Last night I taught a workshop for business people on how to use Twitter as a lead generation tool. One glitch we ran into was when I tried to show the class how to find local Twitter users to follow.

Turns out that it's a good idea to double check your facts before teaching a class.

I told the class to look up some websites that I remembered as useful for finding local Twitter users to follow. But two of these sites were no longer in existence.

Uh oh.

As soon as I scraped the egg off my face, I promised the class that I would email them a list of sites that were still live and could be used to locate Twitter users by geography. Hence this article which I will email to the people who attended the class (the rest of you are welcome to read along if you wish).

Back in May, I wrote a similar article called, 4 Ways to Find Local Users. This article then will be an extension of that previous article.

But before we get started, let's lay out a key principle:

The secret to being effective on Twitter is to follow, and be followed, by other Twitter users who share interests, topics, keywords or location with your business.

I call this "Following Strategically." Behind this principle is the observation that a certain number of the people you follow will follow you in return.

As a rule of thumb, I find that approximately 50% of the people you will follow, will follow you back. This means that who you follow has a great deal to do with what kind of people follow you.

If you want real estate people to follow you, follow a lot of real estate agents. If you want Democrats to follow you, follow Democrats, if you want lawyers to follow you, follow a lot of lawyers.

Caveat: Like all rules of thumb, this 50% rule is fraught with exceptions, but I have personally never experienced - regardless of what keyword or characteristic I use for finding strategic Twitter users - less than 33% return followers.

Of course you also have to provide these followers with a lot of quality content related to their topic of interest.

With all that said, here are some tips on how to gather followers by certain demographic or psychographic characteristics (I just love it when I can throw in cool words like "psychographic"):

Finding Twitter Users by Location:

1. Tweetdeck is by far my Twitter tool of choice. Not only is it a great program for organizing your followers so that you can keep up with all the chatter going on in the "Twitter Stream," it also allows you to create several columns that do real time searches for certain keywords.
   
   Just set up various columns related to the various topics you have an interest in, and you will have a never-ending stream of tweets that include those keywords.
   
   
2. Twitter Local is similar to Twellow (which I already mentioned in my May article). Check it out and you will no doubt find Twitter users who do not show up using other tools.
   
   
3. How to Find Local Twitter Users From Your City is a smart article on how to combine Twitter Local with a Google search.
   
   
4. Local Tweets: 9 Ways to Find Twitter Users in Your Town is a great article in Mashable that shows you a lot of great ways to find local Twitter users.
   
   
5. Tweetmondo is another site that allows you to search Twitter by geography.
   

How to Find Twitter Users by Subject Matter:

1. 15 Twitter Directories Compared is another Mashable article that lists and compares the strengths of various Twitter directories.
   
   
2. TwitteRel is a keyword search term that enables you to find every Twitter user who has ever included your word in a tweet.
   
   
3. Twibes is a platform that enables Twitter users to gather in groups based on areas of interest. If you see a group that meets your subject matter, you can follow all the members.
   
   
4. Tweepsearch is different from TwitterRel in that it focuses on the profiles listed by Twitter users rather than the keywords in their tweets. So if you are looking for people who mention a profession in their profile, Tweepsearch will find it for you.
   
   
5. Follow experts in your field. The followers of high-profile experts, bloggers and authors are posted right on the person's Twitter account. My reasoning is that these people follow this expert for a reason, because they want to learn more about what the person has to say. A twist on this is an idea my friend Bill Hurlbut came up with for finding local followers by following the local news anchors and weather people on your local stations. He reasoned, and I think this is brilliantly on target, that the people who follow a local weather person do so because they live locally and want weather updates.
   

I have a feeling this list will grow over time as I learn more ways to find strategic Twitter users to follow. If you have any ideas or resources to share, please leave a comment below.

If you like this article:

• Follow me on Twitter.
  
• Facebook me!
  
• Join Me on LinkedIn
  
• Visit me at Charles Brown on Google Profiles

----------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
Add to Onlywire

Be Generous

1. Promote other people and their content more than you promote yourself and your content.
2. Retweet good content submitted by others.
3. But, retweet sparingly and selectively. You will be known by what you tweet about, so only pass along quality content that adds value to your followers.
4. Participate in #followfriday each week to tell your followers about people you follow who tweet quality. #followfriday is weekly event which, surprise, occurs each Friday in which people tell other people on Twitter about someone they find especially informative and helpful.
5. Be selective about who you recommend on #followfriday.
6. Thank others for retweeting and #followfriday you.
7. Be a friend. Compliment others on good work, and good content. Earn friendship with your generosity.
8. Read your contacts’ blogs and websites. Nothing communicates that you are only interested in yourself more than by acting as if other peoples’ content is unimportant. On the other hand, you can score lots of points by demonstrating that you have actually visited and read their sites.
9. Whenever possible introduce one person you follow to someone else that can help their business.
10. While retweeting and tweeting about content created by others is generous and a good way to build relationships, you must also have your own content to tweet about. Without your own, original content, you are not building a personal brand.
11. Occasionally, tell all your followers about one person you follow who adds a lot of value. Devote your tweet to explaining why you recommend this one person. Unlike #followfriday, this is an unexpected, unsolicited random act of kindness that will surprise the person you recommend.
    
