SmallBizResource Blog -- Marketing

How To Find People To Follow On Twitter

Posted by Gayle Kesten Friday, Jun 26, 2009, 12:37 PM ET

Of my 271 followers on Twitter, *maybe* 10% are people I actually know. The rest is a group joined together based on common interests -- small businesses, entrepreneurs, tech tools, and the like.

In contrast, nearly all of my friends on Facebook are truly friends who predate the social networking platform. Another reason why I think Twitter is so kewl.

Since I began the week presenting you with definitions for 13 commonly "spoken" Twitter acronyms and phrases, why not end wrap it up with another useful Twitter compilation -- this one entitled "8 Ways To Find Relevant Followers On Twitter," from Outspoken Media's Lisa Barone (LisaBarone on Twitter). With short explanations here, and the full-blown descriptions on Small Business Trends, they are:

• Find People: Twitter's very own Find People option offers several ways to find Twitter users you already know in real life.

• Twitter Search: Use Twitter Search when you want to search by keywords rather than name, or if you want to find people who are talking about you.

• Twellow: Twellow prides itself as being "The Twitter Yellow Pages." It's a directory that allows you to search for other Twitter users based on interest, category or location.

• WeFollow: WeFollow is a Twitter directory that lets users tag their account with different keywords or interests to make it easy for people interested in these things to find you.

• TwitterGrader: TwitterGrader is incredibly useful for finding interesting tweeters local to you. Once you tell TwitterGrader where you're located, it will populate a list of the 100 most active Twitterers in your area.

• MrTweet: MrTweet is an automated system that recommends interesting people for you to follow based on your own Twitter usage.

• Twubble: Twubble works by going through your Follower list and then jumping one step further to go through your follower's Followers to create a brand new list of people for you to follow.

One more way, albeit manual, is to use Find People to track down your competitors also on Twitter. "If someone has decided to follow, and especially interact with, one of your competitors, then it's likely that they'd be interested in following you, as well," Barone advises.

Who you won't find on Twitter, no matter how hard you search? Ninety-eight fraidy cat CEOs from this year's Fortune 100 list, who are too busy in their boardrooms to be bothered with social media, according to UberCEO.com.

Sorry, I don't buy it. No one is too big -- or too small -- for social media.

Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/gaylekesten

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