I hear questions regarding Twitter’s follow limits come up alot, so I’ll address those questions hear and now.
There is no rule that limits the maximum number of followers that a user can have, but there are rules governing the practice of following others. There are daily limits as well as overall limits. The daily following rates seem to be speculative, while the overall limits are quite concrete.
Let’s go over the daily limits, and then finish up with the 2 different types of overall limits.
As I said, the daily twitter follow limits are speculative, but the maximum number that twitter will allow users to follow each day seems to range between 400 and 1,000 follows per day. Passing the daily limits can land you in the penalty box for a period of time or, more often, your account will be suspended for aggressive following. Twitter is pretty friendly and will usually be willing to re-activate your account at least once as long as you take the time to email them and let them know that it won’t be happening again.
New Twitter users are more susceptible to getting their accounts suspended because not only are they unaware of Twitter’s maximum follow limits, but let’s face it, Twitter is all new and exciting to a newcomer. They want to follow all of their favorite celebrities, find their friends, make new friends and business connections, and often they just end up doing too much too fast. As a general rule of thumb, I advise to limit the number of people that newbies to the Twitter world follow to no more than 400 per day.
The next, and slightly more complicated, part to understand about Twitter’s follow limits is the overall maximum Twitter followers / following limits. Here’s how it goes:
Let’s say that you’re new to twitter. You spend your first few days following about 400 users per day. Within a few days, you hit your first limit: 2,000. A twitter user can not follow more than 2,000 users… that is UNLESS they have a 1.1 or lower to 1 following to follower ratio.
What does that mean?! It means simply that in order to pass the 2,000 marker, your “following” list can only be 10% bigger than your “followers” list. Let me show you.
Let’s say that you have exactly 2,000 followers. That means that you can be following 2,000 users plus you can follow up to an additional 10% (which would be another 200 Twitter users). Short version: take your number of followers multiplied by 1.1 and there you have your following limit.
2,000 followers
x 1.1 (the overall limit)
_________
2,200 following (your “following” limit)
So if you have 2,000 followers, then you can follow up to 2,200 people. If you have 3,000 followers, then you can follow up to 3,300 people. If you have 75,000 followers, then you can follow up to 82,500 people.
Therefore, the key to increasing your following limit is to increase your followers. If you have hit the 2,000 following limit and don’t have many followers, you may need to consider cutting out many of the users who are not following you back.
You should also tweet. You should tweet often and tweet about relevant issues. The more you tweet, the more searches your page will appear in when other users are looking for people to follow. The more interesting you are, the more likely those other users will be to follow you.
Want to know what’s relevant? Check out the Trending Topics, also referred to as TTs. At any given time, Twitter displays the most current and most talked about topics on Twitter under the Trending Topics. Tweeting about TTs and discussing TTs with other Twitter users is a great way to increase interest in your Twitter page.
Of course, quite often for busy entrepreneurs, the best option is to hire a professional Twitter management service to handle their account for them, including handling their tweets, direct messages, and getting them more followers. But whatever you do, make sure that you are taking advantage of the 2nd biggest social network site and the #1 fastest growing social network site in the world to promote your brand.
Twitter is used by millions of business owners to promote their business, keep their customers informed, advertise, provide information, interact with their customers, vendors, and prospects, drive traffic to their website, generate new leads, and most importantly: increase revenue and profits.
That sounds great, but what is the best way to go about creating a Twitter page that is appealing and engaging to your followers and can actually help to you to get more Twitter followers? The main way to keep your followers interested is with your tweets. But there is another area besides your timeline that can make the difference for a passer-by in becoming a lifetime follower, or passing on your Twitter page and never returning. That area is your Twitter profile.
I would like to help you to make the most of your Twitter page, beginning with your profile. Here are a few pointers on your profile design that will benefit you and your business.
1) Your name – You should put down your company name in the name section. Branding is a key to a company’s success.
2) Your profile picture – Your profile picture should be a picture of yourself, your company logo, or a picture that represents your company accurately.
A picture of yourself should be a headshot. You should be dressed professionally and have your hair styled neatly. Take the photo in a well-lit area in front of a neutral backdrop and look directly at the camera. Most importantly, remember that it’s not a mugshot. Think happy thoughts and put on a big, authentic smile!
Your company logo should be formatted as a square photo rather than a rectangular one if at all possible, as a square will fit best into Twitter’s square icon space.
A photo accurately representing your company can be a well-lit photo of your products, your storefront, your company name, or a group photo of your employees. Feel free to get creative, but at the same time make sure that it is an accurate representation of your company.
