New followers are potential future friends and customers, as well as an indication of the type of audience you’re attracting. 

Now on Hootsuite, you can easily create a self-updating list of your new followers via the Hootsuite app directory.  Just add the Formulists app and then choose to add a “recent followers” stream.

Who are your new followers? People you just met in real life? New potential friends? Future customers?

It helps to keep an eye on who is following or unfollowing you, so that you don’t miss opportunities to meet great new people and future friends. Learning who your new followers are and when they follow you will help you begin cultivating relationships with the new folks entering your social sphere.

Keep track of who is entering your network

There are a few ways to keep an eye on the new followers you’re getting. One way that you can straight from Twitter or a Twitter client like Hootsuite, is to use an automagically updating list, such as the Formulists “new followers” list, to track new followers. 

Start with “hello”, greet by name where possible

Acknowledgment is nice and on Twitter there are countless ways to do it.  If you are getting tons of new followers all the time, the easiest approach is sending one or a few tweets out that mention and say “hello” to all your new followers at once…

It’s the little things

…Of course, the more personal you can get, the more acknowledged and special you will make your new follower feel. It takes all of about two seconds to learn a person’s name on Twitter, and about five to learn a bit about them.  Just click on their name or display pic on Twitter:

Stay in touch

This is where a list of new followers can help you most. This will help you develop a relationship beyond just an initial greeting and really get to know who your new followers are and what they tweet about.  It will also make it easy for you to notice natural and interesting opportunities for engagement.  Wherever you notice a great idea or link, you can start a dialogue and begin building a relationship.

What other tips do you have for getting to know new followers?