The following is a guest post from one of my favorite young bloggers Onibalusi Bamidele (he’s 16!) who has previously written a great analysis on the top 5 blogs and now is taking his evaluation to Twitter.
Twitter is one of the largest social networking sites, featuring users from various walks of lives. Twitter has a wide range of benefits from communicating with friends and families to building a brand for your business.
What I discovered among most Twitter users nowadays trying to be a top (or power) Twitter user is that they seem to automate everything. On Twitter, it’s not hard to find a lot of accounts now with thousands of followers and tens of thousands of tweets, only to discover that their profile has no value because they have the same following to follower ratio, they have lots of spam messages in their tweets, and their tweets hardly get any retweets. It is very clear that you can’t automate social media.
This post will analyze the top ten users on Twitter, what they all have in common, and what we can learn from them in order to build a better and valuable Twitter profile.
The top ten Twitter users referenced in this post were taken from Twitterholic.
- Lady Gaga
- Britney Spears
- Ashton Kutcher
- Barack Obama
- Ellen DeGeneres
- Justin Bieber (who has his own dedicated servers at Twitter)
- Kim Kardashian
- Oprah Winfrey
- Taylor Swift
- Katy Perry
If we take a look at all of the above Twitter users, we will observe the following.
Your Status Matters
Twitter is not just any kind of social networking site. It has an algorithm that favors your status. If you take a look at the ten people listed above, you will notice that all of them are celebrities. They have a name outside Twitter and it is that name that helped them build such a powerful Twitter profile.
Even though it is good to have a Twitter profile even if you don’t have a website or name, having an audience before having your Twitter profile really helps and makes things easier. Of course, there are also Twitter users who started out solely online, but even those users had a status that mattered.
Following to Follower Ratio
Many people think becoming popular or having a strong Twitter profile is all about following a lot of people on Twitter. No! It is not about that. You will notice that almost all the top Twitter users listed above hardly follow many people. They only follow a few.
If you go about following people in order to build your profile, the end result might be inactive people or bots or those who will add no value to your profile following you back. It is not all about the numbers, it is about the results. There is no result in having thousands of Twitter followers if they would not pay any attention to you.
Number of Tweets
One thing I notice about a lot of “so called” Twitter experts is that they go about tweeting everything. Having a gazillion tweets is no guarantee of being a top Twitter user. You will notice from the above that all the Twitter users have a low number of tweets and they don’t just tweet about everything under the sun. They only tweet useful, helpful, and valuable information.
Promotion on Twitter is not Bad – If Done Right!
Many people are under the impression that it is not good to promote on Twitter and that Twitter should only be used for personal things. No! This is not true. If we take a look at the profile of Justin Bieber, we will notice he also promotes his product on Twitter but does not spam. Here is what I found in his bio “www.BieberFever.com Request my single SOMEBODY TO LOVE featuring USHER!! and thank you for making a dream come true. MY WORLD 2.0 – Get that!!. You will notice he promote things but not in the spammy way most people do today.
You don’t need to tweet your product hundred times a day before it is seen. That is what the bio is made for.
As a note, I am not saying being a top Twitter user means you should not promote your products via tweets, but I am just saying it has to be minimal.
Personality is Important
By taking a look at the recent tweets on the above Twitter accounts, you will notice that they all have a personal relationship with followers and they answer questions from their followers. For example, here is a recent tweet taken from Ashton Kutcher’s twitter profile: “@problogger bummer I’ll be there 1 week too early.”
You will notice that many Twitter users don’t even care if about their Twitter profile, and all they do is automate everything.
Your followers wants to see a personal side of you and not just the automated part.
Branding is Important
Sometimes, little things make a huge difference. Many people who want to be power Twitter users don’t even have a branded Twitter account. You will notice that all the top Twitter users listed above have their image branded on their Twitter profile, and they also have a branded background.
Branding your Twitter profile makes it unique and also makes it easy for people to relate with you. Having a branded Twitter profile also bring about your presence to anybody who follows or wants to build a relationship with you.
Joined Date
Does this really matter? Yeah! As I said above, sometimes, the little things make a huge difference. At the time of writing this post, out of all the top Ten twitter users, the individual who joined last joined 18 months ago (1 years 4 months) while the individual who joined first has been there for 43 months (3 years 9 months). What this means is that success doesn’t come overnight, so don’t expect to join Twitter today and go popular tomorrow. Everything has a time-frame and you have to build your profile over time.
One of the best ways to achieve success is by learning from those who have been there, and the above tips are 7 great things we can learn from the top 10 Twitter users.
Onibalusi Bamidele is a young entrepreneur living the internet lifestyle, subscribe to his blog for more great posts. Also, get his free traffic eBook called the ultimate traffic formula.
Photos by Shutterstock.
Hi Tamar,
This is so great.
Thanks so much for publishing my guest post, I really appreciate it,
-Onibalusi
Great post on twitter. I especially like the part about the ratio between followers and following. Whenever I see somebody following 50 gazillion people it makes me think they are a bot.
One of the biggest things you can do to help you look like a real person is to create a professional looking twitter profile.
A while back I wrote a guest post on TwiTip you might find helpful:
7 Ways To Create A Professional Twitter Presence
http://www.twitip.com/7-ways-to-create-a-professional-twitter-presence/
The other thing to consider is tweeting things that are of value to your followers. People have no qualms about and unfollowing you if you’re spamming them.
