Everyone seems to have their “7 simple ways to build a twitter audience.” Here is mine, for what it’s worth.
1. Vision: Narrow your focus and vision. Talk about a specific subject. Add to the body of knowledge. be a curator.
2. Community: build one. Know who shares your vision. RT *them* when they post something excellent–especially if its better than your normal posts. Highlight them, recommend them to others. Be known for charity, generosity, engagement, quality of your community.
3. Collaboration: engage in discussion with others on twitter. Add to the value of what others are saying. RT them, and point out “also reads”. Find ways to build a hashtag together.
4. Adaptive: learn from your mistakes. Watch what gets RTd and what doesn’t. Watch what people find interesting and useful, and they don’t. Don’t change your focus based on the crowd, but watch for new ways to communicate more effectively.
5. Open: share information. Encourage RTs. Write in such a way that others can easily RT and provide value. Most of you are probably trying to get a message out. The proliferation of the message is more important than your personal follower count, right? Limit the number of characters in your post so that it leaves room for the “RT” if people choose to do an old-style form.
6. Influence: as you grow in followers and RT influence, use your influence wisely. Make suggestions to people about lessons you have learned. Insist on high quality tweets. Confront urban legends and myths and lies. Don’t pass on bad information.
7. Multiply: help other people to grow. The more their influence and ability to communicate grows, the further your message will go when they RT it.
