The answer is no. Despite the fact that it seems to give great personal satisfaction when someone starts to follow you, and it can carry some great Twitter "Kudos," having hundreds or even thousands of followers doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to get the popular social media platform to be successful for your business. Twitter has developed over the past couple of years into a professional way to communicate quickly and easily. I'm not sure if this is what the guys at Twitter expected, but as with the traditional Blog I would hazard a guess that it was orginally designed as a personal product which has evolved into a purposeful communication tool.

So, don't I need a vast amount of users to be commercial on Twitter?

Again, the answer is no. It can help, but it does not mean that your campaign will fail because of it. With Twitter it is important to have a quality number of followers rather than a large quantity.

With Search Marketing you wouldn't target customers that have no interest in your business as it would be easier to lean over and throw your money out of the window next to you. You target your audience to make it count and ensure that you give the maximum chance to increase your conversion. Luckily Twitter is free so there are less risks with marketing to an inappropriate consumer. However, if you are looking at the bottom line, your followers should be interested into your business to increase your ROI. I have been told by multiple SEO agencies that quality inbound links are much more important that quantitative links - 100 prestigeous/credible links are much more valuable than 1000 links from your next door neighbour. The same principle applies to Twitter; if your audience engages with your marketing on Twitter, it increases the chance of them becoming a consumer of your service.

How do I get high quality followers?

Well, your account is always going to open to the public so you can't avoid less relevant people joining (try not to stop followers from joining if you are trying to increase exposure). However, the silver lining to this is that it can increase the chance of retweets which will open your company to 2nd level followers who may be more relevant.

To maximise your efforts however, don't advertise your Twitter account anywhere. Make sure you select your marketing and ensure that you gain followers from relevant places. If you can get a large amount of quality traffic, this is where you will start to see returns for your efforts.

Related links:

• Twitter
• See how Sticky Panda can help optimise your social media strategy