How to gain followers on Twitter

We’ve been doing a lot of work with clients around social media recently and those who are new to Twitter frequently ask us how to generate followers. Well, here’s a few steps to consider:-


1. Check out who your friends, contacts, customers and competitors are following and follow them yourself. The rule of thumb is that about half will follow you back.

2. Compelling content will get you followers! So remember, the message comes before the medium, so don’t just tweet any old nonsense. One way to get good material to tweet is to use Google alerts (www.google.com/alerts) to prompt you about stories featuring subject matter you’re interested in and which will interest potential followers. Position yourself as a resourceful contact.

3. Tweet using keywords as it will help you to be found when people search. Equally, you should put the right keywords on your homepage biography.

4. Retweet interesting tweets by people you follow. They may well do the same for you and carry your message to a wider audience and attract you new followers.


You might find after a week or two that some of the people you have followed haven’t followed you back and you might want to unfollow them. You can do this manually, but there are a number of tools that you can use to manage twitter accounts that will do this for you in an automated fashion (such as Huitter).

Be careful when using these not to rid yourself of more than a couple of hundred followers at a time, as it may flag up your account with Twitter. Automated activity sometimes implies spammer activity – and this is usually sufficient for Twitter to suspend accounts - permanently. After all, they’re sitting on a multi-billion dollar intellectual property – they don’t want it to be compromised!

A couple of other tools to consider using are bit.ly and monitter.com.

Bit.ly allows you to shorten URLs that you post (useful, as tweets are limited to 140 characters), but also gives you some really interesting metrics like number of clickthroughs and retweets.

Monitter allows you to follow what people are tweeting in real time around specified keywords and within a geographic radius. So you could follow what people are saying in your area and on key subjects. You can then be first to respond.

We’ll be posting more social media, marketing and public relations tips in coming weeks, so be sure to follow the blog and be first to know!

Uni-play.co.uk

We've just finished a design and build job - the website for school playground equipment specialist, Uni-Play - have a look... http://bit.ly/9GJZ7G

At BrandSpankin' we strive to build websites that deliver a return on investment for our clients - hence they are very well optimised (as standard - we don't see SEO as a value added service, but as a basic requirement).

However, it's not just a matter of getting the right traffic there - it's also about making the site compelling to read, attractive to look at and simplifying the customer journey. In short the site has to work hard as a lead generation vehicle, as a sales channel - or both.

It's for these reasons that our sites usually pay for themselves fairly quickly - and why we're confident that Uni-play will have invested in an e-commerce site that will reap dividends!

Millward Brown Optimor Survey - top 100 brands

Just had a read of this year's Millward Brown Optimor survey of the world's most valuable brands. It's on the FT site, here's a link to the survey data:-

http://bit.ly/cU5Edd

Not surprisingly Google was found to be the world's most valuable brand in a field dominated by technology firms.

Google, IBM, Apple and Microsoft topped global leviathans Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Marlboro in the Top Ten brand value list.

Google's brand was worth more than $US114 billion

PR and Social Media courses

We've just completed the April course and it went down very well. It was slightly different this month because previously we've done a journalist q/a with Ben Briggs, the Editor of Lancashire Business View. This month we were joined by Chris Hopper, the business reporter from Lancashire Telegraph. Feedback from attendees has been very positive and we fully expect to see them getting as much coverage as previous attendees.

This month we trained staff from the following companies:-

- Petty Chartered Surveyors
- The White Room
- Little Treasures
- Daviker Software
- Printing.com
- Tax Assist
- Art Exchange

I should also congratulate Vicky from Uno Coffee - she attended in January and has several pieces of coverage since then. Here's what she had to say:

"The atmosphere on the course was relaxed and friendly. I learned how to write and distribute strong press releases - and monitor coverage. Since the course we’ve had stories in the Nelson Leader, Lancashire Telegraph, Bolton Evening News - plus online coverage. The social media elements have helped with lead generation, so we’ve seen a real return. Overall was thrilled with the course and better still it was fully funded by Business Link!"

