How To Identify And Engage With Your Most Influential Twitter Followers

 Evan Dunn CONTRIBUTOR - SEPTEMBER 17, 2015 - He can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn

1. How To Quickly Find The Right People Who Follow You On Twitter

ere are so many types of people I want to talk with on Twitter: influencers, people who share my interests, people who work in my field, and potential clients.

I could just reach out to them directly, but it always helps to have a prior connection. I’ve seen this prove true many times.
If the people I want to talk to are already following me on Twitter, they’ll be more likely to respond when I reach out to them.
This means that people who follow you are more worthwhile for you to reach out to. If I want to look for potential clients on Twitter, for example, it would make sense to first look through my Twitter followers. If a potential client is one of my Twitter followers and I reach out to them, there is a better chance they’ll respond to me if I reach out to them compared to someone who isn't following me on Twitter.
​Part of the psychology behind this is the "Availability Bias" as described by Tversky and Kahneman in 1973, which says that our minds give precedence to anything that comes quickly to mind. If someone is following you on Twitter already, you will be somewhat familiar to them, and therefore more interesting.

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2. The Value of a Twitter Follower

People often wonder how much a Twitter Follower is worth. For instance, is it worth the $0.60-$1.00 you pay for each Twitter follower you get by running Twitter’s follower growth ads? It’s hard to say.
But it is true that there is some value in having someone follow you -  they have signified interest in your brand.
This is why talking directly to them can be much more valuable than talking to people who have not signified interest in  you and / or your brand. 

3. How To Use ManageFlitter To Find Targeted Users Within Your Followers

There are two ways to look through your Twitter followers:

1. Manually scroll through hundreds or thousands of accounts and look through each bio.
2. Use ManageFlitter’s "Search Your Account" feature.

Option 1 takes hours.
Option 2 takes a few seconds. Here is a walkthrough of option 2:

1. Log in to ManageFlitter.
2. Go to "Search Your Account" under the “Search” tab.

3.   Click "Refine".

​4.   Unclick "People you follow".

5.    Enter your search terms into the Bio field. If you’re looking for clients, you can try "CXO" combinations (CEO, CTO, CIO, CMO, CFO, etc) or "VP" + "other keyword" or "President" + "other keyword". People commonly signify their job title in Twitter bios so you’re likely to pull up a decent sample.
6.    You can then click "Order" to sort and filter the results by Influence, Followers, Follower/Following Ratio, and more.

The insight you can gain from running this search can drive real business results.

4. What To Do With Your Targeted Followers

i) If you’re looking for influencers who are following you:

1. Reach out to influencers to thank them for following you. 
2. Ask them to check out an article. 
3. Be sure to follow them back.
4. Add them to a Twitter list (use ManageFlitter: select the results and click "Update List" on the right panel).

ii) If you’re looking for business prospects:

1. Thank them for following you.
2. Ask them a question about their business or about something interesting in their Twitter bio.
3. Add them to a Twitter list and stay in touch.
4. Nurture the conversations over time to drive leads with Twitter.

These are highly tactical strategies, but they have valuable applications among businesses of all sizes.
Despite the unstructured nature of its data, Twitter is becoming an increasingly powerful channel for Business-To-Business sales and market research, especially as tools like ManageFlitter develop into solutions-oriented software modules.
And tools like ManageFlitter continue to make Twitter’s unstructured data more accessible and… well… structured.

Click to go direct to Manage Flitter >>>