The first thing you should know for increasing your Twitter followers and retweets is that you will not benefit by joining any program promising many thousands of instant Twitter followers. Automatic followers have no real interest your Twitter activities, they are only interested in getting followers of their own. What you do need are genuine followers who will use Twitter to read your tweets (updates) and give you plenty of retweets by sharing your updates with their own followers.
1 - Before you can expect anyone to follow you at Twitter you should create a good Twitter profile. Identifying your location will help you to gain local followers. Adding a link to your blog or your website will help Twitter users to decide if they want to follow you after visiting that link.
2 - It is very important to have a mini-bio on your Twitter profile. You can write a funny self-deprecating description of who you are or portray yourself to be a serious business person, depending on the type of followers you want to attract.
3 - People will identify you from your profile image, so do try to upload a memorable picture rather than using the default graphic, or featuring a cute pet.
4 - Follow a few new people every day. Use the search box at Twitter to find topics that match your own interests and to find people with plenty of retweets on their profiles. Note how often and how recently those people have posted retweets. See who they are following, who is featured on their lists and who they talk to in their tweets.
5 - Use Twitter lists for attracting new followers and for retweets. Create your own lists under different keywords. You might start a list, for example, of "green-tweets" and add people who are interested in the environment, then you could have another list for "moms-at-home". Your lists will be found and followed by others with the same interests.
6 - Use third party applications, such as SocialOomph, HootSuite and TweetAdder, to schedule new tweets at regular intervals night and day. This allows your tweets and retweets to be seen in different time zones around the world, and will help you to get more international followers at Twitter.
7 - Do not follow everyone back, or you will get people constantly trying to persuade you to join money making schemes. If someone is clearly using Twitter only to get others to join something, you will see them heavily promoting the same program in every tweet. You should only follow back if you really want to become involved, or you are in the market for the type of product on offer.
8 - Add widgets and use plug-ins to feed your own Twitter updates into your blog. You can also find applications to add your Twitter updates to other social networks. The more people there are who can see what you are tweeting, the more followers and retweets you can get.
9 - Remember to put a "Follow me at Twitter" link or button on your blog, your profile pages at other sites and your own web pages. If you use forums and message boards where a signature link is allowed, use your Twitter link so other members and visitors can click it to see what you are tweeting. If they are also on Twitter they will probably follow you. If they like what they see they will want to retweet.
10 - Tweet about anything relating to your interests, hobbies or business. You get more followers and retweets when you tweet something of value. Ask questions, comment on trending topics, introduce a link to one of your best blog posts, share links to funny items and tweet unusual, interesting or controversial content.
11 - Keep your tweets well within the 140 character limit (around 111 characters is best) so a retweet can feature RT and @(yourusername) plus all the words and any links in your original tweets.
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12 - Use a url shortening service for all your links. This will allow more words in your tweets, without making them too long to be retweeted.
You should find plenty of new followers at Twitter using these twelve simple Twitter tips. Many of the people you find and follow at Twitter will become your followers and then, when you keep posting regular new updates, you can expect more retweets.