Activity. In my opinion, that’s the key to a successful Twitter account. This doesn’t mean that spouting random and unrelated drivel delivers good followers and good engagement. Any increase in activity will attract both followers and engagement, but it won’t be useful to you or your business. Rather 10 relevant followers that add value than 100 valueless ones. Of course, the above points are all opinions, opinions which I have developed whilst running the BSA Marketing Twitter account over the past 2 months. Quality not quantity. That old adage rings true for me when looking to post content. I have steadily increased the activity on the account during the past 2 months, with selected daily content being released. As a marketing company, naturally, I am releasing marketing related content. This might sound easy enough as there are an abundance of blogs and content sources available, although there is also an abundance of tripe, so it’s all about curating the feed and making sure that only quality content gets in. I post daily content under #MidMorningMatters and these posts usually create good engagement, as shown in the graphic below (Text size in the tag cloud indicates level of engagement). 
A useful following. When I started working on the account, there were 182 followers, of which only a few were in our target market, some were random local people and some were just plain irrelevant. This number has since grown steadily to over 300, with an increasing proportion withing our target market. This steady increase in followers,has been a result of thoughtful and effective posting, as a result they are far more valuable to BSA than accounts which promise “5000 followers for $5”. 
Follower graph: Here you can see the positive follower graph for the last 2 months.
Following : Follower Ratio People judge Twitter accounts. Very soon after landing on the page, a user will decide if they wish to follow your account or not. A major factor in this is the ratio of accounts you are following to the accounts that follow you. In the ‘Twittersphere’, if you are following 1000 people and only have 10 followers, you are viewed as a poor account to follow, regardless of your posts. Obviously there are exceptions. For example when a new account starts up, this will usually be the case. I have always been mindful of an ideal ratio (1:2 in favour of followers) during the past 2 months, and is certainly something to be aware of when running a Twitter account. Building you followers I have not been able to rely purely on accounts following the BSA account without encouragement. I have actively had to seek accounts that I feel are in our target market and add value to our account. I have a strict mental checklist when choosing whether to follow an account or not. They must be active, in the UK and be relevant to what we do.. It is important to do this so as to stick to the following, follower ratio guide. If an account becomes inactive for sustained periods, I cut ties with it. By being active in my following, I have been able to build up a good number of active followers that BSA are interested in with both the number of followers and the proportion of relevant accounts growing as a result.
