Tweepi is a web application that helps you manage and build your Twitter following. Using its flush and follow functionality, you can execute “Targeted Following” campaigns to reach relevant Twitter users, un-follow those that aren’t interested in your product, and increase your accounts’ followers – in less than an hour each week. I have been using this technique for the past year for various startups and small businesses and seen followings increases as high as 1000 followers per month. Here’s how – use it responsibly:
Step 1: Flush
(always do this before you execute Step 2: Targeting Following)
Flushing users means unfollowing the people that aren’t following you back on Twitter. The purpose of this is so that you’re only following those interested in your product. Obviously, there are exceptions so use your discretion.
Instructions
- Go to Tweepi and Login.
- Go to Manage Twitter ->Flush the Unfollowers
- Check the box to the left of the first person on the left while holding shift, then scroll down and click the checkbox next to the last person. This should highlight all of the users on the list.
- Click unfollow.
- Go to the next page, repeat steps 3-4.
Step 2: Targeted Following
The goal of targeted following is to get your brand in front of relevant users who would be likely to purchase or use your product, and hopefully get them to follow your account. With Tweepi’s follow functionality, you can input any Twitter username and it will return every user that is following them. From there, you can follow up to 200 users at a time (20 with the free version), allowing you to quickly and easily add relevant users.
Example: If you run a daily deals site, you could target Groupon and Living Social’s followings to acquire users, or companies that produce the products you are offering as the daily deal as their followers are likely to be in your target market.
Instructions
- Identify users whose followers are within your target market.
- Go to Tweepi -> Follow Tweeps -> @user’s followers
- Input a username.
- Click start following.
- Check the boxes of users. Make sure to consider a user’s bio, location, and time of last tweet to verify relevance and follow only active accounts. (If the bio/location doesn’t appear, click ‘columns’, a drop-down will appear, and then you can select them.) Also, never follow someone that you have previously flushed.
- Once you’ve selected those you want, click follow.
- Go to next page, repeat steps 5-6.
Pinpointing your Target Market
Every time you execute a targeted following campaign, it is important to track its effectiveness in order to gain insight into your target market. To do so, start a spreadsheet and input the account you followed, how many users your followed, the number of followers you gained (need to wait at least a week to obtain this number), and the number of clicks received (if you used a link in the tweet).
In doing so, you can calculate the follow-back rate (followers gained/total number followed), and click-back rate (clicks/total number followed). The higher the rates, the more relevant that users’ following is to your product – insight that you should take into consideration when executing other marketing efforts, especially display advertising if the account is a publisher.
Use Tweepi Responsibly
Although this method has proven to be highly effective, it is important to use it responsibly. Excessive following and/or unfollowing without consideration for relevance is spam, and is sure to give your brand a bad reputation – as well as hurt the overall Twitter experience. A rule of thumb to follow is to only add a hundred or so users per week. If you follow more than 1000 users a week, Twitter is likely to ban your account forever. So use Tweepi responsibly, and only as a complement to organic growth.
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