This is Part 7 of my blog series featuring Hubspot’s AWESOME eBook
“Using Twitter for Business: An Introductory Guide”
http://bit.ly/HubSpotTwitter4Business
#Twitter 4 #Business bit.ly/Search4People @Hubspot @EricaBiz @Twellow “HOW TO” Search For People On Twitter (NEW POST)
— Keith Keller(@KeithKeller) March 21, 2012
Building your network is the most challenging and time-consuming part of using Twitter. Expanding your network doesn‘t happen immediately, you need to commit the time to use Twitter effectively. By following people, you will be able to view their updates in your Twitter stream. This is your chance to learn more about them: their lives, the blog posts they are reading, the types of links they like to share, the people with whom they interact. Following a decently sized and interesting community can be valuable and fun.
Where can you find people you would like to follow?
1. Use Twitter’s “Who to Follow” Feature
Twitter offers its own “Who to Follow” tool, which you can access by clicking the link in your Twitter toolbar. Choose a few of Twitter‘s highlighted topics or search using your own keywords to find and start following interesting people relevant to your business and industry.
2. Tweet Grader (http://tweet.grader.com)
This is a free resource offered by HubSpot. You can use it to discover the ?Twitter Elite? for your city or search for people with interesting information in their profile. For example, find people who list ?software development,? a specific company, or a location in their Twitter profile.
3. Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com)
This free resource is a search function that helps you find people who are tweeting about specific words. For example, you can find people who have tweeted about “Public relations” Follow people talking about the topics you enjoy. Also, use Twitter Search to see who has tweeted about your company.
4. Follow People Your Followers are Following
Once you begin receiving updates from a handful of people, watch to see whom those people chat with by looking at @replies. Maybe it would make sense to follow that person as well!
5. Follow Thought Leaders and Bloggers
See if any of your favorite bloggers are on Twitter. Many bloggers include a link to their Twitter account in their blog‘s sidebar or personal info section of their website.
6. Collect People’s Twitter Names at Events
Like we said before, many social media-savvy people will include their Twitter handle on their nametag at an event. Write down their usernames and follow them later. You can locate their Twitter account by replacing their username in the following URL
For example, if someone tells you to “Follow HubSpot” you can type
in your browser‘s navigation bar to find us. If you are not sure if someone you just met is on Twitter, ask!
7. Follow Hashtags (#) at Events
At many events, the organizer will establish and publicize a hashtag (e.g. we‘re using #HUGS2011 for this year‘s HubSpot User Group Summit), so anyone tweeting at the event can tag their tweets with the hashtag.
Use Search.Twitter.com to follow tweets using the hashtag, and follow those people who are attending the same event as you who you may not have met in person. (Hashtags will be explained in more detail later in this ebook.)
Following Don’ts
Don’t follow too many people at once
Best practice is to follow no more than 25-50 people a day, because there will be a time gap between following people and when they follow you back. If your profile says you are following 2,000 people and only 30 followers have followed you back so far, it appears that 1,970 of the people you followed chose not to follow you back. This unfavorable ratio won‘t help boost your credibility and may negatively affect people‘s decisions to follow you.
Therefore, give your followers some time to follow you back before finding a new batch of people to add to your network.?
Don’t follow hundreds of people at once & remove all who don’t follow you
Although many people do this in order to have a “Valuable Ratio” (or more followers than people you‘re following), it is artificial network building and not a best practice.
For more information about using “Twitter 4 Business” click on the link below
