social networks

Wondering how to build an audience on Twitter? Over the weekend I added hundreds of new followers using a handy application called MyTwitterButler. This little tool filters tweets based on keywords you supply, and then automatically follows people who meet your criteria. 

Let’s say, for example that you’re interested in Formula One racing.  You could tell MyTwitterButler to subscribe to the feed of any person who mentions Formula One, Formula 1, F1, or even specific driver names.  You can instantly build a community of hundreds of people who are interested in the same things that you’re interested in!

But wait!  I can hear you asking “isn’t the point of this exercise to get others to follow my updates?”  So, how do you get them to follow you? 

1. Some just will.  Period. 
2. Some will follow you after you interact with them – send them some @replies on topics that are mutually interesting. 

MyTwitterButler also allows you to mass direct message your followers.  I haven’t tried this feature, and likely won’t.  Smells too much like spam to me. 

A couple of caveats:

1. Twitter imposes limits on how many people you can follow.  Anyone can follow up to 2,000 people.  After 2,000, however, you can never exceed 110% of your followers.  Fortunately, you can weed out non-conversational people (those who don’t follow back) pretty quickly with Twitter Karma. 
2. MyTwitterButler only works on 32 bit versions of Windows.  The developer only guarantees XP, but I’ve tried it on Windows 7 and it runs fine.  On Windows 7 64 bit, however, it dies.

The price of MyTwitterButler is $10 – a ridiculously low price when you take into account the value to you of hundreds of targeted twitter followers.

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