Twitter for Christian Entrepreneurs: 8 Tips for Establishing a Following
Updated: Jan 30, 2022
I used to dislike Twitter. I avoided it. It felt like gossip and uncontrolled noise.
Then, I had a change of heart. I realized that I could be using the platform to communicate with other Christian entrepreneurs the wisdom I was gaining from my morning Bible readings.
Everything changed when I saw Twitter as a platform for spreading God's word to the business marketplace.
The Bible says:
Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! (Psalms 96:3 ESV)
Those of us building a Christian personal brand can use Twitter to build our following, but there's a right way and a wrong way.
After experimenting, tweaking, adjusting, re-evaluating, I want to make sure you're establishing your following the right way on Twitter.
Here's an outline of the 8 tips for Christian bloggers, authors, coaches, consultants, and brands looking to establish a Twitter following and expand their message to this platform:
Tweet frequently
Optimize your posting time
Post visual content
Utilize hashtags
Engage with replies, retweets, and tags
Create an inviting profile
Identify followers within your network
Draw in followers outside of Twitter
No bots, no spammy tactics. Just eight actionable steps you can take ASAP to attract valuable, flesh-and-blood followers. Whether you’re after more leads or just want to get the attention of big names in your industry, the following tips are totally fair game.
1. Tweet As Often as You Study God's Word (often, right?)
Versus the likes of Facebook or Instagram, Twitter requires a more aggressive content strategy.
According to data by CoSchedule, the “sweet spot” is anywhere between three and seven tweets per day to maximize engagement. On @DailyGodpreneur, I tweet as often as 15 or 20 times per day, though! But that's directly proportional to the fact that I tweet as I do my Bible reading and studying.
I'm using Twitter as the first place I throw my ideas out.
I don't do much self-promotion. Occasionally I'm throwing out an offer for a course or membership, but it's a very small percentage vs my other tactics:
Personalize Bible verses
Golden nuggets from a great sermon, but in a "business" context
Tweets from my followers
Tweets from Christian leaders and I give a business spin to it
Relevant Christian entrepreneurship industry articles
Bible verses (as image or text)
Buzzworthy stats
Breaking news (if the news is your "thing")
Personal updates (rarely)
The list goes on and on!
Filling up your Twitter feed with fresh content lets potential followers know that you’re active, engaging, and worth following.
With the help of social scheduling software, you can regularly queue up content without having to constantly tweet in real-time. This effectively allows you to attract new followers around the clock.
2. Time Your Tweets to Perfection
And speaking of timing, blasting your tweets while your target audience is sleeping won’t help you gain new followers.
I see the most engagement during weekdays in the early and late afternoons.
Figuring out how to get more Twitter followers doesn’t mean sitting in front of the screen for nine hours a day, either. Ideally, you should schedule tweets to hit the times where users are more active and tweet in real-time at intervals throughout the day as well.
3. Post More Visual Content
As you probably know, tweets containing visual content receive more likes, shares, and retweets than those without them.
As such, you should strive to couple your tweets with some sort of accompanying image. Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with solely text-based tweets, images are better poised to stop serial scrollers and encourage them to take a look at your post.
Even something as simple as a colorful blog post preview would work.
Coupling our tweets with GIFs or visually appealing images is something we do often.
Meanwhile, infographics are shared three times more often than any other type of image on Twitter. If you’ve got some compelling data to share with the world, go for it.
And signaling the strength of video content marketing, this medium is six times more likely to be shared than a typical text-based tweet.
Whether you’re looking to inform or entertain your audience (or both), filling your feed with visual content can help bring new followers into the fold.
4. Harness Your Hashtags
Think of hashtags as a way to make your posts searchable, almost as a form of SEO for your Twitter account.
According to data and best practices on how to use hashtags, tweets with at least one hashtag receive 12.6% more engagement than those without them.
Statistically, tweets that feature hashtags get more engagement; however, you should be wary of weighing down your posts with too many of them.
Using a couple of hashtags to any given tweet is a quick way to increase the likelihood of new followers finding your account. Plus, doing so, only takes a couple of seconds and there are plenty of hashtags to choose from.
For example, you can use #Godpreneur, which is ideal for your Christian entrepreneur content :-P
To inject some personality into your feed and to avoid sounding too suit-and-tie, you can also play with popular community hashtags such as #MondayMotivation.
Additionally, you can piggyback on event-based hashtags as well (think: awards shows, sporting events, and anything else topical).
The only thing to be wary with hashtags is that you don’t go overboard. Posts brimming with hashtags look spammy at a glance and are otherwise distracting.
