Why you lose followers on Twitter

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Posted on January 12, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Have you been wondering why your number of followers drop? Do you take it personally when people unfollow you? While it may be something you are doing, there is a good chance that you will get a certain number of unfollows every week, no matter what you do. It is time to stop worrying about fluctuations in your follower count. But, first check that you are not being antisocial on Twitter.

Is it something you did?

Swearing
Constantly selling (nobody likes being spammed)
Only tweeting stuff from your website and about your business
automated DMs (I know quite a few people who will unfollow anyone who send them a “Thank you for following me, now….with a call to action”)
Constantly retweeting other people’s tweets and adding none of your own content
Tweeting too often – if someone is only following a few people you might be filling up their Tweet stream
Not Tweeting at all (it is unlikely that Tweeting only a few times a month is going to get you unfollowed, but if you haven’t Tweeted for a few months, your account will be marked as inactive if people are using tools to manage their followers).

These are all things you can change.

Is it something your follower didn’t like?

they find you boring
they find you annoying
they were upset by something you said
they only followed you for a particular reason which has changed
you didn’t follow them back

It is worth having an objective look at your last ten Tweets and seeing how other people might see you. Is there anything you would change? You are not going to appeal to everyone, it is not the end of the world.

Is it automated behaviour?

Some accounts are automated to follow people and then when they get a follow back, they unfollow because they are collecting followers
Some people use a tool which automatically unfollows people who don’t follow back
Some people might be doing some housekeeping on their accounts using a tool and it is nothing personal

It’s not personal.

Is it Twitter?

Twitter will cleanse accounts that are breaking their terms of service such as spammers or bots (programs that automatically follow and unfollow other accounts) and some of those accounts may have been following you.

You didn’t want those followers anyway.

Now it’s your turn: Leave a comment and let us know one thing that makes you unfollow people on Twitter.

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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How NOT to get followers on Twitter

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Posted on January 6, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Are you putting off people from following you?

Do you need to some housekeeping on your Twitter account?

Check that you are not doing any of the following:

Protecting your tweets

If you are using Twitter to promote your business, you do NOT want to protect your Tweets. The benefit of using Twitter is that people who don’t know about you already can find you. If you protect your tweets only the people who you choose will be able to see your Tweets. You have to approve each follow request manually. Protected tweets can’t be Retweeted or found in Twitter or Google search. You can’t also @reply people you haven’t approved because they will not see your Tweets and you can’t share a link to your Tweets.

How to check if you have protected your tweets

Your account will have locked symbol next to your account. If you go to your settings page, check your options for your account to make sure you haven’t ticked the Tweet Privacy box.

Twitter validation

Some people use a Twitter validation service like TrueTwit to verify that their followers are real. It means instead of simply clicking a button to follow someone you get a DM (Direct Message) to say that you need to validate your account.

It may seem like a good idea to ask followers to prove they are human by filling in a Captcha form, but here are some reasons NOT to do it.

Every obstacle you put in front of potential customers stops people from going to the next step
Most people who ask me to validate won’t get followed. I hate Captcha forms, why do I need to waste my time just so that I can see their tweets in my news feed? I am sure that I am not the only one.
It is easy enough for a spammer to set up a TrueTwit account once which means that they don’t have to fill in Captcha forms for any other person they follow.
It confuses people especially people new to Twitter, so they will probably not follow you.

Inactive Account

Many businesses think they have a Twitter account because their web guy set one up for them, they have a link to it from their website and wonder why nobody is following them. Small businesses fall into the trap because they don’t understand that Twitter involves communicating and being active on Twitter. I would suggest that if you have an inactive account for your business that it might be better not to have one. It doesn’t reflect well on your business having a dusty Twitter account and it is unlikely that anyone will follow it.

Incomplete Account or badly filled in bio

Would you follow an Egg with no bio filled in? Thought not. Make sure your bio show a true reflection of who you are and that you are not putting your customers off. Read Twitter tip: Is your Twitter bio attracting customers?

