One of the best ways to measure a company’s Twitter presence is to take an inventory of its followers. With that being said, companies and individuals put an extraordinary emphasis on obtaining as many followers as possible, and with good reason. It may seem like a popularity contest, but more followers means that more people are seeing the messaging of that company or individual and ultimately raising the visibility of that brand or person.

It’s so important that some people will do anything they can to increase their followers. But there is a right and wrong way to attract followers. Politicians have taken to Twitter to spread their campaign messages (some have ulterior motives, but we won’t name names in this blog). In the early stages of the GOP nomination process, Newt Gingrich boasted that he had 1,325,842 followers, whereas Mitt Romney and Michele Bachman have not even cracked the 100,000 mark. However, it was later learned that more than 80 percent of Gingrich’s followers were dummy accounts and were obtained by an agency that is paid to bolster Twitter followers for a fee http://gawker.com/5826645. As you can see, this is the wrong way to attract Twitter followers.

There are numerous ways to legitimately increase followers. Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.com, discusses 10 ways to increase followers in the following TechCrunch article: http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/kevin-rose-10-ways-to-increase-your-twitter-followers/. Here is one excerpt that specifically caught my eye:

“Start a contest. @jasoncalacanis offered a free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers…brilliant.”

Domus has developed and implemented numerous Twitter contests for its clients. A recent Dacor contest included various product giveaways and successfully increased the company’s followers from under 700 to 3,366.

The most important aspect of attracting followers is that a company’s Tweets should fulfill some need. Dacor’s Twitter feed is populated by useful information regarding the company’s products, money-saving deals, recipes and the occasional contest/giveaway. Contact Domus to learn more about our Twitter strategies and how we can help your company.

Greg Smore is a Senior Account Manager at Domus, Inc., a marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit http://www.domusinc.com. For new business inquiries, please contact CEO and founder of Domus, Inc. Betty Tuppeny at betty.tuppeny@domusinc.com or 215-772-2805.