With new businesses sprouting every second and competition reaching new heights every day, marketing and brand creation have taken up the position of kingmakers, with social networking gradually becoming their most powerful weapons. Amongst others, Twitter has gained a special place considering how impactful the limited 140 characters are, in creating an audience, sharing ideas, promoting businesses, maintaining loyal customers and attracting new ones – all in one go! But what’s success without a little hard work?

While all this seems easy and smooth on paper, in reality, it could be a tough grind! Some companies might like quick-fixes like buying a large number of Followers, but they forget that puppets have no voices.

So how should one ignite an organic growth in one’s twitter followers? Here are some tried and tested ways:

Creating a Chorus of Retweets

In this step, you need to tweet content which seems alluring and fresh to the general audience compelling them to retweet your content again and again. It will establish your brand value and publicize it amongst the masses. You can:

• Use links in your tweets which have a higher probability of getting retweeted.
• Try including images to ensure engagement of your audience.
• Add relevant hashtags to your posts which will be seen when new users search for words related to your posts, increasing your followers gradually.
• Make your page look lively and increase its visibility by posting frequently. Tools like HootSuite and SproutSocial, which schedule your tweets often come in handy.
• Ask for Retweets. A study suggests that tweets including “please retweet” in their text are four times more likely to be retweeted.
• Tweet motivational and inspirational quotes or proverbs since they’re very likely to get retweeted.

 The Follow loop

 Following others creates a greater probability of getting followed by them.

• You may start by following more and more people. It’s proven that the more you follow others, the more followers you get in your account.
• Use an actual image of yourself as a profile picture rather than your logo since no one wants to follow a faceless brand.
• Upload your email contacts to Twitter and find more people you know. Follow backs are fast if you’re connected to them in real life.
• Make it extremely easy for people to reach you by using a follow button in your website and your blog.
• To find more Twitter users to connect with, use Twiends which helps its users with similar interests to get listed accordingly and then follow each other increasing your circle of followers.

 Making your content visible

 Having optimized content and settings, increase the visibility of your account to new users and tempt more people to join your twitter world.

• Start with including optimized search keywords in your bio, and to attract local users, do add your city or region name.
• Tweeting on weekends is linked with about 17% more engagement from followers in general. So, grab this opportunity and keep your Twitter account highly active on the weekends.
• Reference users in your tweets and mention their names frequently. People more often contribute to discussions where they’ve been specifically mentioned.
• Find new followers using Ignitwit. Choose your topics of interest, and you’ll receive a list of people you should follow. They will even tell you who decided not to follow you back, giving you a chance to eliminate/unfollow the uninterested parties.
• Make it a point to reply to questions. This not only shows your social media etiquettes but also highlights that you take notice of your followers’ queries and care to solve them, making your account worth following back.

 Effective promotion of your Account

Promoting your account is an inevitably important process. It helps your brand to gain attention and slowly become a household product.

• Start by publishing your twitter account in all your marketing materials which will include business cards, brochures, signs and your website too.
• Promote your twitter account on all your social networking platforms. Entice your audience by mentioning about interesting discussions that you’re engaging in, on Twitter.
• Do not forget to include your username in the author bio of your guest posts.
• Participate in popular twitter chats. Chats are great tools to engage with your customers and establish a connection in a short period. Follow them afterwards; they’re most likely to follow you back.
• Try tweeting often between 1 pm to 3 pm when Twitter traffic is at its peak ensuring that you engage more and more people by asking questions or posting on relevant topics which are bound to sell like hotcakes!