Icelandic volcano top 20

Greetings pop pickers! We’ve had a poptastic day in the office today. Camilla was supposed to fly to Italy – cancelled. Julian’s Dad was supposed to fly to Istanbul – cancelled. Bill Spear from WDN was supposed to be here from the US – he’s stuck in Dublin. Alison from Uno Coffee – stuck in Spain.

So here’s our Icelandic Volcano top 20...not ‘arf!

(Read whilst listening to this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOb4Ac2CLXA)

1. Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie
2. My old man's a dustman - Lonnie Donnegan
3. Another one bites the Dust - Queen
4. Volcano - Damien Rice
5. Lava Lava - Boys Noize
6. Leaving on a jet plane (NOT) - John Denver
7. Fly Away - Frank Sinatra
8. And I would walk 500 miles - The Proclaimers
9. We are Sailing - Rod Stewart
10. Solid Air - John Martyn
11. I Wanna go Home - Micheal Buble
12. Blowin in the Wind - Bob Dylan
13. Great balls of Fire – Jerry Lee Lewis
14. The look of Lava (well...love) - Dusty Springfield
15. Smoke on the water - Deep Purple
16. Led Zeppelin – Misty Mountain Hop
17. Keith Harris and Orville – I wish I could fly
18. R Kelly – I believe I can fly
19. ELO – Last Train to London
20. Cliff Richard – We are all (not) going on a summer holiday

The party leaders debate...

I watched as much as I could tolerate of the party leaders debate last night (about 10 minutes) and considered the comms implications. I found it difficult really.

Not just that it was tedious and unilluminating. All three party leaders were well drilled and the stock answers pretty much rolled off their tongues. Nobody made any serious gaffs, nobody delivered anything that will significantly shift much in the way of votes - possibly Clegg might have picked up a few more tactical votes than he might have otherwise.

The thing is - the whole election is an anaemic exercise. The age of grand ideologies is over and the so-called election debate is about who can run the show slightly better and who will adjust the tax system so it's marginally more beneficial to your circumstances. Illegal wars and economic meltdown barely get a mention (I know...they were covering domestic affairs last night).

Camilla, our graphic designer just cracked us all up, when she summed up the level of resignation we all feel - she said that the fact that they all wore ties in their party colours was sufficient to make her turn off "because it's about shapes and colours." I'm guessing they can't even inspire on that front either....

BrandSpankin’ to host Mobile Marketing event

PENDLE marketing business BrandSpankin’ (http://www.brandspankin.co.uk) is set to host a mobile marketing demonstration for east Lancashire businesses that are looking to generate significant footfall and turn passers-by into customers.

The event is to take place in Simonstone, Lancashire on Wednesday 21st April, and will be co-hosted by BrandSpankin’s technology partner, C2-UK. The event is free to attend but places are limited, as there is significant interest in this form of mobile or proximity marketing.
The system operates using mobile handsets that have Bluetooth enabled, allowing businesses to send messages, discount codes and special offers to people who are in the immediate vicinity, allowing businesses to pull in people who might otherwise just pass by.

The UK has more active mobile contracts than people and over 90 per cent of handsets have Bluetooth functionality – potentially giving businesses unprecedented levels of access to foot fall that they would otherwise miss out on.

“Open rates” for this form of mobile marketing are in the region of 13 per cent, whereas traditional small business marketing techniques such as door drops, direct mail or flyers can typically have as little as a 0.5 per cent response rate.

Julian Jordan, MD of BrandSpankin’ said: “At the event we’ll be demonstrating the ease of use of our mobile marketing solution. Unlike a lot of traditional marketing forms you can really measure the effect of this approach and see an unprecedented return on your marketing budget. This kind of solution makes massive sense for small businesses such as bars, clubs and taxi businesses – but equally larger enterprises like football clubs, supermarkets and concert venues can see huge and immediate responses.”

Businesses interesting in attending should contact BrandSpankin’ on 01282 878 301 or 0161 453 3230.