Every tweet has a link

Most people don’t like being sold to and a Twitter account with only links suggests automation and an account that is merely broadcasting rather than willing to communicate with people. If you are inactive on Twitter, but have set up:

your Facebook Business Page to automatically tweet every Facebook post or
your Blog to automatically post or retweet old posts
your YouTube account to broadcast all your activities or
every check in on Foursquare is tweeted or
all your Tweets to be prescheduled

there is a good chance that you are putting potential followers off.

Not following anyone or only following a few people

This behaviour suggests arrogance to a lot of Twitter people, they think that you expect people to find your tweets interesting but you are not willing to find people to follow people. If you are wondering why no one is following you, but you haven’t followed anyone for a while then I suggest you look for people to follow now.

Tip: The quickest way to get followers is to follow interesting people first.

Following too many people

If you’re following a large number of people but not many people are following you back it suggests spammy activity. If you are in this situation, spend some time engaging with people you are already following. It is also useful to use a tool like ManageFlitter to help you unfollow some accounts you might have followed too eagerly when you started out on Twitter.

Generally it is better to have more people following you than people you follow, it suggests that you have more influence, but when you are starting out you will have a higher follow to follower ratio. Twitter allows you to follow 2000 people before it imposes a 10% follow to follower ratio. Read Have you followed 2000 people on Twitter and can’t follow any more? for more details.

If you follow a large number of people and have a large number of followers, there is a chance your potential followers might feel that you won’t be interested in engaging with them.

Not telling people about your Twitter account

Have you added your:

Twitter account to your website or blog?

email signature?

business card?

LinkedIn Account?

Newsletter?

Leaflets?

Have you told your customers that you have a Twitter account?

It is surprising how many people keep their Twitter account a secret!

You can’t make people follow you but you can give people a great reason to follow you by having a friendly picture, interesting bio and engaging Tweets.

Let me know what behaviour stops you from following on Twitter in the comments below, thank you.

Nicky Kriel

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How to make blog posts easy to Retweet

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Posted on January 5, 2013 by Nicky Kriel

Have you gone to the trouble of writing content for your blog and you are active on Twitter, but nobody seems to be retweeting your blog posts on Twitter?

There may be a number of reasons for it, but have you consider this:

You might be unwittingly saboutaging your blog.

Here are simple things to check and tips to make your blog posts easier to Retweet.

1. Make it obvious that you want them to share your content on Twitter

Have a twitter button

or two and….

….have these in prominent position.

It may sound blatantly obvious, but do you know how many blog posts I have been on that don’t have them? Or have tiny ones hidden away? If I have to spend ages searching for a Twitter button to share your content, guess what? Unless you are an exceptional nice person and I really like you, I am just not going to bother! Very few people will go to the bother of copying the URL, going to Twitter, rewriting your headline, pasting your URL and then posting it. Have you missed out because people didn’t know how to share your content? Or that you want them to share it?

Action: Make sure you have a Twitter button on each blog post

Twitter creates buttons for you providing you with the HTML code for your website, you can find them here: Twitter Buttons

If you have a WordPress blog it is very easy to add a plugin such as Sexy Bookmarks and Social Share which allow you to share across a variety of Social Media sites or single buttons like WP Tweet Button

And don’t forget that you can ask people to share your content at the end of your blog post.

2. Have a Headline that attracts the right people

If your headline was your only clue, would you know what your blog post was about? Think of your headline as your sales pitch to get people to read your blog. If your headline doesn’t attract interest, you are not going to get readers popping over, even if your blog post is worthy of the Booker Prize. Your potential readers will see your headline with a link, if they were looking for the content you have written, would they know to click on the link from Twitter?

Are you giving your headline enough thought?

3. Headline length

If you have a very long headline, it doesn’t allow much room for adding a comment or retweeting it. On Twitter you have a 140 characters space, but ideally you should never use more than 120 characters if you want to get retweeted. Your link should take up about 20 characters which leaves you 100 characters. Take off another 20 (depending on the length of your Twitter name to add something like “via @NickyKriel” which leaves your 80 characters and that is without adding your own comment or call to action. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Keep your Headlines long enough to get your message across, but short enough to be shared.

