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This is a very common question asked not only by new users of Twitter, but by veteran users looking for an audience and marketers looking for potential customers. There are many things you can do to build your following, but it all boils down to interacting with the Twitter community.

I’ve made the analogy before that Twitter is like a party or a club scene. There are those that invited you that will automatically be on your friends list, but you want to grow and expand that list. What would you do in this situation?

Follow

The absolute most basic step you can take to gaining more followers is to follow others. Many people will reciprocate by following you back. This is the primary strategy used by spammers, but they usually get it wrong. Following massive amounts of random people will not work as well as following people who will actually be interested in what you have to say. The best practice here is to follow people who share your interests. This way, you will have something in common. This is important in building a relationship and keeping the followers you collect.

Interact

No matter how many followers you have, you can always get more followers through interaction. Pay attention to what those you’re following are saying. Contribute to conversations you see them having. Pay attention to who they are talking to because it’s likely those people share your interest as well and you should be following them. Make sure to try and respond to every Direct Message or Mention that someone sends you. If someone takes the time to talk about you or send you a private message, this is a prime opportunity to make a connection.

Be Interesting

This doesn’t mean you have to be the coolest kid on the block, the most knowledgable, or even provide the best quality links or content. Being interesting means being yourself. Tweet about your interests, things you are doing, random thoughts or questions that pop into your head. This will give people an idea of who you are and give them a better idea of whether they want to follow you or not. If you’re a musician, talk about your craft. If you’re a writer, share your work. Talk about things you might be reading or listening to and share your opinions. Using proper grammar, spelling, and capitalization is almost critical here. You only have 140 characters, so it’s expected to take some shortcuts, but keeping your tweets readable as well as detailed is important.

Conclusion

You probably don’t want to follow everyone, so use your common sense here. You also may not need to respond to every single Mention or Direct Message. There are definitely some things so insignificant that they don’t warrant a tweet, but you’ll have to get a feel for that on your own. The basic idea here is to use the service as much as you can to share whatever you think is worth it and seize the opportunity to discuss those things whenever it arises. This is how you build your following.