It’s been said, and rightly so, that having a lot of followers on Twitter can mean nothing – it’s about “engagement” and “Quality over quantity”. And what some people consider “a lot” is for others “a paltry amount”.

But there are some very important-to-consider and not-to-be-ignored reasons for Twitter users to aim for more followers.

Having a lot of followers is a vanity thing.

It means more people looked at your profile, and for whatever reason felt they would follow you. Saying that, sometimes people will follow you SIMPLY because you may follow them back.

But back to the vanity thing. It feels good to reach milestones and see a bigger number there. It motivates and encourages you to go out there, and please those followers out there, by being an active member of the Twitter community, by being useful, interesting and great at banter! And there is no arguing that those things are great things to be!

The other benefit of having a lot of followers is marketing.

If your business (or personal brand) benefits from being well known and having a good reputation, then having more followers means you will get far more “bang for your buck” when you tweet. It’s a simple maths thing, although of course the ideal scenario is having “Engaged Followers” – ie people who you interact with often enough for them to be interested in the stuff you share, likely to interact with you, and likely to retweet you.

Sharing Ideas. The more people you follow and the more users following you, also the more ideas are being generated. By just asking a simple question can already lead to a wide and different variety of answers. Everyone has their own opinion and it is important that you should at least see them. You’ll never know when an idea will lead to making more of income. If you can stay on top of your Twitter, the certain idea you have been looking or a specific answer you need could already be in a tweet.

Having An Equal Knowledge of Followers. This means that  if you have more Twitter followers, also more other users assume that you know what you are talking about. It makes sense, right? It is because no matter the niche is, people still want to hear from those who have a great deal of knowledge. If those users are listening to what you are saying, then they will probably listen to. This will lead them to eventually start following you and here’s the catch, if they get to retweet your posts, their followers will also follow you.

For Businesses. For many businesses, small or big, using Twitter as a marketing tool, having more followers mean more sales. The truth is, when you are followed by many users, you can have a wide potential range of client base. This is somehow related to a brick and mortar store. If there’s traffic in the store, then a big chance that you can sell more. If there’s no traffic in the store, then also a greater chance that you are not selling at all. So, if you have more Twitter followers, also more business opportunities for both sales and serviced based companies.

What type of followers would be best for you? And how will you make the right impression on them? Your thoughts on this are most welcome (in the comments below plea