How to welcome new followers on Twitter without using robots

How to welcome new followers on Twitter {without using robots}

The Baby Photographer

Social Media tips with Memory Gate

Published on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 15:00

Last Updated on 30 March 2013

Michael Shilling

2 Comments

Honestly I’ve had just about enough of spammy private messages on Twitter from someone I’ve just followed.

“Hi, thanks for the follow. Here’s my Facebook page”

You know what, if I wanted to find you on Facebook I would have done so already.

And what are you really saying with that sort of message?

“Thanks for showing an interest in my tweets but I care more about is how many likes I get”

Mixed messages aside, auto message tools aren’t cool. You’re taking the social element out of social media and what does that leave you with?

So what do you do if you’re not going to get a robot to do all of your socialising for you?

Here’s a couple of ideas:

Welcome new followers

One of the most social welcomes I’ve experienced on any social network was from LookBunnyFind

The app developer didn’t just look at my profile but she actually looked at my site and found out what it was all about. She then welcomed me as a new follower and told her follows a little something about me (from my website not Twitter bio).

What you do

Set aside 15 mins a day, an hour a week or whatever works for you and have a proper look at your new followers.

For the ones you think you’ll find interesting (and follow back) send out a welcome tweet that lets your followers know who they are.

Here’s an example

Welcome @memorygate from www.memorygate.co.uk Awesome baby photographer and lovely chap

Welcome new follower @memorygate sharing tips about #photography and #social media

You can get a pretty good idea about them by reading their profile but do check out their tweets and links to their site.

You’ll unlikely to do this with every new follower but it’ll certainly get the attention of the ones you do.

Retweet something interesting from their feed.

This is great because its a subtle nod to your new follower saying “Hi there, I’ve found you interesting already”

It’s also worth noting that if you can’t find anything in their last four or five tweets then its probably not worth following them back anyway.

You could go a step further and quote one of their tweets and add in a reply, this is really easy to do on your mobile so it’s something to do on the go.