1000 Twitter Followers In Three Weeks: A Guest Post By Chris Kelly

I clicked on a link the other day with that heading, and then found the not-so-small print. 100 followers for $1, minimum order $10. Um, no thanks. As a writer I have to look on my twitter followers in one of two ways… either they are fans of my work, in which case I’m selling to them directly, or they are fans of me! But if you are paying for people to follow you, do you really think they’ll be interested in buying (or helping sell by word of mouth) your products? Or mine? Nah, me neither.

So paying for my followers was not an option. At the same time, I had to do something. My Twitter followers had stalled. I read a few posts on how to get more followers, I tried a few different things, but never seemed to have the desired effect. It took about 3 weeks from my Followers to inch from 190 to 200.

Of course, I’d heard of the Indie Book Collective (IBC), but their claims seemed a bit ridiculous. I’d looked into so many claims of “Mastering Social Networking,” and had so many turn out to be offered by snake oil salesmen that I was growing immune to what was being offered.

But… these were authors (@RachelintheOC, @KaitNolan, @Craftycmc), like me. And they had lots of Followers, like I wanted. And I already followed them on Twitter. I invited Rachel to my blog to do a guest post on the IBC and what it could offer. After that we started chatting through DM. And we came to an agreement. From now ‘til Christmas I am to do everything the IBC tells me to do. I’m to jump when they say jump.

What’s in it for the IBC? Documentable evidence that their claims are real (and they certainly seem real so far). It took me 3 weeks to get 10 Followers. In less than 24 hours, I’ve just gained nearly thirty. I’ll be honest about my results but not about my methods. If you want to know how I’m Mastering Social Networking, the IBC is offering a free workshop that you can sign up for.

What’s in it for me? I’ve set my goal on earning enough by next summer from my writing that I don’t need to work. Since I’m at college that would be roughly £100 ($160), or 60 book sales a week. But that won’t happen if no one knows who I am.

With the IBC’s help, my platform will expand, my sales will go up, and I won’t need to work whilst I’m at college. And yes, I do have long term goals as well. Having a targeted, quality following is my best hope of achieving this.

So, just to be clear, here are my short-term goals.

• 2000 Twitter followers by New Year’s Day 2011
• Followers to be high quality, targeted; the best to meet my goals
• Proven evidence of Book Sales generated by having a high twitter Following
• To change the way I think of, and use, social networking

Is this snake-oil? Follow me on Twitter and see if my numbers rise. I’ve got just over 60 days from today, so this will be the true-test of the IBC’s claims.

And at the end of it all, at the start of the New Year, I’ll come back to the IBC and blog again about how I’ve done.

~*~

Chris Kelly’s debut novel, Matilda Raleigh: Invictus, has recently been released to almost no notice at all. A steampunk/sword and sorcery cross about a 72 year old woman reluctantly having to save the British Empire again, it is good enough to sell very well, and no doubt would if more people knew it existed. He lives in Scotland with his wife and three daughters and has never killed anyone. Honestly.

Follow him on Twitter, stalk him on Facebook, browse his blog and search his website or just skip to the exciting bit, and buy his book. He needs all the help he can get.