3) Your profile location – Set your location to include your city and state, province, etc. This is especially important if you have a brick and mortar shop, host local parties, attend local swap meets, carnivals, etc., or market to local residents or businesses.
But even if your business is purely an online business, it is still important to include an accurate location in your Twitter profile. Using location terms like “Worldwide” or “Down by the river” can sound sketchy to someone who make be looking to give you their hard-earned money. Your potential customer may think What if something goes wrong? What if I want my money back? Will I be able to find them if I should need assistance or a refund? If your customer feels unsure about the answers to these questions, they are more likely to spend their cash where they can get answers. By giving a specific location in your profile, you just may provide your potential customers with enough security to turn them into actual customers.
4) Your bio – Welcome your new followers to your page. What you should put in your bio varies widely from one company to the next depending on your company’s needs, goals, and capabilities. Whatever you choose to write in your bio, remember that it can not be longer than 160 characters. I know that’s not a lot of space to say everything you may want to say, so make it count. Some ideas of things to put into your Twitter bio include:
Your company contact info
An invitation to follow you (perhaps include some incentive to follow in the form of a free gift or an exclusive discount for your Twitter followers)
An additional link to a special section of your website
Your company slogan
5) Your profile link – Include a link to your website. It can be a link directly to your homepage or a direct link to a special section of your website, such as the sales page of your hottest selling item.
6) Your background – Use a site where you can create a free custom twitter background to make a background image that can include additional vital business info for your followers.
Take some time now to improve your Twitter business page by following the six tips above. Feel free to come back when your done and share a link to your new and improved Twitter page in the comment section below.
We all know that Follower Central specializes in getting you Twitter followers, and can guarantee that you will get at least 5,000 Twitter followers every month, but how do you convert those thousands of followers into paying customers and big profits for your business?
It’s a fairly simple process that I will make even simpler by breaking it down for you step by step.
Step 1: Optimize your Twitter page – Your Twitter profile page should be set up to make full use of every promotional tool at your disposal. A profile picture should be used, your bio should be filled out, and a link to your website should be included.
Step 2: Tweet about something not related to your business – Remember, Twitter is a social networking site. Be social. Don’t be shy to tweet about your favorite sports team (#GO49ers!), a movie you just recently saw and enjoyed, your favorite celebrity, big news stories, and your favorite charitable organizations.
Step 3: @mention your followers – Replying or @mentioning your followers and other Twitter users is the quickest and most effective way to engage your followers on a personal level. Research has shown that people would rather buy from someone that they know than a stranger. Holding a conversation with a prospective customer on Twitter gives them a chance to get to know you personally, which could help sway their decision to become a paying customer for your business.
Step 4: Retweet – By retweeting others tweets, you are encouraging others to do the same for you. When others retweet your tweets, you are receiving a free form of advertising that is more powerful than any paid advertising you can get: word of mouth.
Step 5: Send Direct Messages – Don’t be shy to send a direct message to your new followers thanking them for following you, or perhaps inviting them to visit your website. If you get so many new followers a day that you don’t have the time to message them all, you might try an automatic direct message service that can send out a message of your choosing to each new follower that you get, saving you tons of time without having to miss out on the marketing opportunity.
Step 6: Tweet about your business, products, and services – After all, you are there to sell, right? Of course, pitching your products or services should only be a small part of your overall Twitter marketing campaign.
When it comes to social network marketing, the “social” aspect of your campaign is very important. If every tweet comes off as “buy my stuff,” “buy my stuff,” “buy my stuff…” your followers will start to view your Twitter page as “spammy” and begin to tune out your tweets, or even worse, unfollow you or block you so that they won’t be seeing any more of your tweets at all.
Instead, focus on making your Twitter page a fun, reliable, informative, and socially interactive page that your followers want to read. Then when you mix in some links to your sales pages, product info, sales & specials, contact info, employee & customer recognition, press releases, industry news, etc., your followers will be responsive and far more willing to give your products a try.
Take a few minutes each and every day to follow these 6 steps and you will surely see an increase in interest of your business around the web. And remember, Twitter has a 140 character limit, meaning that each tweet will only take you as long as a text message to compose and send… so you won’t have to make a big time investment and re-arrange your schedule in order to make a significant positive impact for your business via Twitter.
By the way, did I mention Step 7? Watch your profits soar!
I hear questions regarding Twitter’s follow limits come up alot, so I’ll address those questions hear and now.
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