How to Grow Your Twitter List Authentically

By Leesa Barnes 

There is a disturbing trend that that I've been noticing on Twitter. Many people are increasing their follow list on Twitter by purchasing them. They either pay a monthly fee to a website or they hire someone to randomly follow hundreds - even thousands - of people per day. 

What's even more troubling is that if the person doesn't reciprocate within 24-hours, he or she is unfollowed. People are being called "social media experts" because they have followers in the tens of thousands, however, some have purchased their platform for a fee.  

This is not only a disgusting way to treat people on Twitter, but it's also a dangerous tactic to adopt in your business for a number of reasons:

• You increase the odds of those on your list not having any interest in what you do. This will make it harder for you to use Twitter as a list building tactic.
• You decrease the odds of building real relationships because you treat your followers as a number instead of a person.
• Worst yet, you run the chances of having your account terminated now that Twitter is taking notice of people who buy followers. According to RedWriteWeb.com, Twitter will change its policy and ban users who follow mass amounts of people in a short period of time.

Resist the urge to purchase followers. Instead, you should build your twitter follow lists deliberately, intentionally, and purposefully, otherwise known as my D.I.P. philosophy. 

Since buying followers is such a terrible idea, here's how you can add people to your follow lists on Twitter in an authentic way:

1. Find people you admire and follow those following them. All you need to do is click on the username of someone you admire, then once on their page, click on the link that will show you everyone that is following that person. Then all you need to do is click on the Follow button beside those who look interesting to you.
2. Use third-party tools - where you don't have to pay to use it - to find new people to follow. Sites such as wefollow.com and twellow.com are great ways to find people to follow who share the same interests as you do.
3. Use the #followfriday hashtag to find new people to follow. Go to search.twitter.com, enter #followfriday into the search box and you'll get a list of people who suggest other people you should follow.
4. Immediately unfollow anyone who spams you. This tactic alone will help you remove those who are only on Twitter to push their ads or unwanted messages. There's nothing wrong with promoting your products or services on Twitter, but people should do it after the relationship has been established.

The tips above will take you some time to build your follow list. It's taken me 2-years to build a list of just under 9,000 followers. However, Twitter has become an important list building tool for my business and I know it's because I've taken the time to build trust and rapport with my followers by treating them as people. 

Leesa Barnes is an award winning blogger and critically acclaimed author who helps businesses get active using social media in 3 simple steps. To learn how you can become Marketing Fit, visit http://www.marketingfit.com to get your complimentary to get your complimentary kit called the Marketing Fit Success Kit containing a social media checklist, mindmap, MP3 file and a complimentary subscription to the Marketing Fit ezine.