How to Be Super Popular on Twitter

Want to get 100,000 Twitter followers? You can do it easily by following this advice!

Wow! How did you get 100,000 followers? I think the only people following me are my family and my boss.

Why your boss?

Curiosity, maybe. Or paranoid policy to make sure I'm not tweeting company secrets like Edward Snowden. Anyway, how did you get to be so popular on Twitter?

It wasn't that hard.

Fine. Make me ask you directly. Can you tell me how to be popular on Twitter?

Send relevant, important messages. Don't talk about what you had for lunch or discuss the latest sports statistics. Send insightful comments on current events, without defaming anyone or starting rumors.

Send updates on technical conferences or public events that are rarely covered on the news. The Twitter feed should be something of value to a larger audience, not just your Facebook status posting.


So don't be all about me. What else?

Make your Twitter feed interactive. Ask people questions and get answers. Then post the best answers on your website.

This is Twitter.

You can retweet the best answers, giving credit to those who gave the best answer. Don't be a twit on Twitter and take credit for other peoples' ideas -- their Tweets are public, and they can prove you guilty of plagiarism so fast ... Or create a short link to the list of answers and send it out to everyone in the next tweet. You'll get traffic to a website that way, as I do for my blog.

You're telling me ways to engage people and retain an audience. How do I grow the audience?

Twitter is viral, in every sense of the word. When you have a useful, informative feed, others will retweet useful Tweets to others -- and your audience will grow. On a side note, you need to keep Tweeting regularly. The audience is like a flock of birds. They need regular bread crumbs to stay nearby, or else they'll flock to the next source of food.

I'll have trouble with constant content.

That is where retweeting the best comments of others can help you fill in the lulls in your own life. Or hire someone off a crowd-sourcing website to generate content for you.

I don't think I'd trust someone else sending out tweets on my account.

No! You can hire someone off a site like Amazon Mturk or Fiverr to write a bunch of funny jokes or short technical tips you can tweet, for a few dollars a batch. You don't have to do it very often to keep your content pipeline full. The important thing is to keep the content useful, fresh and constantly flowing.

PIsn't that time consuming?

Not really. Post one tweet a day to keep everyone happy. You could let it fall to once a week, before ramping up when you're at a conference, professional gathering or trade show. Or talk about the job-related books you're reading. Forward links to the most important news articles about your industry. And keep people abreast of your major activities.

Ah, to quote "Game of Thrones", not all of those stories are fit for children -- or professional Twitter feeds.


For example, tell everyone about upcoming articles you've written for a major publication, a week before the article comes out. Then send out a link to the article when it is published.

Tell everyone when you seal a book deal, give an update when there is a release date, send out notices of future interviews and book signings. And you can really grow your following if you give away copies of a book or merchandise to those who sign up as followers or retweet one of your tweets.

I don't write. That's why I need help with Twitter.


I forgot, you're in graphic arts. Send out links to websites hosting your work. Send out the short links to websites showing the book covers you were working on.

Forward links of newspaper articles talking about the art show that included one of your artworks. You don't have to be a writer to benefit from Twitter. And status updates such as ?I'm at the XYX museum where my print is, here's the image' is fine. Just keep it below 140 characters.

This seems like a lot of work. What is the value of all this work?

Out of all those followers could come your next book deal, the next magazine cover you are asked to create, requests to illustrate a book or a job offer the next time you tweet "I got laid off, available to start next week".

That's a rather particular example.

Given the world today, you have to invest in a personal brand -- and Twitter is one of the easiest ways to do so. Is that 140 characters? That might be my next tweet.

Thanks for the advice. I'll think about this.