4. Check your Twitter buttons

So many times I have gone to retweet someone’s post and the Twitter box has more than 140 characters, or only includes a link so I have to edit the box for them. Common mistakes seem to be:

The link isn’t shortened
The title is not included
The blog title is included as well as the post title
It adds the name of the plugin into the tweet eg “via Shareaholic” Do you really want precious space used advertising someone else?
There is no Twitter username for the author

Sometimes the setting for the button will have change after you originally set it up because it has been updated with a new version of the plugin or perhaps you didn’t know how to configure it correctly in the first place.

Here how to change it.

If you use WordPress for your blog, the configuration settings for the button could be in three different places depending on the plugin.

Under Plugins
Under Settings
In a category of their own below Settings

Look for the Twitter options for Configuration. Below is an example of my configuration for Shareaholic’s Sexy Bookmarks. Do not panic if you don’t know HTML, they should give you examples of what it should look like.

Make sure that it contains your title and a short link as well as your Twitter name. You want to see if people have retweeted your post so that you can thank them and engage with them. If you don’t have your Twitter name, the only way you would know who has retweeted the post is by doing a search on Twitter by your post title or your blog name.

Try sharing your post using your Twitter button and see how it looks to your readers.

For some reason the URL Shortener that I had chosen wasn’t working on mine so I changed it. It is always worth checking!

5. Make sure your content is worth sharing

There are a lot of poorly written, rambling and egocentric blogs out there. Make sure you are not one of them!

Continuously look at ways of improving your writing skills and find the content that your audience is interested in reading. My blog posts have improved over time through practising, I get more readers each month and I get business from my blog and that has only come with a more focused approach.

My top tip: Write for your reader as though they are in front of you and hearing your words.

For more tips on how to get Retweeted, read Twitter: 5 Ways to get you Retweeted

Do you have any more tips for making blog posts easy to Retweet? It would be lovely if you share them in the comments below. And don’t forget to retweet this blog post if you found it useful

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter tip: Is your Twitter Bio attracting customers?

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

When you set up your Twitter Profile, how much thought did you put into your bio? Maybe you filled in a few words and thought you would come back to it later? When was the last time you looked at what your Twitter profile says about you and your business?

Here’s why you need to put a bit of thought when you write your Twitter bio:

Your Twitter bio is Searchable

Did you know that your bio appears in Google searches? Search Engines will search for keywords within your bio. How many of your keywords (or keyword phrases) for your business are in your bio at the moment?

People search on Twitter

People use keywords when they are looking for people to follow on Twitter. Twitter will suggest tweets and people that are relevant to the search. Are you likely to found in Twitter for your keywords?

Remember: Use words that people are likely to use when they are searching for your service or product rather than industry jargon.

Twitter suggests people to follow

Twitter recommends people to followed based not only on who you follow and are following, but also by the words used in your bio. How will Twitter know unless you use the right words.

Your bio may be stopping people from following you

Unless you are a celebrity or a household name, people will not follow people without a bio. You need to give people a reason to follow you and what you say in your bio will make the difference whether people follow you back or not.

Here’s some other things that may be stopping people

You don’t give enough information about who you are and what you do:- Don’t make make people guess that you are worth following.
Your bio is a sales pitch:- Most people do not like being sold at. They may think that you are going to spam them.
Your bio is very kittens and rainbows:- Okay, if you are just tweeting for fun, it is alright. But, if you are using Twitter to grow your business, you need to tell people about your business and what you will be tweeting about.
Your bio lacks any personality:- people want to feel that they are talking to a real life person, not a company logo.
Your bio is full of corporate mumbo jumbo:- Have you ever been at a networking meeting and heard someone deliver their sixty second pitch and still been in the dark when they sat down? Avoid language that appears to be generated by a committee. Speak in the language your customer uses.
Spelling mistakes – you may not feel it’s important, but it may be putting off your potential customers.

