There is quite a temptation to get your follower count up fast on Twitter but Twitter is not a stupid company and can spot and ban accounts which breach those rules. So what’s safe and what isn’t? Let’s take a look…
I’ll start off by saying I don’t do this very often and when I do it’s in small numbers. I only do this when I have the spare time to do so. It might be once in a week, it could be a couple of months between them. It isn’t something I actively do all the time, only when I have nothing else to do (which isn’t often!).
The amount of followers hardly ever bothers me. When I’m close to a big number (like 5,000) then I do push it harder than I normally would but I do that with all the accounts I manage. Im writing this because I was in a rut (followers repeatedly dipped below 6,300) and I wanted to push the numbers up to make sure it was clear from dropping below it again. Yes, I’m little bit OCD about these things… but it was really bugging me 🙂
So, here we go…
#1 – Twitter DOES monitor aggressive follow/unfollow
It is very tempting to start following hundreds of people and unfollow those that don’t follow you back. In small doses with a small number of follows and unfollows Twitter doesn’t mind. If you are following hundreds a day Twitter will catch up with you at some point and all that hard work will be undone with a ban.
I would personally not follow more than 50-90 a day and I leave it a few days before I unfollow. I know of others who do a lot more but I don’t want to take the risk.
#2 Constant aggressive follow/unfollow churn
Twitter doesn’t like it when you are following/unfollowing large numbers day after day and they can catch up with you. It is against their terms of service so you need to be wary about how hard you are willing to push this.
As above I personally wouldn’t do this for more than 90 a day and I leave it a few days before I would unfollow them again.
#3 When to unfollow
I use a tool called Mangefitter because it shows me when the non-followers last posted. If I followed them two days ago but they haven’t posted in two days I leave them be for a bit longer before I unfollow. If they’ve posted several tweets since I followed them then I would consider unfollowing them.
#4 Follow limits
There are two follow limits to be aware of:
- The 5,000 friends limit
If you have less than 5,000 followers then the maximum you can follow is 5,000 accounts. - The 10% limit
If you follow more than 5,000 users, you’ll be limited to 10% more than the number of people that follow you. For example, if 10,000 people follow you, you can follow a max of 11,000 people.
#5 Buying Followers
Nothing screams of desperation more than paying for followers. Not only are those followers all bots, it can be spotted and you could be banned.
I’ll put it to you this way; would you rather have 100 followers who are all potential clients… with no risk of a ban… or… 50,000 bots, none of which are potential clients… with the risk of a ban?
No-brainer really!
How to get new followers quicker
Now I’ll go through some way you can obtain followers more quickly…
#1 Twitter Chats
If you haven’t done them before then you’re already set for a bonus! Most twitter chats have hosts and they ask if anyone is new. If no-one asks then post on the chat that you’re brand new. Quite often the host will ask for others to follow you. I will always follow someone new on a chat and I know many others do so also. You could very quickly get lots of new followers in the time that chat is running, depending on how busy the chat is. See my blog post The power and fun of Twitter chats and how you find them.
#2 HashTags
Even with Zero followers if you use the right hashtag the tweet can spread to hundreds of thousands of people, they in turn may follow you. A website like hashtagify.me can be useful to find the most popular hashtags in your field. Don’t go mad and use lots hashtags in every tweet. Try to use two or three at most.
#3 Use lists
When you add someone to a list it will show up in their notifications panel. If you use a flattering list people can follow you thanks to that flattery. Creating a list called “Brilliant Tweeters” or “Love their Tweets” and adding someone to it could nudge them to follow you.
So, there you go, I hope you find this useful! Comment on my Twitter feed and let me know what you think,