And besides, spamming isn’t necessary when you know which of your hashtags attract the most followers. By taking advantage of Twitter analytics, you can dig deeper into the top-performing tags for your particular brand.
5. Master the Arts of Tagging, Retweeting & Replying
Getting more followers on Twitter doesn’t have to be a time-sink: it just means making the most of the time you spend on the platform.
Sure, you can and totally should schedule tweets to optimize engagement. But at the same time, you don’t want your Twitter account to look like it’s completely run by bots.
You need to get in the trenches with your followers, customers and industry leaders alike. Regularly engaging with other users via tagging, retweeting and replying immediately. Which lets new followers know that you’re human and gets more eyes on your brand.
For starters, let’s say you’re replying to another brand’s tweet to try to get their attention. Writing out a detailed, thoughtful response will score you more potential followers than a brief one-word reply.
Another smart way to get other brands interested in your account is by shouting them out. Tagging other brands as a compliment is a popular tactic to show some love to others in your industry.
In turn, they might give you a shout out as well.
Likewise, being tagged in a tweet can help you tap into new audiences by understanding who else is sharing your content. If you want to be tagged by others, you should do the same yourself.
And despite only taking a couple of seconds, retweeting your fans and followers can help introduce you to new ones, too.
Retweeting followers and customers shows potential followers that you're willing to engage with them
These small pieces of your content strategy contribute to the bigger picture of attracting followers. Any combination of tagging, retweeting, and replying doesn't have to take long but are essential to letting those potential followers know you’re active.
6. Optimize Your Profile for New Followers
Considering that up to 15% of tweets are suspected to be bots, you need to do everything you can to prove you're human. In addition to a diverse content strategy, there are a few subtle steps to make your profile friendlier to new followers.
Optimizing your profile involves two straightforward steps:
A clean profile photo. According to the psychology of social photos, an unobstructed facial photo is ideal if you aren’t using a high-res brand logo.
Relevant tags, industry keywords, and location information. In short, your profile should be “complete” by describing what you do, your title, what companies you work with, and where you operate.
A taste of your personality. Giving your followers a sense of who you are is always a plus.
An optimized profile picture on Twitter proves that you're not a bot.
Letting your Twitter followers know what to expect from your account is a nice touch.
Simply put, fine-tuning these pieces of your profile help guarantee a positive first impression with new followers.
7. Find Followers Within Your Network
Here’s a simple, straightforward tip for gaining some new followers and making yourself more visible in Twitter’s search in seconds.
If you’re like most people, you’re hesitant about uploading your contact list to any social network. However, syncing your contact list to Twitter can help you tap into your existing network of people most likely to follow you.
Importing your email contacts is a smart strategy for finding Twitter followers
If your synced contacts are on Twitter, your account has a higher chance of showing up as a suggestion under the “Who to Follow” section.
Depending on the size of your contact list, this can score you a lot of new followers with very little work on your part.
8. Funnel Followers from Beyond Twitter
The last piece of winning more Twitter followers means promoting your profile beyond the platform.
We promote our Twitter account when someone subscribes to our email list.
We include a link to our social accounts on-site next to our opt-in form.
I even put a follow button for Twitter in my email signature to give my contacts another avenue to get in touch with me.
Oh, and I also have a link to my Twitter account tucked away in my Facebook “About” section.
Linking your Twitter to your other social profiles helps funnel more users to your profile.
Considering how commonplace Twitter is for marketers in general, there’s no shame in plastering your profile wherever you can to help encourage new followers.
Finally, if you're a guest blogger, include your Twitter handle in your bio.
Twitter is a quick and easy way for readers to get in contact with the author of a blog post.
And that wraps up my list!
What Are You Doing to Grow Your Twitter Following?
Growing your Twitter following doesn’t happen by accident. A combination of planning your content, engaging with fellow users, and optimizing your profile is key to attracting new followers.
If you’ve been struggling to figure out how to get more Twitter followers, start with these steps. Many of them only require a small commitment of time but can make all the difference in terms of new leads, customers, and exposure for your Christian personal brand.
And on that note, what kind of traction are you seeing on Twitter these days? Anything special you do to bring in new followers? Let us know in the comments below!
P.S. I did a Business bible study called 7 Steps to Launching Your Christian Personal Brand. Check it out:
7 Steps to Launching Your Christian Personal Brand
This business Bible study will help you launch a God-first personal brand that will help you strategically, financially, and personally.
Developing your personal brand starts with launching something new and completely different from what you already have.
Also, coaches and Christian business leaders, you can use, edit, and repurpose the teachings for your own tribe! Check it out.
#EstablishingAFollowing #SocialMediaMarketing #PersonalBranding