Question: “How do I get people to interact with with me on Twitter? I reply to people but no one seems to reply back!”
– Anonymous (from the Questionnaire)
Answer: There may be several reasons why your Twitter followers aren’t interacting with you, and since I don’t know your account name I can only speak in generalities. So, here are a few of the possibilities.
- Many people on Twitter aren’t actually people. There are many accounts run by automation or “bots” and those accounts will never interact with you.
- Many people on Twitter who are people, only run their account through automation like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and the like. They only push tweets out and don’t interact with other users.
- Many users have automated DM’s (direct messages), so these messages aren’t really meant to get interaction, they are only intended to push out messages to you.
- You don’t have a defined audience, so your followers aren’t really interested in what you have to say.
There is no way to guarantee that your followers will interact with you, but there are ways to increase the chance of having real conversations with them.
Tips for Getting More Interaction on Twitter
- Make sure you are talking with the right people. What I mean is, follow people who are interested in the same things as you are. The ones that follow you back will be more likely to reply when you mention them.
- Follow the Market Leaders in your niche.Then watch what they are doing and talking about. Follow their followers.
- Share good stories that people are already talking about. You can find these stories by looking at the Twitter feeds of your followers or from other sites like Digg or your favorite blogs about your niche.
- Ask questions. People love to help, so ask questions about your niche or related interests. This almost always will start conversations.
- Retweet popular stores and trending topics. Talk about what others are talking about and you’re more likely to get some attention.
Finally, don’t worry about the people who don’t reply to you. Focus on the ones who do.
Share freely and don’t be overly self promotional.
Be selective about who you follow. It’s better to have 500 awesome followers than 5000 that suck are not awesome. 🙂
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