a meaningful way. According a 2012 HubSpot study, LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate, nearly 3 times higher when compared to Twitter and Facebook.

As demonstrated by the above study, engagement on LinkedIn reaps its own reward for the in-house marketer looking for leads, though it can also be a useful tool for generating Twitter followers.