—
Nick, The Traffic Guy
Exactly Nick,
What matters most is not the quantity of your followers but the quality, there is no point in you following more people than are following you.
Having a professional twitter profile is also very important because this will dinsitguish you from others and make you look like you know what you’re doing.
I will be checking your gp on twitip right away.
Thanks so much for commenting,
-Onibalusi
.. “Justin Bieber (who has his own dedicated servers at Twitter)”
Holy Schmoley!
#whatswrongwithtispicture
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen internet marketers who sell products designed to help accounts gain hundreds of followers, which defeats the process of engaging an audience with outstanding content. That’s the model that works best for bloggers, and it works the same for social media too. You have to give your followers a reason to trust your opinion, and you just don’t get that by blindly adding numbers to your Twitter account.
Hey, great post! I’ve been on twitter for quite a while but just recently started tweeting on a regular basis. I’ve noticed that sometimes when I get the email that says someone’s following me and I don’t choose to follow them back, then, poof! They disappear. I don’t understand why people do this automated stuff? I mean do they really think that is going to do them any good? Because I personally don’t think that any of their followers even end up paying any attention to their tweets anyways.
So i get that the follow ratios are important. But is there relevance in the quality of your followers? Like if I had 500 followers and I was following 14 but the people who are following me have crap ratios, is that bad?
> I don’t understand why people do this automated stuff?
> I mean do they really think that is going to do them any good?
There’s a lot of bad info out there and lots of pipe dreams of getting 10,000 followers in 2 minutes.
> Like if I had 500 followers and I was following 14 but the
> people who are following me have crap ratios, is that bad?
It’s not great but what can you do about it?
Instead focus tweeting good stuff to your followers and interacting with people.
Yeah Kimberly,
Many of the people doing this automated stuffs are bots, they will use a software/script that automatically follows you but if you don’t follow them back in a particular number of days they will disappear.
Spammers do anything to get what they want and they won’t follow only you, they will follow thousands of people so they will definitely be followed back and they get some results by tweeting their spam messages several times a day – the end result is that they are destroying their reputation ;).
Concerning the crap followers, you can’t control your followers but you can control those you follow (I mean you can choose who you follow), you don’t need to worry about that, just focus on building your twitter profile the right way.
Thanks so much for commenting!
Hi Oni
You are a machine, bro. Your guest posts are everywhere. Great tips on twitter and I gained a lot from them.
Thanks for sharing.
Michael.
Yeah Michael,
Everyday I keep on discovering how powerful twitter is, but one thing is that it has been misused in the marketing world.
I am glad you loved the post 🙂
Hey thanks for the guidance guys, I really appreciate it!
Oh and, is there an ideal number of tweets you should send out per day? Does it make a difference weather you tweet 20 times or 3?
Every tweet is chance to provide value or interact with people. There is no rule how many times you tweet though. IMO, 100 times a day is too many; 1 a week is too few. Find a balance that works well for you and your followers.
Thanks Nick. That makes sense. Consistency is probably a good thing too. I know that I’ve been bad with that, tweeting 10 times a day then nothing for 3 days.
There I was reading the article thinking it was Tamar, and almost skipped over that last bit to say great article as usual and blah blah, but then I saw you name! Well said, Onibalusi.
Great tips and analysis for using Twitter, I can relate to the time thing as well, you just can’t rush into Twitter and expect results overnight. Half of the time I personally find twitter a lot of work, but I try and just work with it slowly.
So really, no pressure 🙂
Great Tola,
I am glad you loved the post.
Thanks a lot for commenting!
Great post. Thank you for sharing Onibalusi.
Latipi
Kuala Lumpur
Great Ishak,
I am glad the post could help 🙂
is excellent
Valuable info as always. I never thought even twitter followers can be automated as well.
Sure Christina,
That has been done so many times in the twittersphere (:)!) and it is the reason for all the twitter spam.
Oni.. I’m not a big twitter user but this was a great post
thanks for your insights .. it was useful stuff – as always
talk soon
Hector
You are really missing a lot of great opportunities Hector,
Twitter is really sending some great traffic to me these days and many of those coming from twitter are staying longer on my blog.
Every traffic source adds.
I’m glad you loved the post.
Thanks so much for commenting,
-Onibalusi
Yes, it takes time to build a quality Twitter following especially if you don’t have a celebrity profile outside of Twitter.
And, yes, being overtly promotional will be like shooting yourself in the foot.
It’s a skill to provide your followers with entertaining and useful information while simultaneously, almost tacitly, promoting your product. I think a good test for successful tweets is retweets and replies
You got the message Andre,
Building a quality twitter profile takes time and it will be more easy if you already have a name.
The best way to build a strong following is by providing value as best as you can.
Thanks so much for commenting!
Some focus too much on their following to followers ratio that they lose the engaging concept of Twitter.
I’ve been impressed with a few of your other articles, but this one didn’t make much sense. What the top 10 have in common is their celebrity status. For the rest of us, your audience, what can we learn from that? That we need to become Movie stars before we can be successful on Twitter??
Why not do some real analysis on regular people?
Awesome Bryan,
And thanks so much for sharing your sincere thoughts on this post.
I didn’t think about it that way but my main intention of writing this post is to make it clear that it helps to have a name already to get the best from twitter. Many people create tons of twitter account and then begin to automate it by adding thousands of followers and by spamming twitter users with links to their websites, I believe there are a lot to be learned from how these people use twitter.
Anyways, I will like to know what you think.
Thanks so much for the awesome comment,
-Onibalusi