How to Increase Your Twitter Following by Pat Hatt

So the cat is back to the IWSG shack. Or was that Pat the first time? I get so confused by these things that I may not even rhyme. Throw the other voices in and all kinds of things can take a spin. But what the heck, Pat can play as Twitter is on deck.

How to get a big Twitter following

At the moment I and the cat both have over 70,000 followers and the cat has more than me, figures. Was it always that way? Nope! I must have started the account at least 5 years ago and it took a good year or more to really get up in the 10-20K follower area. After that though, it was more of an autopilot thing. People saw you had a following and they followed you just because others did. Funny how that works, huh?

Getting there was mainly just grinding out the followers. Finding ones who were interesting and following them along with some of their follower list. Having fun things to say helped a lot as well. Even if you follow people who say they follow back it doesn't mean they will if all you do is advertise or say nothing at all. Plus back then I joined in those Follow Friday things, Twitter hops, and there were a few sites with a you follow me, I'll follow you feature. I used anything to get over that hump and follower limit, as every little bit helped.

Does a huge Twitter following matter?

As for you getting to know everyone, nope. I'd be lucky if I know 1000 of the people following me. But what it does do is make you more lookable. By that I mean you will get more good quality followers and people looking at what you have to say because you have so many. Sad but true in many cases, especially with some random Twitter user that finds you. People tend to decide in five seconds whether or not they will give you the time of day and with a big follower number they give you five more seconds. So in that way, it matters.

Twitter on Autopilot

Now a days I admit I just check out what is being said on my feed and things like that. With Hootsuite it is really easy to do and with Tweeterfeed I can have it set up to send out content without doing a thing. Plug in the Rss feed of your blog and other blogs and, poof, you now do nothing and all your blogs and your favorite blogs get tweeted out. Little tricks like that save a lot of time.

Now once you have bigger numbers followers come on autopilot too, as said, but there is a down side. You get a lot of the Twitter crap following you. Those guys with fake accounts and such. They follow high follower accounts in the hopes that you have an auto follow back program on your account. That way they can get real followers on their fake accounts and sell them as "real" accounts. So you have to wade through that crap to follow back the real people, at least those you want to follow back, which can be tedious.

The main thing to do is keep plugging away and building relationships. Even sending out auto blog link tweets will get you retweeted by the blog owner or by others. The more you can get retweeted the more you'll get those five seconds of being seen too. Just remember, every little bit helps.

Pat Hatt can be found in the East Coast of Canada. He hates writing these things but doesn’t mind talking in the third person. He dabbles in a little of this and a little of that, not afraid to attempt something new.

He is owned by two cats, one of whom has his own blog, It’s Rhyme Time. Yeah a rhyming cat, who knew? He would be considered a both person when it comes to cats and dogs.

He is also quite the movie and TV buff. As you can probably tell does not take himself seriously and has more stuff in his head than is needed. Thus the novels as just one more form of release. Thanks for the visit and enjoy!

Find Pat - Twitter–Pat Hatt, Twitter–Cool Cat, Blog–It’s Rhyme Time, Pat Hatt Books, Amazon–Pat Hatt and Amazon–Patrick Hatt

Healthy Writing by Pat Hatt

How do I do it? Do you ever sleep?

Two questions I get asked frequently on my blog. People always get hung up on the time it must take to do everything I do. I blog every day, both the cat and I have over 80K Twitter followers, over 100,000 blog comments, release a book every month, comment on 50-100 blogs every day, etc. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, that's the cat's job. That is just to show there is a lot that goes on. But is there a lot of time involved? Not as much as you might think. Can you do it as well? Yes!

Time is only a factor if you let it be a factor. Yes, social media takes time, blogging takes time, book writing takes time, it all takes time. But get ahead of the 8-ball and the time factor is a distant memory.

Pre-blog posts - have posts set up in advance. You should post at least once a week to stay relevant. So have a few set up and ready to go.

Pre-social media posts - From Facebook to Twitter to any other site out there, there is a program that will do the work for you. For instance you can use Hootsuite and set up tweets, status updates, etc. in bulk. In one day you can have content scheduled for three months out.

Pre is the word of the day. You are always told to live healthy and prevent disease, while write healthy and prevent writer's block, burn out and other pitfalls.

Just think, if you don't have to fret about the need for a post or the need to tweet you will be in a happier state of being and it will show in your writing. Those things will be done and you can enjoy doing what you want to do, write. You can visit more blogs, leaving a worthwhile comment of course, follow more on Twitter, and all the while you are still building content. Your content will be seen by others and they will follow back, return comments, etc.

People will enjoy your content when you enjoy your content. One by one your numbers rise, your reach will rise and you will remain a healthy writer. When content isn't forced it will flow. When you don't "need" to write a post, it will come. It takes some time to get ahead, but after that time works for you and you no longer work for it.

If I want to take a week off or if I want to write a new book, I can and no one will notice. There is no need to take a blog break or shut anything down and there is no need to divide my time. All because I've made time work on my schedule.

Healthy writing is just as important for your writing as exercise is for your health. So get ahead, stay ahead and get back to what you love to do, writing.

Pat Hatt can be found in the East Coast of Canada. He hates writing these things but doesn't mind talking in the third person. He is owned by two cats, one of whom has his own blog, It's Rhyme Time. Yeah a rhyming cat, who knew?

He is also quite the movie and TV buff and a bit of a health nut. As you can probably tell he does not take himself seriously and has more stuff in his head than is needed. Thus the 7 novels and 37 children's books that he has released so far. His newest release being Max Blizzard and The Gem of Camelot. He just likes to set his imagination free and have fun along the way.

Find Pat here - Blog, Website, Twitter – Pat, and Twitter – Cool Cat
Pick up Max Blizzard at Amazon