The most important aspect of Twitter is your followers, but how do you go about finding the right ones? You should consider the types of people that you want to connect with on Twitter.  Keep in mind that it is not the amount of followers that you have, but rather the quality of followers.  A quality follower is someone that meets one of the following criteria.

• Potential or current customer
• Vendors
• Other contractors or companies that have a strong Twitter presence
• News sources for contractors
• Fun or interesting people that have similar interests as you

The best way to gain followers is to search these types of people out and follow them.  By following them, it makes it likely that they will check out your page and follow you back.  To search for people on Twitter, click on “find people” at the top of the page.  Try typing in key words that relate to your company or products.  You can also go to search.twitter.com/advanced.  This is a more advanced search option that allows you to narrow down your search.  You can type in a key word, or search for people within your area.

Another way to find followers is to check out the competition and who they’re following.  You’re likely to find some quality followers for yourself this way.

It is also important to promote the fact that you’re on Twitter.  Include your Twitter information on your website, blog, or email – anything to get the word out there!

The main thing you need to remember is that Twitter is a social media site, so make sure to be social and interact with your followers.  Generally, you’re not going to get people interested in your company if you simply use Twitter to promote your blog or send out the same generic tweets about your company or products.  Seek out your followers and interact with them.  Be helpful and provide useful information.  Most importantly, be real!  People on Twitter want to feel like they’re actually talking to a person and not just a robot!

Check back soon for our next blog that will tell you how to use some Twitter friendly sites that will save you some time and make using Twitter a breeze!

Now that you have become more comfortable using Twitter, we’ve got some helpful tips that will make using Twitter easier, and some ways for your account to gain more exposure.  There are several sites that work hand-in-hand with Twitter, that allow you to access your Twitter account with more functionality.  Both HootSuite and TweetDeck are two really great sites you may want to check out.  TweetDeck is a program that is downloaded to your computer, and HootSuite can be used through the internet, or downloaded to your desktop or even your iPhone.

HootSuite is a great way to manage multiple Twitter accounts, or if you have multiple people managing your Twitter account.  When you have more than one person managing an account it allows you to see replies that people on your team have made to followers.  HootSuite allows you to see what other people post, people that have mentioned you, and your direct message inbox, all at once.  This is a great site because it lays everything out for you on one page!

Both HootSuite and TweetDeck are helpful if you want to schedule your tweets.  By scheduling tweets, you can save yourself some time by not having log in to Twitter several times a day.

Through HootSuite, you can also view statistics, such as, popular tweets for the day, or who clicked on your tweets.  In addition, you can integrate your Google analytics with HootSuite.

You may also want to check out Twellow and Wefollow.  Both of these sites are sort of the “yellow pages” for Twitter.  On these sites you can enter some basic info and keywords about your Twitter account.  By submitting this information, it will make it more likely that your Twitter page will pop up under people’s searches.