    
    Be Informative
12. Find and create valuable, informative content.
13. Subscribe to Google Alerts to get updates on new web content related to your subject matter and keywords.
14. If you use Digg to bookmark good articles, look at the other submissions related to yours. I often find some really good material to tweet about this way.
15. Set up RSS feeds to read some of the best bloggers in your field so you can both promote them and share their quality content with others.
16. Start using YouTube as a search engine to find tutorials on just about any topic. These videos can be great content to send to your followers. Plus you will also encounter people who are creating content on a topic that interests you.
17. When you find someone who creates quality content on your topic, look at their old blog posts for quality content to share with your followers.
18. Another way to find blogs on your topic is to search alltop.com. For example if your topic is scrapbooking just type scrapbooking.alltop.com and you will find a lot of blogs devoted to the subject of scrapbooking.
19. You will build your brand upon the content you freely distribute. The more content you give away, the more people will be drawn to you.
20. Cultivate “evangelists.” If you consistently deliver quality content, you will attract evangelists who will retweet and blog about your content. If one of these people forms a bond with you based on the content, they will share you with their followers.
21. Whenever you retweet, leave the other person’s shortened URL intact. Many times they will be trying to track how many times that link is clicked and your good intentions of using a different URL will mess up their count.
22. Ask for retweets, and say “please.” Studies have shown that just asking for retweets and saying please increases your “retweetability” many times.
23. It should go without saying that if you do not retweet others’ content, you will fail miserably when you ask others to retweet your content. (I believe the technical term for such a person is “jerk”).
24. Ask for retweets sparingly. Only ask when you produce very good content.
25. Use a shortener like Bit.ly or Goo.gl to shorten your URLs. Bit.ly  allows you to track the number of times your shortened link is opened.
    
    Use Tweetdeck
26. Use Tweetdeck.com to organize your Twitter activities.
27. Create a new column on Tweetdeck for the “A List” people you follow based on their consistent quality content. This separates the people you find informative from the people who just want to tell you they just washed their car.
28. On the other hand, be sure to read a fair number of the non “A-Listers” as you will find some that you will want to promote to your A List.
29. You can create additional columns for any group you wish to follow and separate from the rest of the conversations going on among your Twitter contacts.
30. Create a column on Tweetdeck that tracks every time your Twitter ID is mentioned. This will help you track retweets, #followfridays and every other instance you are mentioned on Twitter.
31. Tweetdeck will also allow you to post messages to your Facebook wall.
32. Create additional columns on Tweetdeck to track all the important keywords and #hashtags you want to follow.
    
    Selling
33. Give more than you expect to get. Send at least 3 or 4 informative tweets about content created by someone else for every one tweet about yourself.
34. Don’t spam on Twitter. Followers can (and will) unfollow you fast. They can even block you, which may influence Twitter to ban you.
35. Develop an expertise related to a specific subject matter. Don’t be intimidated by the idea of calling yourself an expert. If you read and create content such as blog articles and/or YouTube videos, you will soon establish your expertise.
36. Twitter is a great preselling tool, but it is not all that great as a selling tool. When you want to send people to a product sales page, do so indirectly and let them opt in. Don’t send them directly to a sales page, instead send them to a blog article, Squidoo lens or video in which you explain why you personally endorse the product or why you created the product. THEN you can allow visitors to click a link to your sales page to find out more.
37. If you don’t follow the above step, people will think you are spamming them.
38. Put your Twitter ID on your blog, website, Facebook page, LinkedIn page, business cards and any other place your potential audience might see it.
    
    Use Hash Tags
39. Use #hashtags to track key phrases and to allow other to track your tweets on these subjects. According to http://twitter.pbworks.com/Hashtags, hashtags are “A community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They're like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.”
40. When you use hashtags, your tweets will often reach a broader audience than just your followers. Anyone who is tracking that particular hashtag on Tweetdeck will see your tweet and may retweet your message and may even become a follower. Pay attention to people who frequently tweet about a hashtag topic that interests you and follow them.
41. Search hashtags for tags similar to the ones you are focusing on. This will expose you to new information and new people you may never have encountered otherwise.
    
