I’m going teach you an organic way of increasing your Twitter followers – no auto-follow techniques, no shortcuts.

When you start using automated tools to follow people, you don’t know who you’re following. They could be automated feeds/bots.

Be picky about who you follow. It’s NOT about the quanTITY, but the quaLITY.

These tips assume you know how to navigate well on Twitter and have advanced knowledge of the lingo and terminology. If you need some start-up help with Twitter, check out this link: http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/.

(1)    Follow more quality people.

You want quality followers? Quite simply, follow quality people.

• Check out my Twitter account http://twitter.com/MiaChambers. Take a look at who I follow. Sort through the list and follow people.
• Check out my Lists and follow more people.
• When you come across an interesting Twitter account, check out who they’re following – add some more people. Check out their Lists.
• Click on a favorite #hashtag and follow some more people.
• Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

After you’ve added a whole mess of people, go back and click on their profiles to make sure that the people you’re following are (a) active on Twitter and that they (b) actually engage with people – their account isn’t merely an automated feed.

(2)    How to get people to follow you back?

So you’ve followed all these people – now what? How are they going to follow you back?

Here are a few sure-fire ways to get people to follow you back.

• RT a few of their links to start appearing in their @stream.
• Add them to a List.
• Send them a direct @reply complimenting them on their website, work, picture, bio – pick something you like and make a mention of it.  Start a conversation.
• If all else fails, send them a @reply jumping up and down, waving your arms in the air like you just don’t care. It works.

EXTRAS:

Make sure you’re using a picture as an avatar. Show your face. This will increase your chances of actual people following you back. Logos don’t get the same action as a face does on Twitter (or any other social media platform, for that matter). Personalize your account by showing people you’re real.

Every once in a while I will check out http://friendorfollow.com/ and unfollow anybody who hasn’t followed back. (I get like that from time to time.)

Once a month, I’ll add 200 – 300 people and go through this very process of engaging with people on Twitter to increase my following. It works – it just takes time. Take your time. This isn’t a numbers game like so many people have made it out to be. It’s about connecting with one another and building relationships that are both personal and professional in nature.

Good luck.

I’ve been honored by being included in the May 2011 issue of OC Family magazine featuring 10 moms from the Orange County area who work and thrive in the digital arena.

It’s a wonderful acknowledgment and I appreciate the inclusion tremendously.

I’m among a wonderfully talented group of women who are tapping technology to start businesses, save money, and connect with others using the power of the Internet.

Click on the photo below to quickly view the mention:

Or ventured over to the online version to view the entire group of tech-savvy mamas.

Special thanks to Debbie Lavdas for including me in the piece.

I often get asked how to grow numbers – fans and ‘likes’ – on your Facebook Page. There are a slew of techniques you should use on an ongoing basis (for example, well-placed social media icons on your website/blog, in your email signature, and on your marketing materials, to name a few), but one that stands out to me the most is growing your numbers through your personal profile first.

Use your personal Facebook profile as a bridge to your Facebook Page.

I hear a lot of people talk about their hesitation to open up their personal accounts to people they don’t know. Listen, if you’re on Facebook to do business, it’s important to understand that your target market does not want to be approached for business first. In fact, I dare say that no one wants to be approached for business first.

People aren’t coming to Facebook to meet their accountant. They’re coming to Facebook to connect, reconnect, and engage with others. They might meet a person who happens to be an accountant and then decide to do business with them, but most likely, potential clients that find business connections have done so because they connected on a personal level first.

This is the crux of social media – the ability to connect and relate to one another first and foremost. Those similarities and interests bring us together and business leads are developed through this organic process.

There are no shortcuts or ways around it. You can’t automate your presence and drive business leads to your site. You either get it or you don’t, but one of the main reason most corporate brands don’t do well using social media is because they don’t have a personality.

My suggestion: clean up your personal profile. Get rid of anything that you think is too much information: pictures of your kids (if you deem this too much information), negative personal details about your life (going through a divorce, you hate your ex-husband’s new girlfriend, etc.) and include bits and pieces of the real you (not the “you” with your skirt over your head drunk in Barcelona), but the essence of who you are: male or female, books and movies you like, and music you listen to – for starters.

Add people as friends to your personal account first. Get to know them, compliment them on their site, and ask them a question about themselves. Then, once a month send out a blanket invitation to all of your friends to invite them to your Page. Don’t pounce on them when they first become your friends. Give it time. Be patient.

When I’m working with a new client, I explain this slow process to the clients so they understand I am not a fairy godmother with a magic wand. This process takes time.

Before Pages existed, I built up my personal profile to include pictures, videos, and descriptions of my interests and activities – my garden, my dog, my kids, my love of beer, my neighborhood. It’s easy to get a sense of who I am when you take a look at my personal profile.

