How to Build an Online Platform: Twitter

Photo credit: Scott Beale on Flickr

So I’ve been doing this social media thing for a little over three years now, and it semi-recently occurred to me, after a couple people commented at RT14, that I guess I’m semi-sort of okay at it?

I don’t know you guys, I hadn’t really given it much thought until recently.

Occasionally I’ve had people ask me how I got so many Twitter followers/blog views/etc., so I figured I’d share what I know in a couple convenient blog posts. And really, all I know is what worked for me. Your mileage may vary.

Okay? Okay.

So I was going to include all the social media sites I use in one post…but I quickly realized that’d be a ridiculously long post. So I’m splitting it up! Look for more of these in the future. :)

Today’s focus is Twitter!

• Twitter birthday: April 10, 2011 (3.3 years, as of this writing). 
• Followers: Roughly 2.2kish as of this writing. 
• Time spent weekly: Way too much (read: all the time). (Can’t actually count because…yeah). 

So Twitter was the very first social media venture I started with, and thus the one I have the most experience with. In many ways, it was the scariest (because OMG I’m online now), but I quickly learned that Twitter is actually ridiculously fun and addictive.

Tips: 

• Getting a ton of followers isn’t the point. What you want are followers who engage with you and genuinely pay attention to and like what you have to say, so that they share your content and remember you. I don’t automatically follow anyone who follows me, but I do follow anyone who fits into this criteria. And it’s how I’ve made some awesome Twitter friends.


• Don’t spam. I wrote a whole post about what qualifies as spamming. It doesn’t work. Ever. Don’t do it. 


• Be yourself. I follow some people who swear. I follow some people who talk politics and religion. I follow some people who scream in all caps about the next Sherlock episode and rage about whether or not Korra and Mako should be together.
  
  Guess what? You’re going to lose followers for being yourself, but it doesn’t matter. Again, you don’t want followers for the sake of having followers—you want people who genuinely like you and what you say. So say whatever you want to talk about and be yourself and you’ll get genuine connects with people who genuinely like you. And that’s pretty awesome.


• Be professional. This may sound like the opposite of the last point, but it’s not—you can be yourself without being rude or burning bridges pretty easily. If you’re a writer, it means not raging about rejections or screaming about the evil publishing gods or badmouthing industry people (or people in general, really). Be nice. Be polite. And still be you. (TL;DR: Don’t be a jerk, okay?) 


• Reciprocate. Eventually, the day will come where people share your stuff. I generally advise you pay attention to people who frequently share your tweets and see what content they share—you may very well find you like what they have to say, too.
  
  I try to make a point of saying thank you to people who share my tweets, but lately it’s become ridiculously difficult to thank everyone because…it adds up quickly and quite frankly, I don’t always have the time to catch up.
  
  But! Before you reach that point, I totally recommend you take the time to say thank you (and even after you reach that overwhelming point, do your best). It’s a great way to connect with people, and it’s a nice thing to do. Like I said before—be nice. 

So those are my Twitter tips! Now I want to hear from you: what tips do you have for building a platform on Twitter? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

Looking to build a platform on Twitter? @Ava_Jae shares her experience and a few tips. (Click to tweet)

"Getting a ton of followers isn't the point," and other Twitter platform building tips from @Ava_Jae. (Click to tweet)