Fred Abaroa

One of Dr Stephen Covey's 7 Habits for Highly Effective People is "Begin With Then End In Mind". Our business use of social media is to build a relationship with our customers to grow sales. In my last year on twitter I have seen a lot of "Get followers fast" schemes go by. I even had a friend tell me his partner had a secret way of getting thousands of followers. I write this because I see this individual is about to give a presentation on Twittering for Business. This worries me. I guess it is important to have thousands of followers, but only if you can influence them. A lot of the "Get Followers" schemes involve blindly adding followers who add you. But if all the people who wanted to just build their numbers were adding others who just wanted to build numbers who would be reading their tweets. So here is some advice. Follow the right people. These are people who presently use your product or services. Interact with them. Ask advice of improvements. Monitor your competitor tweeps. Interact with them. Ask why they chose your competitor. This will lead to those people following you back and their followers, who see you engaging, will consider following you. After that trust is build when you ask something of your tweeps, like for business, they are more likely to help you. Having 10,000 followers who were all part of the same "Get Followers" program may not have the same effect. Don't Fall For These Schemes! And be carefull about attending seminars about twitter taught by people who dont really tweet.