Twitter’s S-1 document filed with Securities Exchange Commission has been availed. In the document Twitter intends to raise $1 billion in initial public offering. As they filed for the IPO, there are interesting facts that they have revealed:

1. The monthly active users on Twitter are about 218 million. 100 million of them are daily active users each tweeting an average of 5 tweets a day.

2. Twitter collected $317 million dollars in 2012. In 2011 they had collected $106 million.

3. In the first six months of 2013 it already collected $254 million compared to $122 million it collected in the first six months of 2012.

4. Instead of making profits from the increased revenue collection, they are making losses. In 2012 they made a net loss of $79 million. Again, despite increased revenue in first six months this year, they have already incurred a loss of $69 million.

We wish Twitter all the best as they go public. They need to something right as the public is always scared of the word “loss”.

How to get Twitter Followers

There are a few friends who have asked me to tell them how they can gain Twitter followers. If they were my followers on Twitter they could have realized that they are asking the wrong person. Check here to find out why. So my answer has always been, “Google that…there are so many good articles online by people with thousands of followers on how to get Twitter followers”. In summary, the articles advises that for tweeps to get significant Twitter followers they should:

1. Have an inviting profile. Get your profile avatar be the attractive you and provide a brief profile description of yourself. People especially those of opposite sex like following attractive individuals. Just be attractive. You can as well use a fake or photo-shopped avatar (photo).

2. Be active. Ensure that on a day you post at least 5 tweets (well, the 100 million daily active users share an average of 5 tweets each). Be careful here…a number of us will unfollow you immediately we find out that it’s only your tweets that fill our TLs; that is don’t over tweet. 5 tweets per day is quite optimum.

3. Engage in discussions. Participate in some of the discussions especially those around trending hashtags. Retweet some of your favorite tweets instead of just favoriting them.

4. Post quality tweets that can be re-tweeted. You can also ask some of your followers to re-tweet some of your tweets. That way your handle will appear on TLs of a larger audience and thus increase your chance of getting followers.

5. After five years you can get a significant number of followers.

If you are patient you can try those standard advises but I can’t wait for five years to get significant followers…there is a quicker procedure. Only last week I had under 50 followers, I have added about 100 since Monday, forcefully! Enjoy the image then find out how I do it:

1. Practical steps that you must do daily requires that, as a matter of priority, you follow step one of the previous advice. Very important.

2. Get unfollow.me (type it as that in the URL). Don’t allow the app to tweet your statistics, it annoys followers and some might unfollow you.

3. Follow several tweeps. You can do this by going to the profile of a popular page e.g. Daily Nation, Larry Madowo, etc. Get the list of those following them, and follow several people from the list. If you get into problems by using this unethical method don’t come to me, I didn’t tell you to do anything. Another method is to follow those mentioned by your followers in your TL. Following people who already follow each other increases your chances of getting follow backs.

4. Follow tweeps who follow more people than they are followed. People with let’s say 150 followers but are following 700 are likely to follow you back. People with thousands of followers but follow under a thousand won’t follow you back. OK, if you tweet them directly they might be considerate and follow you back.

5. After 6 to 12 hours go to unfollow.me and check on those who have not followed you back yet. Unfollow them asap so that your list of followers is almost always equal to the list of those you follow. If your Twitter has too many following than followers, tweeps may shy away from you.

6. Don’t unfollow those who are following you back. Also, from unfollow.me, ensure that you follow those who followed you but you had not followed them initially, otherwise they might be using this particular advice hence will unfollow you asap.

7. Lastly, you can as well buy twitter followers, I’m serious…there are people who do this.

If you follow 50 people daily, you are likely to get about 20 tweeps following back. Make sure to unfollow the other thirty. This then means that in a month you are likely to increase your followership by 600…a significant number you could have waited five years to attain if you followed the traditional procedure.

Good Luck!