    Misc.
42. Occasionally, create informative videos to tweet about. This way people see your face and hear your voice, allowing them to form an even closer tie with you.
43. Try to cross-network with people on as many fronts as you can. Try to get your Twitter followers to become subscribers to your blog’s RSS feed, friends on Facebook, or contacts on LinkedIn. Also include your friends on Pinterest, Instagram or any other social media sites you are active on.
44. Use every possible occasion to meet your Twitter friends in person. Form or attend local “Tweetups,” events in which Twitter users get together to meet in person.
45. Find local Twitter users on http://www.twellow.com/twellowhood/.
46. Twellow.com is also a great site to look up Twitter users by subject matter.
47. Use attention-getting headlines to get your tweets opened. List articles like “7 Ways to …” or “how to” articles are always popular and consistently get more clicks.
48. Your goal for being on Twitter (or any other social media platform) is to create conversations. You can’t do this if your tweets are just old-school marketing shoutings to anyone and everyone.
49. Try to find people who share common interests with you to follow based on keywords they use. Often when you follow someone, they will follow you in turn. Furthermore, if you tweet quality, they will then retweet your content and you will attract some of their followers as well.
50. Look for the "rock stars" in your field to follow on Twitter. They may not follow you in turn right away, but if you tweet about them and their content often enough, you will get their attention.
51. When you find "rock stars" in your field, drill down and look at the people they follow to find more people interested in the same things. If you build connections with people they follow, you may find yourself on their radar with Twitter.
52. Twitter is just one tool among many. Promote your content on several fronts. Integrate your Twitter efforts with your Facebook, LinkedIn pages, YouTube and your blog.
53. Keep ALL of your content, including old content, working for you. With Twitter there is never a reason to let your old content get stale. Suppose you have a very good article or video on your blog that has fallen off the radar. By tweeting links to your old content, even your old content will continue to get traffic.
54. Track you @ replies. The more you make personal replies to people you meet on Twitter, the more followers you will attract. More than retweets or one-off tweets, replies will engage others in conversations and engagement. This is the very best way to build relationships on Twitter and, in the process, build your followers the right way.
55. Tweet often. Excluding people who are already famous outside the world of Twitter, the rule of thumb is that those who have a lot of followers are generally those who have posted a lot of updates. The more you tweet, the more people find you and follow you.
56. Learn to "listen" on Twitter to find out what others are tweeting about. It is a good way to spot trends as they are just beginning. The top trends are now posted on the right side of your Twitter page.
57. Don’t quit on Twitter. A lot of people quit because they don’t “get it” or see it as a waste of time. Here’s a secret: none of us “got it” right away, but after a while Twitter gives you a huge advantage in the marketplace.
58. Listen and learn. If you are tweeting more than you are reading and clicking the tweets that come to you, you are missing out. Twitter can become the greatest learning resource you’ve ever experienced.
59. Remember that when you use Twitter, you are still networking, just as if you were networking in the offline world. The rules are still: Be generous, add value, make friends, give more than you expect to get and follow up.
60. Follow a lot of people. I’ve already advised you to follow selectively and choose people with whom you share common interests. Now I’m advising you to reach beyond your comfy little niche and follow people with very different interests. Why? Because it will enrich your life and you will learn about things you would never have learned otherwise. And, you will occasionally learn something from one of these people that can be applied to your own field.

p>If you like this article, follow me on Twitter.
Facebook me!
----------------------------------------------------
NOT USING NON-SPAM EMAIL MARKETING FOR YOUR BUSINESS YET? Learn why email marketing is the easiest, most effective and most affordable way to get new clients. Download my free ebook and receive tips, ideas and case studies to help you get more new customers at http://www.trafficwave.net/lcp/chbrown/emailmarketing/6604.
-----------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
Add to Onlywire

Within the last two weeks I've had three offline conversations with business people about Twitter. These individuals have heard about Twitter and even checked it out by setting up accounts, but they were baffled by how to use it to use it and organize the huge flow of information that comes from all the people they follow.

So I went to YouTube and found these videos about a tool I use that has made my Twitter experience profitable and manageable. The app is called "Tweetdeck" and here are the two videos:



Now this second video shows some of Tweetdeck's advanced features:

If you like this article, follow me on Twitter.
Facebook me!

----------------------------------------------------
NOT USING NON-SPAM EMAIL MARKETING FOR YOUR BUSINESS YET? Learn why email marketing is the easiest, most effective and most affordable way to get new clients. Download my free ebook and receive tips, ideas and case studies to help you get more new customers at http://www.trafficwave.net/lcp/chbrown/emailmarketing/6604.
-----------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
Add to Onlywire