My @TweetOrTrick “test account” has finally passed the 10,000 followers as of yesterday night. I thought I would get to 10,000 faster than that but to be honnest with you, I don’t invest much time at all in this experiment.

So I went from 0 to over 10,000 followers in about 35 days. Not too bad, isn’t it? It’s actually pretty simple to get more Twitter followers and I can’t believe some people pay to find out how to do that. This makes me realize that I should write and sell an ebook about it…

So here is a Twitter account I started on April 26th. A week later, I have 3,044 followers!!! And the best is you can verify all this info for yourself! You can simply look at the Twitter account @TweetOrTrick, that’s the “fake” account I created. Please note that I gave a fake name (Chris Brand) to this account because I don’t want people to associate it much with me.

If you feel like it, you can track the progress of @TweetOrTrick on a daily basis by checking Twitter Counter: http://twittercounter.com/tweetortrick

So, what do you think? Are you impressed yet?

I wish I had more time to write on this blog to teach you how to do all this. If you’re patient enough though, I will eventually write about all my tricks, all of them being 100% legit and in compliance with Twitter TOS.

Now that you have set up an inviting Twitter profile, it is time to start getting what I call a “followers base”. A followers base is a certain amount of Twitter users that will follow you back for sure. These users are not targeted for you but having a decent amount of followers will build your credibility among Twitter users looking at your profile, and it will increase your chances of being followed.

People give a lot (too much) importance to the amount of followers you have. It’s some sort of social proof: “hey, come see how cool I am, I have 43,639 followers”…

Needless to say that before creating a followers base, you should send a few tweets. Try to find articles relevant to your industry and tweet links to them.

There is a very easy way to create your followers base but it’s going to imply you spend a little time on it. A few weeks ago, I created a list of 1001 Twitter users that will follow you back.I did an experiment and came up with this list of users that will follow you back all the time.

Go to this list and start adding half of them (about 500). Go back the next day and add another 500. You can obviously do this over the course of several days. It’s all up to you.

The fist step to being on Twitter is actually to create a profile first … duh! Creating a profile can be harder than it seems if you want to do it right. Whatever your goal on Twitter is (ie. personal branding, sales, spam, etc…), you must take a few minutes of your time to set up your account so it looks clean, professional and inviting. This is the key! Creating an inviting Twitter profile can help you skyrocket your amount of followers.

Let’s go over all the key elements of a Twitter account and see how we can optimize them.

Your Picture

This is I think one of the most important aspects of your Twitter profile because that’s what people are going to look at first, before making their decision of adding you as a friend or not. My advice is to insert a real picture of you (or the picture of a man/woman). I don’t recommend adding a logo or an abstract image because people don’t really relate to those. However, people can easily relate to the picture of another man or woman.

Background Image

Do not use one of Twitter’s background images. It won’t be personalized enough. Instead, I suggest you upload your own image as a background. Many websites let you download Twitter backgrounds or even create your own. Click here for a list of free Twitter backgrounds resources.

Name

It is important that you use a real name, and not just a brand or a website URL. People will more easily trust a real person’s name than they will a brand or website address. It makes sense, but still, many people do the mistake of not using a real name.

Username

Your username is what people will see on Twitter. Avoid having numbers or ” _ ” in your username. If possible, try to have a single word or an association of 2 words. If you’re in a niche market, make sure you use your main keyword in your username. For example, if you are in the gardening niche, you should look for something like GardenKing or GardeningTips.

More Info URL

This is your one chance to drive traffic to your website without doing anything. If you can, create a custom page on your website to welcome people coming from your URL on your Twitter profile. You can for example create a page to welcome them and tell them what your website is about and maybe give them a few links so they can easily browse the important pages.

One Line Bio

The bio is another very important element of your Twitter profile. You have to be able to tell people about you in 140 characters or less. Think of it as a mini resume so be as concise as possible.

That’s it. These are the key elements you should take care of even before sending your first tweet. If you can create an inviting Twitter profile page, you will increase your chances of being followed. If you’re interested in doing more on your Twitter profile, you may read how to improve your personal branding on Twitter.

… and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter…

Most people don’t get Twitter. My girlfriend for example; she logs in to Twitter a couple times a week and is always amazed that some new people are following her. She scrolls down the stream because she doesn’t understand that Twitter is all about the present moment, not about what people tweeted yesterday or the day before.

Recently, I started building other Twitter accounts for my businesses and I want to start sharing with you my techniques for getting more followers, for being retweeted a lot and basically for driving more traffic to my sites.

You will see that these techniques are pretty simple, yet very powerful. My goal will be to help you get more followers on Twitter in no time. If you follow what I’m going to teach you, you will easily get 20,000 followers within 60 days.

I’m not here to sell you anything. All the tools I will mention are free, so don’t worry