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I have always said that it is very important to acknowledge your new connections on networks like Facebook and LinkedIn- the ones where you manually accept. I have also said that for networks like Twitter or Google Plus it is not so essential to acknowledge your new followers because it can be challenging to keep up by doing so. However, I am starting to disagree with that belief. Now, in regards to Google Plus, I still am not overly concerned?for that reason. However, for Twitter I recommend that you do and let me expand on this further.
If you are consistently sharing good quality content on Twitter, and interacting with other followers- it will be easily noticed. Therefore, you will be attracting new followers on a consistent basis and most of them will be of decent quality. These individuals you certainly will not only want to follow back, however you will want to establish a relationship with them. Sure, you can retweet their tweets right away which they definitely will like. By all means do that. However, they will be more inclined to engage with you more and to connect with them on a more personal level if you welcome them right away. As you know, this can lead to them becoming a client/customer or they may refer others over to you who are looking for what you can offer.
I do not recommend welcoming them in a personal message on Twitter. Many do not even bother looking at their messages. You also do not need to welcome new followers one by one. In fact, if you end up with 24 new followers in one shot- you are not going to send 24 individual tweets welcoming each and every one of them. That will annoy your other followers. You can welcome them in groups. For instance, if you are able to fit the handles of 8 new followers in one tweet- then do that and send 3 different tweets instead. Be sure to type in #Welcome in the beginning as well. You will have 9 characters of 140 used (1 used for the space after the word). Here is an example of how to welcome your new followers in one shot.
#Welcome @MMicheleRivard @AndersonSpeaks @SedonaNewAge @bfellows7 @Adeldmeyer @kwaichi @chadh1234 @theaffrayau @roxydigital @focus7daily
? Miriam Rachel (@msmir) October 2, 2014
In this particular welcome tweet, I was able to acknowledge 10 new followers.
Your new followers will love this. They may even retweet this and/or mark it as a favorite. You however do not need to do this for junk accounts. Some of those junk accounts may be bots or spam accounts. You can definitely ignore those. However, for the good quality accounts that follow you- be sure to send them a nice warm welcome even if you decide not to follow them back right away (however, it is recommended that you do because that is another way to show interest in what they are sharing).
Hi Miriam!
Thanks for the great Twitter tip. I especially appreciate your point about personal messages. I rarely see these and when I do, I am flooded with messages that I can’t answer. Many of them seem to be auto-response messages as well.
I like your method much better to welcome new followers!
Cheers!
Lisa
Thanks so much for commenting Lisa and I appreciate your feedback! Yes I know how you feel about the personal messages. A lot of them are auto-response messages and that in itself doesn’t exactly give you the warm feeling you are wanting to receive from your new connections!
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for these Twitter Tips! I have this love/hate thing going on with Twitter, but if there is one thing that I know that works, it is getting more personal with messages when using that platform
You are spot on!
-Donna
Thanks Donna and you are right. I understand how you feel however it is a great platform to build relationships once you know how to do so 🙂
Miriam,
I was attracted to this post because you offered only ONE tip – just enough for my overstimulated mind. I do not like to tag 10 people in 1 tweet just to welcome them. I prefer to do it one person at a time. This has worked well for me because I get to see who each person is and I decide if I want to follow them. Sometimes I have had a dialogue after sending them a message.
At this point I have fallen behind in my following back, with over 700 people following me on Twitter and Pinterest that I have not yet followed back.
Glad to hear it works for you Erica, because welcoming people one by one as favorable as that may sound, your current followers will not like it. Thanks for commenting.
Thanks for this advice Miriam. I must admit I find it really hard to keep up with twitter. It is still something I have to master. This tip will come in handy for me.
Have a great week.
Liz
Glad you found it helpful Liz.
Hi Miriam ,
I never thought about this for Twitter,
but now that I see what you write I am going to do this .
being personal is always good .
thank you for your advice
Erika
Glad you found it helpful Erika!
Hi Miriam,
How nice to visit your blog, and to learn something about you as well! I don’t use Twitter much, but reading your tips inspires me to take it more seriously … thank you 🙂 I look forward to visiting again!
I am so glad you stopped by Lesly 🙂
Great tips on here! It is very important to welcome new people and introduce yourself if possible. I try to do this with all of my accounts and communities. Twitter confuses me sometimes and I struggle with it a little, but you provided some great tips for immediate interactions and rapport building. Thank you for sharing!
You are not the only one who is confused by Twitter, Kyle. Thanks for commenting. Glad you found it helpful. Have a great day!
Very interesting, we need to have a chat, is it Twitter that is majorly contributing to your Klout score because there are really not many scoring higher than you.
Regards Dexter
Twitter is definitely a large contributor!
I love this idea Miriam. I’ve been using an auto welcome message poster but have not had replies from these. As you say most people don’t bother with messages especially if they are spammy.
I’ve had more success getting followers lately by using hashtags regularly but am going to use your method.
Hashtags are necessary in order to get other followers to notice you! Thanks for commenting.
Hi Miriam,
That’s a great idea. I do find Twitter hard to keep up to date with and tend to let it lapse rather when time is tight.
Like Sue I was using an auto welcome and it’s really not adequate.
Have a good weekend, Joy
Thanks for the comment Joy, Twitter can be very difficult to keep up with.