Your Twitter bio should encourage the right people to follow you and also include your keywords.

What type of bio encourages you to follow someone on Twitter?

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter housekeeping tips: Are you dodgy on Twitter?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Apparently over 40% of the people I follow are “Dodgy“. If I am following you, there is a good chance that you are showing antisocial behaviour on Twitter. Did you know that you might be appearing on someone’s Twitter list to be cleaned up?

One of the questions people ask me is:

“How do I stop Twitter being so noisy?”

They have enthusiastically followed people and then get overwhelmed with the number of spam like tweets in their feed. A bit of housekeeping is useful and there are tools that can help you do this. One of the tools that has recently caught my attention is Twit Cleaner.

What I like about Twit Cleaner

It allows you to check yourself out to see whether any of your Twitter behaviour would put you on a naughty list.
It says I’m awesome. Okay, I am a pushover with a bit of flattery
It allows you to unfollow people in an intelligent way. You would be surprised how many people I know quite well pop up in the reports.
It gives you guidelines for what is considered acceptable behaviour and tips to improve your tweeting.
It slowly unfollow people you select rather than all in one go.

Twitter doesn’t like mass unfollowing because it is used by spammers who will follow people just to get a follow back and then unfollow them automatically.

Caution: The dodgy behaviour is just Si Dawson’s (@SiDawson) opinion, it doesn’t make it the truth. Use his report as a guide.

Let me know if you would like some more housekeeping tips for Twitter, thank you.

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter no longer feeds automatically into LinkedIn: Yay!

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

LinkedIn announced last week that Tweets will no longer be displayed on LinkedIn.

No more automatic feeding of your Twitter activity into LinkedIn
No more broadcasting of Tweets with #in or #li on LinkedIn

Some people seem to think this is awful, but I think it is a good thing and here’s why:

The LinkedIn News feed was getting very noisy with Tweets from people who never visited LinkedIn – People tended to set their Twitter to feed automatically into LinkedIn and then forgot about the platform.
Not all the things you say on Twitter are appropriate for LinkedIn – Each Social Media platform has its own personality – On LinkedIn you are always a business person whereas on Twitter you are a business person but also show your human side. Conversations about walking your dog or chatting to other people on Twitter were not suitable for LinkedIn.
Frequency of Updates – Most tweets only have a short life span and so it is okay to tweet frequently. Updates on LinkedIn last longer. Many LinkedIn users were annoyed by the number of automated tweets drowning the updates by genuine LinkedIn users.
Twitter has its own language and jargon – Not everyone understands hashtags or what RT and DM mean.
Many updates were duplicated. People often set up Twitter to feed automatically into LinkedIn and then used a tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to publish the same content into LinkedIn again.

If you want to broadcast the same content to both LinkedIn and Twitter, you still can by:

Posting on LinkedIn and make you sure you tick the Twitter box
Use a third party dashboard like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to publish content

What do you think about LinkedIn’s announcement? Did you use to have your Twitter feeding automatically into LinkedIn? Love to hear your viewpoint in the comments below.

Nicky Kriel

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Twitter: Why I hate automated DMs!

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Rant Alert!

If you are on Twitter and you are sending automated messages to your new followers, then this is blog post is directed to you.

Just because technology allows you to do things doesn’t mean you should do them. If you have been advised to send an automated message to everyone who has followed you, you have been given bad advice.

An automated “Thank You for following me” leaves me cold.

A thank you without any thought that is obviously automated is not going to make people feel all warm and fuzzy about you. In fact, it could have the opposite effect.

An automated “Thank you” followed by a request for me to Like your Facebook product, visit your website, read your blog annoys me.

If I am interested in you and like you and we chat on Twitter, then I will do all those things, but all I have done is click a button to follow you. We don’t have a relationship yet!

Imagine if we were at a networking meeting. What would you think about me if the first thing I said, as soon as we had shaken hands, was “Visit my website”?! Go on, try it. Ask the next person you meet at networking to Like your Facebook Page straight away and see how many fans you get.

