I’ve made this blog on Twitter short and simple, why? Dyslexia one reason and I really don’t like reading pages of writing to get to the point. If you are serious about growing your account, then just follow these simple rules. Little tip Avoid the quick follow programs, they don’t always work, plus you’ll get spammed to your email accounts.
To grow your Twitter account for business or fun, do the following and be consistent, that really is the key.
Make sure your Bio has something to do with your business or about you, make sure your town and country is detailed. This will help when people are searching for your area or type of business. There is no need to put I follow back in your bio, it wastes valuable space.
Add your website link where Twitter asks
Ensure you have a picture of yourself or your company and create a background.
Follow 100-300 people, but not fast, choose selected ones that are chatting and interacting. A good place to start chatting would be with my VIP list, these guys are all happy to chat and help you get started. Click here to view . Reciprocate all who follow you* and thank them, either by Direct Message or tweet. Do not send your link in a tweet saying ‘Thanks for following here’s my link’ if they’re not using automation to find you, they might have already checked your link. Not only that what shop would you enter and all the sales person said was ‘buy this’ you’d walk straight back out. Use the same courtesy in your tweets as you would expect staff on the telephone or shop floor to use; A greeting, a smile etc. If you’ve hired someone to tweet for you, make sure they’re not pushing sales away with this cold welcome ‘look at my website!’
Now you’ve followed some people, choose 5 – 10 people who are currently online and start chatting with them. You’ll see they’re online by your Home button on your PC/MAC/iPhone etc Start of with something like… ”Hi, how are you.” ”Loved your tweets.” ”Whats the weather where you are.” Etc just to get conversations started, then make friends with them. Don’t send your link, it’s spamming and I see endless companies get suspended for it. If they are interested in you they would have already been to your profile and clicked your link there.
Starting conversations with people you are not following can be considered spam, so try to avoid unless you really agree with their tweet and want to know more.
Take 10 minutes a day to watch tweets and retweet ones you like, this will encourage interaction. Avoid re-tweeting spammers they will start to spam you more.
Tweet out your ads in you own time line for your followers to see. 3 per day is sufficient with followers under 2,000. Remember Twitter considers repeat tweets to be spam, so vary them slightly, but do not put the same link with each tweet, Twitter will pick this up as spam. You can increase the amount of tweet/ads per day as your account grows.
Never tweet “@person hi follow me back” it’s spamming, it’s rude and in all honesty if someone kept doing that to you, you’d get fed up with it and block them.
72* hours later now follow the same process in this order and just keep doing it. You’ll soon see your account grow.
1 – Follow back new followers
2 – Unfollow all who have not yet followed you back
3 – Follow 100-200 using word searches or Twitter lists that seem active
Now chat with your new friends from yesterday take 10 mins to retweet tweets that you like and would like your followers to view
With your new friends add them to a list so you can keep track of them when your followers exceed 2,000
Repeat every 72* hours to keep within the Twitter API limits
These tools help me with the accounts I manage.
Tweet Adder - This can be used within the Twitter API limits but like any tool it can be abused so please take care.
SocialOomph - Excellent for rotating and keeping your adverts fresh and connecting with new tweeps.
Hootsuite Management platform for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & more. Schedule tweets.
http://TwitterCounter.com - keep track of your growth.
All Important how to Un-follow
If you’re a business but don’t want to tweet yourself, then depending on what you want to achieve on Twitter, I can help. I tweet for multiple companies drawing some 1,000 to 6,000 clicks to each of their websites each month, during March 2012 my clients received a total of over 15,000 clicks to their websites and this grows each month. For Social Media Packages, please go to www.hetfield.co.uk
At the time of writing this article and with the current clients I tweet for there are 190,000 followers across the accounts.
March 2011 update: My clients now have over 400,000 followers
May 2011 update: My clients how have over 450,000 between them
August 2011 update: Clients how have over 633,000+ between them this continues to grow daily.
January 2012 update: Clients have now over 1,000,000 followers between them.
January 2013 update: Clients now have over 2million followers between them
Wikinomics is an excellent way to make friends in life, create stable business relationships. I found all my life around Wikinomics and it brings great joy to me and hopefully those around me. Just Google Wikinomics to know more about it.
I hope you’ve found this of help. If you’ve any questions you can find me on Twitter 
@hetfieldservice
To Your Success!!
*I used to recommend 48 hours before unfollowing, but Twitter’s autobots do not like that, so I recommend waiting at least 72 hours before unfollowing those who have not followed back.
