Image via CrunchBase1. Follow lots of people: For some reason, when you blindly follow people on a social networking site, about 1/4 to 1/2 of those people will follow you back. What this means is that the main way to get lots of followers on Twitter (or Digg, Facebook, Myspace, etc.) is to follow lots of people and wait for a return following. I wish that there was some secret that was trickier than this, but this is the main truth. Social networking sites know this, however; and they will often put blocks into their sites to limit the number of people you can follow to be no more than a certain percentage over the number that follow you. For example, Twitter limits this number to 10% -- meaning that, if you have 2000 followers, you can follow at most 2200 people. This leads me to my next point:
2. Use tools like Refollow and Twitter Karma to unfollow people who aren't following back: I know that for Twitter Refollow and Twitter Karma (Google search both to find the exact links) allow you to unfollow anyone who is not following you automatically. I'm not sure if these tools exist for other social media sites, but I'm not sure if these sites have the same following restrictions that Twitter has. In any case, both tools are very useful for getting tons of Twitter followers.
3. Promote your Twitter account on your blog, Facebook, etc.: If you already have a large following on a site like Facebook or your personal blog, you can stick a Twitter widget button on your page (again, Google search to find the address) to gain new followers. If you're only looking to increase your followers by a few dozen or a few hundred, this would be a good option for you. However, if you want followers in the thousands (which is very desirable on Twitter), this method will only take you so far.
4. Get your followers to give you shoutouts, retweets, and recommendations: Another good source to add a few dozen to hundred new followers is by having followers you know and trust give you shoutouts and recommendations to their followers. As with method 3, this can be tedious if you're looking to gain thousands of followers. However, if you're only looking for a few hundred, targeted followers, this method is as good as the three above.
Gaining Twitter followers is hard, but, with hard work and the tools mentioned above, it can be a smooth process.