Human nature hasn’t changed. Normal rules of engagement apply. Don’t do things online that you wouldn’t do offline.

An automated “Thank You” followed by a Sales Pitch will get you unfollowed from now onwards.

Following you does not make me your customer. Often the reason I follow people is because they followed me first. If I am polite enough to follow you back which is my way of saying that I am willing to start building a relationship, don’t sell at me. It is just rude!

Why don’t I just ignore Messages?

Well, every time I get a Private Message, I get an email. I haven’t switched off this notification because:

I want to be able to have private conversations with people I like
and I get a lot of new business this way.

When you spam me with an automated message, you are cluttering up my inbox and I might miss a message from a real customer or a person I like!

If you feel absolutely compelled to automate a thank you, please come up with something witty, charming or original. I’ll forgive you then, but I would rather you…

Send me a personal DM or not one at all.

I know I am not the only person who feels this way. What do you think about automated DM’s? Let me know in the comments below.

Nicky Kriel

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Slideshare is starting to seduce me

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Are you using Slideshare to promote your business?

A few months ago I did a webinar on How to use Twitter for PR for your Toastmasters Club. Due to a few technical issues, the slides weren’t visible in the recording, so I posted my presentation on Slideshare so that people could view them while listening to the presentation.

And I didn’t think much more about it.

That was until about a week ago when I had a notification from Slideshare congratulating me on achieving over a thousand views.

Wow, that was a lot of eyeballs!

I looked at my profile.

Oops, I hadn’t even bothered to fill it in properly and hadn’t included my website on it!! What a lot of missed opportunities to connect.

I looked at my slides.

Without hearing my presentation, my slides wouldn’t make much sense. Oops again.

It got me thinking. If over a thousand people had clicked on my slides without me promoting it and without me thinking of it as a stand alone showcase. What would happen if I produced a presentation especially for Slideshare?

So I re-purposed a popular blog post 55 Things to Tweet about and created a Powerpoint especially for Slideshare. Which you can view below.

Tons of things to tweet about on Twitter

View more presentations from Nicky Kriel

And this is what has happened overnight.

I woke up this morning with an email from Slideshare congratulating me! They had chosen my presentation out of thousands uploaded yesterday to feature on the front page of Slideshare today.

Over 200 people viewed it while I was sleeping.
It has been downloaded 3 times.
I gained more subscribers to my mailing list.
A new follower on Twitter who was promoting my YouTube workshop, told me that she had discovered me through Slideshare and had already shared my Tons of things to tweet about on Twitter with her professor.

Not bad for less than 24 hours!

Would love to hear about your experiences with Slideshare. Please share them by leaving a comment below.

Update at 20 hours after uploading

Over 1000 views
Downloaded 23 times
Most talked about Slideshare presentation on Facebook and has now been entered onto the “Hot on Facebook” section on their homepage.

Now I am curious about how much traffic it has generated to my website….

Nicky Kriel

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Nicky Kriel | Social Media Coach & Trainer | Social Media for Business

Inspiring you to grow your business through Social Media

Tag Archives: Twitter

Is it something you did?

Is it something your follower didn’t like?

Is it automated behaviour?

Is it Twitter?

Protecting your tweets

Twitter validation

Inactive Account

Incomplete Account or badly filled in bio

Every tweet has a link

Not following anyone or only following a few people

Following too many people

Not telling people about your Twitter account

1. Make it obvious that you want them to share your content on Twitter

2. Have a Headline that attracts the right people

3. Headline length

4. Check your Twitter buttons

5. Make sure your content is worth sharing

Your Twitter bio is Searchable

People search on Twitter

Twitter suggests people to follow

Your bio may be stopping people from following you

What I like about Twit Cleaner

Rant Alert!

An automated “Thank You for following me” leaves me cold.

An automated “Thank you” followed by a request for me to Like your Facebook product, visit your website, read your blog annoys me.

An automated “Thank You” followed by a Sales Pitch will get you unfollowed from now onwards.

Update at 20 hours after uploading