#1 by Colin Allomes on November 22, 2009 - 6:05 am
Thank you Mel you have helped me a lot with this Blog on Twitter Advertising. Excellent.
#2 by hetfieldservices on November 24, 2009 - 11:08 pm
Hi, I’m glad it is of help Colin.
#3 by AJ St Claire on November 24, 2009 - 3:44 am
Melanie,
Excellent article about the good and bad of Twitter. I am glad we connected and look forward to reading more of your advice and opinions!
AJ
#4 by hetfieldservices on November 24, 2009 - 11:09 pm
Thanks AJ, remember to connect with me at my twitter account, @melaniejane88
#5 by EXONENSEJASIA on February 5, 2010 - 8:32 pm
I’m frequently looking for brand-new informations in the net about this subject. Thankz.
#6 by hetfieldservices on March 25, 2010 - 9:27 pm
thank you, your comments are appreciated, I hope it helps you with your twitter account.
Mel x
#7 by stuart on April 4, 2010 - 2:05 pm
I didn’t understand the concluding part of your article, could you please explain it more?
#8 by khuong on April 17, 2010 - 9:18 pm
You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view
#9 by hetfieldservices on May 13, 2010 - 10:49 pm
Thank you for your honesty, does value come in a multitude of words? Not always, how many times have you read something that you think is going to help you in some way, to be taken through how that person feels, how they did it wrong, then you become enthused by their wonderful experience, then after reading several pages you come to not quite the end and you find that to get the end result and the bit that you really need that you think will benefit you have to pay a small and sometimes large subscription fee. Now you are in a dilemma, is that extra bit of information really going to be of benefit, have you been led along in a personal/human touch to their article. Do you stop reading now or do you pay up and take the chance that you will get the bit of information that you are after. Remembering that you still don’t know what it is that you really need.
I’ve detailed an effective and free way to grow your Twitter account and I really hope that it will be of help to my readers. Thank you to those who have already used this way and have exceeded past my own account. With the twitter accounts I currently tweet for, there is a combined following over 100,000 and tweets according to twitter analyser reach some 1 million twitter accounts.
I’ve removed the Client bit at the bottom of my article, is this the area that you didn’t quite understand?
Wishing you success!
#10 by April M. Williams on May 14, 2010 - 9:25 pm
Thanks for your tips and straight forward advice. I used Social Oomph for a while but found it was not reliable. Scheduled tweets and auto-follow settings we not followed as I set up. Anyone else find this to be the case?
@aprilmwilliams
#11 by hetfieldservices on May 20, 2010 - 11:58 pm
Hi April, thank you.
I found Social Oomph to be inaccurate if I was planning precise tweets, however I find with just scheduling hourly/daily adverts this works really well, if it changes the times slightly it doesn’t matter as this changes the viewers, especially if you schedule a tweet at the same time each day.
I’ve made sure I’ve followed you, remember to tweet.
Mel
x
#12 by Established87 on June 17, 2011 - 10:37 am
Hello this has been a great help for us, even though you’d think that at 25thousand followers we wouldn’t need help. Another program i would suggest would be http://timely.is/ which schedules tweets for times of the day that are the busiest.
Remember to add us on twitter and thank you mel.
#13 by Carl Bradshaw on July 5, 2011 - 8:06 pm
Mel, I will follow your advice and see what it brings me, thanks for the useful hints and tips.
Cheers
Carl Bradshaw
#14 by Melanie Hetfield on July 5, 2011 - 9:06 pm
Thank you Carl, keep in touch on Twitter, I’ll keep you in shoutout to help you on your way
Mel x
#15 by Marcelino Monsanto on July 25, 2011 - 7:35 pm
Hi Melanie,
The tips you are giving are useful.
You are calling your self a professional tweeter.
What is your average income per month?
I am asking this because i want to make a decision if i should try to spend my time on professional tweeting.
kind regards
Marcelino Monsanto
#16 by Melanie Hetfield on July 25, 2011 - 9:10 pm
Yes I started Professionally Tweeting in 2009 after finding I had a flare for enjoying Twitter. I’ve currently 46 accounts that my team and I manage.
I charge anywhere between £25 to £300 per month depending on the clients needs, from a basic package for a full interactive one incorporating Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Google+ will be another one to be adding once I’ve finished training on this.
I employ two others to help with chats and other back ground work. This year I’ll be moving to an office rather than work from home, I hope that answers your question is it worth doing
If you can do it, then by all means go for it, you’ll be able to work it all out from my blogs. There is plenty of room for more.
To your Success!!
Mel
x