Gaining more followers on Twitter can mean a number of things for your business.
Increased credibility. Increased potential client-base. Thought-leadership opportunity. Finding mentors. Networking with like-minded people or businesses.
All that sounds great, but what is a proven, specific way that you can grow a massive following on Twitter?
The Robin Hood Technique
So what is it exactly and why Robin Hood?
The Robin Hood Technique takes dead-aim at one thing: Gaining more Twitter followers through it’s highly targeted, focused 4-step strategy. With descriptors like “dead-aim”, “targeted” and “focused”, Robin Hood was the obvious winner.
This technique helped me go from about 100 followers to 10,000+ followers in 1 year.
This is an organic way to quickly gain more followers on Twitter. It’s not a ‘pay this, and get this many followers’ scheme.
There are a ton of blog posts and infographics out there telling you generic ways to build a following on Twitter: Complete your bio, have a nice profile picture, format your cover photo, use hashtags and join conversations. These are all good things, but can get cliché and uninspiring how it’s presented.
This strategy is different.
It’s not a list of general suggestions on what might work. Instead, it’s a step by step blueprint on what actually works. It’s a proven way to gain a massive, targeted Twitter following in a short amount of time.
In order to move forward with this technique, you need the following:
• 10 minutes, twice a week
• [Free] Crowdfire website/app
• Knowledge and passion for an industry or topic
Okay, that’s enough of an intro…let get down to it! Here’s the 4-step process to gain more followers on Twitter:
1. Find 3-5 Influencers in your industry.
An influencer should be a known individual who is an expert in your industry. Begin by looking for influencers who have a 20k followers or more, and actively post on Twitter (at least a few times per week).
Ask yourself if the influencer aligns with a similar target audience you’re going for. If yes, perfect. If not, then move on to the next possible candidates.
Next, make sure the influencer’s audience interacts with their content regularly. 5-10+ retweets and favorites per post is a good rule of thumb. The more interaction the better.
Once you’ve compiled these influencers, you’re ready for step #2.
2. Follow people who are re-tweeting and favoriting your chosen influencer’s posts.
This is where you not only find your targeted audience, but an audience that is actively engaged on Twitter.
Begin by clicking into each of your influencer’s posts and following each person who retweeted and favorited the post.
Continue this process until you have followed about 100 accounts (this can be any number). This will take about 5 minutes tops.
Wait a couple days and you’ll notice that people will begin following you back. Using this method, you will convert around 35% or 35 out of those 100 will follow you back.
Based off these numbers, if you continue this step each day for 30 days, you will already have 1,050 more followers than you did a month before. Not too shabby.
There’s a speed bump in the road that you should know.
Some of you might notice after you follow 2,000 people that Twitter will no longer let you follow anyone else.
So what do you do now? Are you stuck?
In short….not at all!
Twitter has set up the golden “10% ratio”. This ratio is a formula Twitter built into their system which pretty much says that you can’t follow more than 10% of the amount of accounts who are following you.
For example: If you have 2,000 followers and you’re following 2,200 accounts, Twitter won’t let you follow any more accounts until you gain more followers (10% x 2,000 = 200).
But how do you remedy this speed bump? On to step #3…
3. Download Crowdfire (free)
We want people who actually want to follow us.
If they aren’t following you then they either aren’t interested in what you have to have to say on Twitter, trying to get their stats up, or just aren’t aware that they should follow you.
For accounts who aren’t following you, go ahead and unfollow them.
With basic, out-of-the-box Crowdfire, you can easily see who’s not following you back and you can unfollow up to 100 accounts in a 24 hour period of time. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this app’s capability and functionality, and I would highly recommend (not an affiliate).
If you want to be able to unfollow more people at a time, you may want to go with one of their upgraded plans.
Please note: All this is after you have given your unfollowers at least a few days for the chance to follow you back.
Remember, these are accounts who are either active or recently active on Twitter, so a few days should be plenty of time for them to make the decision to follow you back or not.
It’s kind of like a one-sided friendship. You don’t want to always be the one who calls or texts to hang out. There should be a mutual feeling that you’re both friends.
Granted, there are some cases where it’s obviously okay that the other party doesn’t follow you back.
I recommend you following a good amount of influencers as this will help people find you in their “Who To Follow” suggestion box on their own profile page.
Most influencers won’t follow you back, but that’s okay. Family, friends, companies and favorite blogs also can often fall into this category.
Try to follow back as many people as possible.
First of all, it can be an easy way to thank them for following you. Admittedly, I need to be better about this and can be time-consuming depending on how quickly your audience is growing. Showing your followers that you appreciate them is an easy way to maintain a loyal following.
Following your followers back is an important part of this technique. There are a good percentage of people who will unfollow you if they see you aren’t following them back (and rightfully so).
All in all, be mirror-like in your following and unfollowing.
Time for the final step.
4. Tweet out to help, not promote.
This is such a huge step that people can easily miss.
The 35% conversion rate I mentioned previously banks heavily on being able to be a helpful resource for people and companies in your industry.
For instance, I tweet out quotes, resources and tools to help entrepreneurs build their brand to the next level.
Find your niche and what you’re passionate about. People can pinpoint passion quickly. If you genuinely enjoy what you’re tweeting about, that passion will resonate with your audience and will be drawn in.
As for the actual tweets, try to tweet at least once or twice a week.
If you can tweet once or twice a day, that’s great too. Try not to wait too long in between tweets or once loyal retweeters won’t bother to come back to your profile.
Let’s take a look at the tweet formula that I use to grow my Twitter audience:
• Post applicable, high-interest topics with your target audience in mind
• Use pictures/graphics as much as possible
• Keep it business-like
Cliche aspects of the formula:
• Use hashtags, but don’t overdue it (too many hashtags per tweet can look spammy, so try using them sparingly)
• Post midday, during the week for higher interaction and share rates. Stay away from posting on Friday, Saturday and Sunday
And that’s it!
Once you’ve got the Robin Hood Technique down pat, keep at it. Just repeat steps 2-4 and you’ll be well on your way to thousands and thousands of new Twitter followers.
As a result, you’ll will have a dead-aim, targeted audience who wants to share and interact with your content. Good luck!
