7 Effective Methods to Keep your Twitter Followers in the Loop [Social Thursday]

If you’re like me, you’ve been around the Twitter block. What I mean by that is that you know how to get Twitter to tick, how to make friends, get retweets and so on (if you’re a completely new to Twitter watch this space, I’ll take care of you as well). Further more, you may have even developed your cult, made a name for yourself and your followers see you as an authority. But there’s a problem… As my girl @ConnerLawTweets (bless her) told me this morning: “Twitter is a busy, busy place.” Over time you seem to lose touch with your followers and they just get lost in the plethora of tweets in your timeline. And let’s be honest: No one can really keep up with soooo much information, it’s just overwhelming. 

But here’s the good news! I’m going to share with you 7 powerful methods to keep track of your followers, to strengthen your ties with them and to dust off old relationships which otherwise would have been forgotten…

Image credit: Per Hardestam

#1: Harness the power of KLOUT

As you may know, Klout has become the Internet standard for influence (at least according to Klout…) The jury is still out on whether their measurement is accurate and whether it should really matters to anyone. However, here are 2 key ways for you to leverage the social influence site for strengthening the ties with your Twitter followers:

1. +K them. Klout enables you to vouch for your peers’ influence in topics. If you want to reward any of your followers you can simply look him/her up on Klout, choose a topic you think he/she provides value on, and choose +K. Eventually this can effect their Klout score and they will see you’ve rewarded them the next time they visit the site!
2. Talk to the tweeps you Influence. In your Klout dashboard you can see a list of  tweeps who are influenced by you. Now all you have to do is click on their thumbnail and look for their Twitter icon on the top-right of the page. If Klout believe you are an influencer of someone, it probably means he/she RTs your tweets and/or mentions you often. That person is likely to welcome any interaction from your part.

#2: Use the power of FREE

People love free stuff. Any newbie marketer knows that. I’ve recently tweeted a message about how to get Google+ invites and it got retweeted like wildfire. Whether it’s a free eBook, video, beta invites to a product, white papers and so on – it’s likely to attract a lot of RTs and get your followers attention. Don’t over do it though, otherwise your  freebie tweets will seem spammy  and will lose their appeal.

Takeaways
Once or twice a week do a few tweets, a few hours apart, about your free stuff. It can be something like How to: Get my latest SEO Domination report for FREE [Link to your freebie].  Note: It’s vital to include the word FREE and not to over-hype your tweets
 

#3: Get out of Twitter!

No, really, there are a few other social networks out there! No, they’re not as cool but on some of them you can actually use more than 140 characters each time (duh!) So although Twitter may be your main social hub, you can use it to drive followers to other networks where you can carry on the conversation with your followers and get to know them better.

Takeaways

• Include your Facebook/LinkedIn or your About.me page in your Twitter bio (but not instead of your main website!)
• About once a day tweet something like Are you on #Facebook? Why not join my Facebook party as well? [Link to your fan page]
• When you start interacting with tweeps DM them with your LinkedIn/Facebook personal profile link (we’re talking relationships here, so go personal) so you can contact beyond 140 characters. But for God sake, don’t use an automated DM. Capisce??
• Create lists on Facebook and tags on LinkedIn for your new Twitter friends, so they don’t get lost in the crowd.

#4: Have I got news for you…

When you update your blog, let your followers know. You’re probably saying: Duh! That’s what we’re using Twitter for anyway! I hear you… Here’s the thing though: The more you use Twitter, the more you’ll have friends you talk to a lot and tweeps who like you and the content you share and blog about…

Takeaways
What if you DMed a few of your Twitter friends to let them know personally that you’ve got a new exciting post about XYZ? This will make them feel special and more likely to keep watching you and engage with you. Again, use it sparingly, don’t become an annoying self-promoter. That’s just not cool.
 

#5: Ask a question

One of the best ways to engage and to get your followers attention is to ask questions. It doesn’t really matter what you ask, but try to keep the subject matter relevant to your audience. Open-ended questions are more likely to lead spark conversations, but yes/no questions also work well because Twitter is about short and quick massages. Don’t be afraid to appear as a dummy on a certain subject.

Takeaways
If you want to know something, just ask. Twitter is an unbelievable way of learning on people’s opinions (thanks @ChrisBrogan). When you get answers, thank the answerers. You can go the extra mile, and @reply the tweeps who’ve helped you with your conclusion. For example: Thanks @Jo @Jane @TwitKing @princess BTW 9 out of 10 tweeps prefer #FamilyGuy over #Friends
Questions I’ve asked lately:

• I asked for technical feedback on my site when I was redesigning it
• [QUESTION] Anyone using #Triberr here? How has your experience been? Would you recommend it? Pls RT Thanks:)
• [QUESTION] Are you addicted to Twitter?

#6: Shout!

The beauty of Twitter is that whenever you mention someone, that person will see it in their Mentions feed even if they’re not online when you are. Of course, some popular tweeps (@LadyGaga? *cough*) are boat-loaded with @mentions so they’re less likely to notice let alone react. But most of us mortals shall notice and even reply you!

Takeaways
Every now and then think of some followers you’d like to ‘bring back to life’ and give them a #shoutout. Here goes:
#ShoutOut @JohnDoe @JaneWhatever @George5th How is it going?
Keep this technique for special occasions and it will work like a charm. I’ve been able to ‘awaken’ tweeters after months of silence this way.
 

#7: Sharing is caring…

If you’re like me, and even if you’re not,  the lion’s share of your tweets are links to valuable online resources – blog posts, videos, music and so on. The thing with Twitter is that the shelf life of your tweets is pretty short, normally no longer than 24 hours. But here’s the good news: As the future of Delicious.com is unclear, a new link sharing service has sprung up. Trunk.ly will collects the links that you find interesting across the social web and will even make them easily searchable.

Takeaways
Register with Trunk.ly via Twitter and invite your followers to follow you there so they can see the all your links they’ve grown to know and love, and even share them with more people!
You can tweet something like: Find all the links I’ve ever shared with you [Link to your Trunk.ly profile]
Tweet this once a day and you’ll be rocking the house…

What about you?

What are your tips on staying in touch with your followers?

Are you willing to share them with the rest of us?

Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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