An Effective Twitter Strategy...

[dusman]

I just wanted to share a strategy I've deployed with several of my clients on Twitter. This strategy has helped them target their locations and gain a fair amount of following.

I'm retooling it to fit our support base.

Goal: 2,000 followers x 1000 supporters = 2,000,000 second-tier followers

Twitter limits the amount of people you can follow up until you reach 2,000 followers. The strategy becomes a little more tedious afterwards; however, reaching 2,000 followers is extremely easy and everyone here can do this.

Step-by-Step to 2,000 Followers. So easy, Grandma could do it!

1) Setup a Twitter account if you don't have one. Avoid including in your account name anything that might make you appear "marketing-like" or might make someone think you are just another spammer. This would also include not putting Ron Paul in your name. Be sure to upload a profile image and description. This becomes twice as difficult if those points aren't considered.
2) If you want to target localities, start by going to your state capitol's newspaper (for example, mine is the Indianapolis Star on Twitter). Click on their following. Go down that list and simply follow EVERYONE, up until you reach about 400-500 you are following.
3) Limit how many you follow each day to about 400 or Twitter will suspend your account, as you will send a red flag in their system.
4) If you follow 400 per day, you will reach your 2,000 limit in 5 days. Do not follow more than 500 per day or you will likely get your Twitter account suspended.
5) Once you max out, wait for about 2 days and do absolutely nothing with your Twitter, except tweeting of course.
6) After a few days, go to http://manageflitter.com and login. This tool allows you to manage your Twitter account. In this case, we are concerned with those who aren't following you back.

7) Click and drag across all the thumbnails that become exposed when you expand that menu. Unfollow all these people.
8) Go back to Twitter and repeat steps 4 and 5, until you reach 2,000 followers!

The benefit of Twitter is that most people will automatically follow you back, so there is really no way you CAN'T reach 2,000 followers.

With 1,000 supporters doing this, we'd technically have a 200,000 following. If it's 10,000 that jumps to 2 Million. 100,000 would be 20 Million. Etc. Etc.

My account @brettdusek I reached 2,000 followers in about a week and a half.

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Update: Also, be engaged! You will naturally encourage followers outside of this strategy if you are actually communicating. I try to have one-on-one conversations as often as I can when I'm on Twitter. When you @ someone, they see it and usually respond. When someone responds to you, it shows up in their followers feed, with a link back to your profile. So the more people are talking to YOU, the more people you are exposed to.

Be Natural! Get extroverted and if you have to, reply to everything you see coming into your feed.

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Include #rpfs hashtag into some of your tweets, so we can track everyone's progress and follow each other.

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Follow @rptweeps so we can track results.