If you want followers, it helps to follow others. Here is a step-by-step plan to boost your Twitter followers by following other accounts.

There are three types of people on Twitter:

• people who scoff at any obsession with follower counts, because only quality counts
• people who salivate at the thought of more followers, more followers, more followers!
• people who know that both quality and quantity count – this article is for you

Indeed, there are three factors that are important: quality, quantity and relevance. The importance of each factor will vary from person to person, but in 99% of cases, all three count.

This strategy is about numbers. It is about growing your Twitter following as quickly as possible. Ironically, this can best be achieved by also balancing the other two factors.

Is 100 followers per day realistic?

Yes, and no.

The range I have seen is between 50 and 125 growth per day. A lot depends on your Twitter account and the audiences you are targeting. And the numbers can swing wildly from day to day.

I will show you:

• the basic, tried and true strategy that many people know
• the obvious refinements to make the strategy more effective
• some number rules to supercharge the strategy
• when and why I break those number rules to super super charge the strategy

But first…

How your account will affect how fast your following can grow

There are a few factors that will affect how quickly you can increase your followers just by following people. Let’s look at each one.

• the size of your account
• the quality of your account
• what your account is about (your name, your profile bio, your pinned tweet)
• your engagement level

The size of your account

The size of your account matters. Twitter has this to say:

“Every Twitter account can follow up to 5,000 accounts. Once you reach that number, you may need to wait until your account has more followers before you can follow additional accounts.”

The more followers you have, the better you can ensure a reasonable follower-to-following ratio. The good news is that as your account gets more popular, you shouldn’t run into any brick wall. That’s when Twitter’s regular follow limits apply.

“Every Twitter account is able to follow up to 400 accounts per day. Verified Twitter accounts are able to follow up to 1,000 accounts per day.”

You can follow up to 400 accounts per day. But should you?

I recommend against it. In fact, I make a point of never following more than 330 new accounts per day.

Why?

Because Twitter has a habit of temporarily disabling accounts that raise red flags. Bumping up against a follower limit is a red flag. And it’s so easy to do if you get too close to the limit and the next day follow people even just a few minutes earlier (less than 24 hours later).

Or if, like me, you occasionally lose count, miscount or otherwise demonstrate why you were wise not to pursue an accounting career.

If Twitter does disable your account, you will not only miss a day or two of following. You will also lose 100 – 500 of your followers. That’s because Twitter will remove all the people you are following to an archive somewhere. Your account will look like this:

More importantly, people you follow will see what appears to be you no longer following them. Many of them will unfollow you, thinking that you had unfollowed them. A few will even block you from following them ever again.

Or Twitter might simply block you from following anybody for three days, which can also be very inconvenient. Doing too much in one day might force you to take a time out.

Twitter also doesn’t want you to follow accounts too fast.

“You’ve followed too many accounts too quickly. Try again in an hour or so.”

At the moment, it appears that you can follow up to 60 accounts per hour. However, if you follow them too quickly, it appears that you’ll be stopped after 30. I’m really trying not to test these limits, so they might have changed by now.

The quality of your account

This makes a huge difference in how effective your follow strategy will be. If you expect somebody to follow you back, make sure you look like you are worth following back.

• good quality profile pic
• good quality banner pic
• good quality tweets
• recent tweets

What your account is about

When deciding whether to follow you back, people will look at what your account is about. If they tweet about plumbing and politics, they might be less inclined to follow your travel and food account.

Most people will see your name and your bio. You might include your main topic in your name, but that’s not necessary. However, your bio should make clear what you are about.

Some people will also check your profile, so make sure that your pinned tweet also aligns with their interests.

Your engagement level

This also makes a huge difference. As you engage with new followers, you’ll find that you get put onto follow lists. That can really speed up your follower growth.

The basic Twitter follower strategy

Follow people so that they might follow you back. Sometime later, you can go back and unfollow people who didn’t follow you back.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

If you follow accounts at random, this strategy yields perhaps under 5% success. If you follow 300 accounts, expect 10 to follow back.

Can you do better? Yes!

Do you want to do better? Yes!

It’s not just about impatience of reaching your follower goal faster, although that makes a big difference. It’s also about the effort of following and unfollowing so many people. If 5% of people you follow follow you back, you have to follow six times as many people, and unfollow six times as many people, as if you get 30% following you back.

Plus, a higher follow-back ratio shows Twitter that you are not just randomly following and unfollowing people. Too much churn could be a red flag on your account.

The obvious refinements

If you want to follow accounts quickly without taking the time to evaluate each one, you might actually be wasting your time. That’s because there are a few you should never follow. Here is my obvious “Don’t follow” list:

• any “egghead” account with no profile pic
• any adult or sensitive account (you know what I mean – I don’t plan to place those risky words on my blog)
• any account in a language you don’t tweet in
• any account that is primarily about gaining followers

These accounts are unlikely to follow you back. Many of them are bots, which Twitter will eventually delete anyway. Worst of all, if you follow a lot of accounts like these, it will send a signal to Twitter that your account is possibly spammy. The next time Twitter purges itself of bots and spammy accounts, you don’t want yours to be among those it jettisons.

To this list, I also add zealots. If somebody names their account “Nicole Johnson Worst Mayor Ever!!!” surrounded by emojis representing a political party or movement, I try to stay away. I don’t mind politics – a good discussion is healthy – but I don’t want my account to be associated with zealotry, even if I agree with their point of view.

These obvious refinements could boost your new follower rate by double.

But we’re not done yet. In Part II of this article, we’ll look at how a little simple math can really boost your numbers.