I have talked about social networking in the past and specifically Twitter as I feel it is one (if not) the best out there.  I get alot of people asking me how do you get people to follow your tweets?  Well that’s a hard question to answer but alot of it has to do with quality content, something that is valued all over the web.  What type of quality content can you bring to Twitter?  Well, what are you good at?  Business-wise as well as in your personal life?  What do you have alot of knowledge in?  This is a good start. 

First way to build up a community is to look directly in your area.  I happen to know that there are a decent amount of people on Cape Cod that are tweeting.  I would start by adding some of those folks that you think are interesting in or work in your field.  Next I would look for people that are local and in my industry - if that happens to be painting or sculpture, I know there are alot of people on Cape Cod that are in the Arts field, so I would connect with them.  Does your business deal with a certain product?  Say you are retailer in the Wine business, take a look at who is on Twitter talking about wine, if they are interesting, connect with them and see what type of content they are adding (wine is big on Twitter, fyi). Lastly I would start to add some heavy hitters in your industry. As Twitter gets more popular you are going to start to see more and more CEOs, Pro Athletes, Industry Bigwigs joining up - wouldn’t you love to hear what they are doing on a daily basis?  I would.

There really isn’t a formula for gaining a large user base on Twitter, but I think the above strategy gives you a starting point…and remember, the better the content you are tweeting, the more likely you are to gain a large reader base. Next week I will continue talking about how to grow your social networks. As always - If you ever have any questions on the article, feel free to contact me or post comments below.