So Why Doesn’t Your Business Have More Twitter Followers?

By Sharn Kandola at Social Media Today:
Ok, so you’ve set-up your Twitter profile with a great avatar, gorgeous background and the snazziest bio possible. You’ve even started to follow some great people and organizations and are happily promoting your business but why isn’t your Twitter following going up?

1- You are too busy talking, not doing enough listening
Imagine you walk into a party and someone you meet constantly tells you how great she is, how wonderful her life is and details everything that she did that day. Would you want to talk to her? Probably not. She isn’t engaging with you and isn’t making any efforts to learn about your interests. She obviously doesn’t care about you.So why would it be any different on Twitter?

Take a look at your tweets. Are you only talking about your business, your promotions, your staff, or your services? If so, you’ll want to reconsider that. Ask questions, send out polls, ask people how they’re doing today or talk about industry trends? Encourage a 2 way conversation on Twitter – it’ll serve you well.


2- You aren’t tweeting enough
Twitter moves fast, and if you aren’t tweeting frequently, you are going to miss your key audiences and no one is going to know if you’ve said anything at all. The other side of it is that when your followers arereaching out to you, you are not responding in a timely manner. For most companies who are new to twitter, 3-4 tweets a day is a good starting point, but get a feel for your audience to gauge how much interaction they want from you.

Think about it: If you came across an account whose last tweet was 5 months ago, would you follow them?


3- You have no idea why you’re on twitter in the first place
You have a twitter account because your competitors have one. Sounds like a good start but you need to have a better reason to make it worth your while.Figure out what your goals are. These could be brand awareness, building relationships with suppliers, finding customers, sharing knowledge or establishing yourself as the expert in your field. Without clear goals, you won’t know if you are successful.

Note: your goals have to be more than simply increasing your follower count. Unless you’re a celebrity or a brand with big marketing dollars, you probably will not have 50,000 followers – and that is perfectly fine. It’s better to engage a smaller group than mass-tweet a large group who isn’t listening anyway.


4- Your audience isn’t active on Twitter
This probably sounds shocking to some of you but there are times when twitter may not be right for your business – and that’s perfectly okay! Based on your goals and what you are planning to share online, the group you are targeting could be better reached via LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest or another network.

You will be a lot more successful if you are putting yourself where the conversation is.





Authored by: Sharn Kandola

I'm a Digital Communicator (Corporate web, social media strategy, Interactive apps) for the public and private sectors. Exploring the intersection of technology and communications!