Final Update 3-31-12: +715 followers after three weeks.

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I put my 6-step Twitter Growth Process in action at the beginning of SXSW this year. Grow my followers by following, following, following. It’s a boring and tedious process. But it’s one of the ways to build your networks of influence. Let’s look at the results and a few of the consequences of my evil plan(tm).

After 3 days I’ve added 562 followers to my flock. And the 13th was really the wrap on the SXSW conference.

Of course as attendees got back to their hometowns and regular jobs their business of cleaning up their Twitter accounts would begin. So let’s see what’s happened by Sunday morning, March 18.

So almost 200 adds after the end of the conference, even after I had ended my aggressive following campaign.

You can check my LIVE RESULTS if you want to see the interactive version: Twittercounter-jmacofearth

Here’s the recap of the SIX STEP PROCESS for building your Twitter influence.

1. Find and Follow Influencers. (I started my SXSW Intensive Follow Yesterday)

2. Find and Follow pockets of like-minded Tweeters. (I used SXSW as my like-minded target group)

3. Provide consistent content in your tweets.

4. Hit your following limit every day.

5. Unfollow methodically using a tool. Keep the Tweeps you like, discard the uninteresting.

I will do this later today and report my results tomorrow. The tool ManageFlitter can help you unfollow large groups of people at a time. What you want to do, however is sort the influencers OUT of your UNFOLLOW LIST. While I have not paid for ManageFlitter yet, I am considering it. A PRO version allows you to White List certain followers to keep from unfollowing them accidentally.

6. Rinse and Repeat.

The only downside to this program is I end up following a lot of people I don’t have any interest in listening to. Now begins the process of the selective Unfollow. When I had my following down to 3oo people I really enjoyed a good signal-to-noise ratio. I found I was much more interested in checking in.

Check in tomorrow for the unfollow report, as I start dropping the majority of followers from our mutual follow relationship. My guess is about 40% will unfollow me back for unfollowing them.

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)

permalink: https://uber.la/2012/03/growing-twitter/

The Twitter Way page is a valuable resource and here are some of the top Twitter posts:

• Essential Twitter Lessons; Play it Safe, Be Real, and Have a Two-Way Conversation
• The 1-2-3 Guide to Getting Real with Twitter
• Zen of the Tweet (My best-of tweets collection)
• TwitterTools (matrix of Twitter apps and Twitter management tools)
• Twitter for Social Media Marketing Ideas and Research: Know Your #Hashtags
• Twitter Jail: What is it? What are the rules? How do I break out?
• Twitter Broke the ReTweet Awhile Ago, Making Lazy RT-ers of Us; Do It Yourself
• The Art and Science of the ReTweet; or ReTweeting with a Twist
• The Twitter Bubble; Don’t Let Your Followers Fool You Into Feeling Influential
• How to Get Useful Business Information Out of Twitter: Hashtags for Social Media Research

Other posts about kicking ass in social media:

• My Generic Twitter Infographic from Visual.ly – Here They Come
• Homeless Hotspots in Austin, Texas: Told From All Sides #SXSW 2012 and #HHSXSW
• Let’s Talk About Your Evil Plan(tm) – Yeah, But What Else Are You Doing?
• The Quick Course in Online Marketing: Big Picture (Social Media, Search Engine Marketing, eMail Marketing, Content Marketing)
• New Web Design Standards: Flexible-Width and non-IE Browsers Abound
• 8 Steps Getting Social Media To 5 Goals & 2 Wins the [INFOGRAPHIC]
• ROI ROI ROI and Social Media; We Need to Have This Discussion Again
• Facebook Privacy: the Myth, the Changes, the Confusing Privacy Settings
• Damn, We Should Do An Infographic on That; Charts Trying to Be More and Do More?
• Pinterest and the Power of Social Bookmarking: Tag Yourself (Web Design is Dead)
• Social Media MBA – The Reading List

See all of the Social Media Marketing Videos on the Social U. page.