Why do you think my companies have done so well from a traffic generation perspective? It’s because I’ve created a popular blog for each of my companies, right?
Although that is correct, it’s not where we started our traffic acquisition. The very first piece of social media real estate that I create for any business I start isn’t a blog. It’s actually a Twitter profile.
Over the years, I’ve learned a few strategies that have helped me grow my Twitter accounts, which, in turn, has helped generate traffic and – more importantly – revenue. One of these strategies is stealing your competitors’ followers, which you can leverage by following these steps:
On Twitter, you can find out who is tweeting about your competition by using the search feature in the top right area of the screen. For example, one of KISSmetrics‘ competitors is Mixpanel. So, I performed a Twitter search using their name.
When you search for people tweeting about your competition, you have to dig through the results and look for anyone who may have a question or is upset. If they have a question, you should answer it without pitching your own product or service. This will help with your brand awareness and will generate more customers for you.
If someone is upset or disappointed with your competition, like this guy is, you can always follow up with them.
I could respond to the tweet above from the KISSmetrics Twitter account and offer the author of the tweet free help. A simple tweet, like the one below, would work:
By tweeting and trying to help people, you can win over customers in the long haul and gain a lot of the same followers that follow your competition.
Have you ever used a free Twitter analytics tool called Twitonomy? All you have to do is type in your competitor’s Twitter handle, and the tool will tell you everything you need to know about the company you are researching.
For example, I typed in Mixpanel, and here are some of the things I learned…
As you can see, the Twitonomy shows you which users Mixpanel retweets, replies to and mentions the most. If you were trying to attract its followers, you would want to interact with these people. Just make sure to avoid the people who work for that company.
You can also see the type of content that their followers enjoy the most as Twitonomy lists their most retweeted and favorited tweets.
Once you’ve analyzed all of your competitor’s Twitter data, you are now ready to steal its followers.
The first thing you need to do is create a list on Twitter.
Within this list, you’ll want to follow the most active users that your competitor is engaging with. You can get a list of these users from Twitonomy.
Once you’ve created a list, make sure you monitor what those people are tweeting and provide a helping hand by answering their questions.
Next, you’ll want to look at all of the lists that follow your competitor and engage with the users who created those lists.
Typically, you’ll see hundreds of lists, so you should first engage with the users who have the biggest lists. By having your Twitter profile also being part of that list, you’ll instantly gain followers from your competition.
The way you would convince someone to add you to their list is to first tweet a few times at them around topics that you feel will interest them. If you also see them asking questions on Twitter, make sure you respond with an answer.
After a few weeks of engaging with them, kindly ask them if they would be open to adding your Twitter user name to their list.
You’ll also want to make sure you are leveraging all of the information you have learned about your competition to your advantage. For example, if you are looking at their most used hashtags, you can then start using similar ones in your tweets to appeal to their followers.
You can also do this with timing. By knowing the days and hours they tweet, you can start tweeting during those times to also appeal to the same followers.
And what I really love doing is seeing when my competition isn’t active on Twitter. For example, Mixpanel isn’t very active on the weekends, so if I started to tweet content that their followers would love on the weekends, I’d slowly start taking their audience.
When I first started to steal followers, I just followed everyone who followed my competition, and roughly 30% of those users would automatically follow me back. But over time, this tactic started to become ineffective.
Although the steps above require a bit more work, it’s a much more effective strategy to gain your competitors’ followers than my old strategy was.
If you aren’t active on Twitter, I highly recommend that you fix that. It’s easier to maintain than a blog, and if you work on stealing your competitors’ followers, you’ll notice that Twitter can be a good revenue source for you.
So, in what other ways can you steal followers from your competition?
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