I make it a point to wish people a happy birthday and comment back when people post to my Wall. This is what I mean by engagement. Social media is not the new fangled way to make money, but rather, a new fangled way to meet people.

When Pages became available and after I created my own, I sent out an invitation to my friends list through my Facebook profile and had 400 fans in one day. That happened because I established a relationship with them first – built up some trust before asking for their click.

Asking people to skip over your personal profile and proceed straight to your Page doesn’t work as well. I’ve seen many folks send out return messages after I’ve sent them a friend request telling me that they have too many friends and can’t take on anymore, but to join them over on their Page.

Uh… I don’t think so.

I want to get to know you as a person before I join you over on your Page. I don’t necessarily want to know about your latest business venture but I would like to know basic personal details about you if I’m friending you on Facebook.

And I realize Facebook has a 5,000 friend limit for personal accounts. The notion is that anything over 5000 should naturally migrate over to your Page. And yet, it doesn’t always work that way. The numbers don’t add up as well when people skip over your personal profile before being introduced to the “business you”.

I’m not suggesting opening up the flood gates and letting any ol’ person in – rather, develop a criterion, a standard of who you want to friend. If you’re a brick and mortar business in New Jersey, find your city’s Facebook Page. Assuming they have one, friend those people on that Page. Most likely, they are New Jersey residents and/or have ties to the community. You can’t add them directly to your Page, but you can request their friendship and add them on through your personal profile. Eventually you can migrate them over to your Page.

Use your personal profile to grow your Page. Look at your personal profile as an addendum to your professional Page. Infuse your online presence with your personality and business leads will be generated through these efforts.

Remember, automation cannot do this for you. There are no shortcuts in social media. Take your time. Social media is a 401k plan and not a lottery ticket.

For more ways to grow your numbers on your Facebook Page check out: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/10-ways-to-grow-your-facebook-page-following/.

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook from Alex Trimpe on Vimeo.

If you’ve ever wanted to invite your Facebook Friends to a Group, Event, or Page – you know that in order to do so, you need to individually click on their avatars to invite them. Well… what if you want to invite ALL of your friends at once?

To date, Facebook hasn’t created a “Select All” button in an effort to make “spamming” your friends less possible – use this technique with caution.

Recently, I found a way to invite ALL of your friends with the help of a some javascript.

1. After you’ve clicked on “I’m Attending” on the Event (or after you’ve ‘liked’ a Page or ‘joined’ a Group – you’ll be given the option to suggest the Event, Page, or Group to your FB friends), you’ll see an option to  “Select Guests to Invite” (slightly different wording for Groups and Pages – hopefully you get the gist).

2. After you click on “Suggest to Friends,” a pop-up window will load and you’ll see a page with all of your friends listed, but they are ‘unselected.’

3. At this point, copy and paste the javascript code below into your Web browser’s address bar, then hit “Enter” – not in the Facebook Search bar – not in the “Find Friends’ search bar – but in your browser search bar (highlighted area).

javascript:elms=document.getElementById('friends').getElementsByTagName('li');for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === 'object'){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

Once you’ve pasted that link and hit enter, you’ll notice that all of the avatars have been selected.

*Please note that the process can take upwards of two minutes to complete – depending on the size of your list. When I first tried to do this, I thought it didn’t work. What I quickly realized is that it just takes time to process. Be patient.*

It took me a few tries to figure it out, but once I did – the javascript enabled me to ‘Select All’ without the arduous task of clicking each avatar individually.

When you have at least 25 ‘likes’ (or as we used to refer to them, ‘fans’), you are eligible to obtain a vanity URL for your Facebook Page.

Here’s a tip that I use for setting up my clients Pages. While it’s a good idea to obtain that vanity URL, you certainly do not have to wait to obtain 25 ‘likes’ before you can use a vanity URL of your choice to redirect your web traffic.

Simply purchase a domain from GoDaddy or any other website of your choice. Make it short and sweet. Facebook vanity URLs can be quite lengthy. Here are some examples of the URLs I have purchased for my clients: http://FabbriPage.com, http://VittonePage.com, http://NewMediaMC.com.

Once you’ve purchased that domain, you’ll need to access the Domain Manager and forward the domain address to your Page URL.

Your Wall and your Welcome tab both have different URLs so you want to make sure you get the appropriate tab URL before you forward the domain address.

Once you’ve forwarded that domain address to your Page, place it on your personal profile under your avatar as a way for your friends to jump over to your Page – consider it a virtual bridge of sorts. This will make it easy for you to get to your Page and it will make it easier for your friends to find your Page in an ongoing manner.