1,000 Twitter Followers: Lessons I've Learned

Well, strike me dead for hubris, I'm pretty proud I got to 1,000 Twitter followers in just 6 months. See the graph of that journey on Twitterholic.

I'm sure others have done it faster, and not just famous people.

Some Twitterers have hit 1,000 with fewer updates; Jordan Kasteler hit it with about 33% fewer tweets than I, but he's way more active on Sphinn and Digg... maybe that's it. Or it could be his 50% more magnetic personality... no, it's probably just the Sphinn/Digg thing.


It was a fair amount of work to get to 1,000 followers:

• 3,650 tweets
• Scores of direct messages
• 69 blog posts, at least half of them about twitter
  
• 18 blog posts on the AdWords Consultant/Social Media blog
  
• 35 blog posts on the Fuel Interactive blog
• 12 blog posts on the Humor 2.0 blog
• 4 blog posts on the Schmearch blog
  
• Participating in several major memes, including Martin Bowling & Zima
• Interviewing several industry people for blog posts
  
• At least 4 front-page sphinns (not sphubmitted by me)
• (No front page diggs, LOL)
• Speaker at three past search industry gigs
• Attending two others, in-person networking at all five, lined up gigs speaking at three more search and social media conferences before Christmas

Ok, so enough about my workatwittaholicity. The next video is how to pronounce that word:


Here's what I've learned coming up that I don't want to forget:
(Hit me on the head with an iron skillet if I ever do)

• It's nice to follow back. You don't have to, but it's nice. That deserves a whole post by itself, but my view is: Twitter is a party, not a podium. I'm not a snob. Cliques suck. There are people I won't follow because they act like snobs. Don't want to be one.
  
• It's courteous to reply back. I listen to everyone, even those I'm not following, and I reply back to them. It's rare that I don't, and usually unintentional, or I'm totally flummoxed and "have no response to that." (Meg Ryan, Joe vs. Volcano)
  
• Risk being unique. As I get into speaking professionally, I'm tempted to change my image to more professional. I'm afraid if I do that, you won't see the personality anymore. I'm pretty sure personality is essential to social media success.
  
• Expand your network. Search for relevant new contacts and follow them.

I'm not going to do a full following-growing tip list here- I actually have an article about that coming out on another website soon... and I have a separate list of tips for how to get speaking gigs...

It's enough for now- I don't know how big time I am now, but I wanted to make sure I made a reminder list of how not to change when I do hit the big time, whatever that is.