From 0 to 60000 followers on Twitter – Bhupendra Khanal

A huge Twitter followership is something which can boost any sort of internet business, and I bet most of you have realized its power by now, I started building my Twitter followership from the time I started blogging and how much ever I tried I failed, it was just recently that I realized that the successful Tweeters today were just part of the luck early starters had, when I started off Twitter had plenty of restrictions against spamming and mass following, so for many months now I had given up hopes for Twitter and was just using it for getting retweets via swaps.

Recently I went to a bloggers meetup #BuzzomTweetup which was organized by InRev Systems which makes social media management softwares such as Buzzom. At the meetup I was introduced to many big faces and also Khanal Bhupendra the CEO of InRev. I was really inspired by the way he treated us and the way he spoke to us made me his instant admirer, at that point I had known him as a small business owner who has a dream to make it big, but I got to know the next day on what an influential man he is in social media. He has over 60,000 followers on Twitter and huge followership on Facebook for his company.

As soon as I got to know about this I tried my best to connect with him and forced him to do an interview for my blog, he was really a nice person and immediately agreed, I spent an entire night framing questions and in the end of the interview he seemed to have liked my research. With a few questions on growing your followership we also went deep and asked him about a few of his new ventures and a few tips for wannabe entrepreneurs. I really hope all of you find this useful and I’ll really hope for your opinions in the end,

Can u give a brief introduction of yourself to our readers?

Sure. I am a data person. Thats how I see myself. I like playing with data and have working experience in Analytics space. I’m also the CEO of InRev Systems, which makes softwares for social media management.

When did you create your Twitter account and how did you gain the first few initial followers?

I started tweeting in late 2008. But started using actively only from Feb 2009. I just tweeted what interested me. Actively participate in discussion with folks out there. Retweeted and had chat with people. This got some early followers. But after that I started finding interesting news and articles in Tech and business, and started tweeting them, then I started getting a lot of retweets from my followers which resulted in an average Twitter account.

I think you’ve also used the technique of mass following, is it true and is it still possible today

It helped me a lot. Whenever I look for potential clients, I go to Twitter and find the folks. This has again prompted us to give People Search in Buzzom. There was a time when if I had to search for CTO of Infosys, I had to spend huge time and money. Now its available in a click. Twitter has open profiles and people are using it.

Most of our marketing for Buzzom and other products is thro Social Media Networks, primarily Twitter, mostly people know buzzom through Twitter talks. There is a good fan base for Buzzom and they talk to each other, along with it, we do active marketing campaigns in Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

People find our value proposition and come to us. There has been very little sales work from our side so far. This might however change in future. Our products are highly viral so we did not need any sort of advertising till today, though we have plenty more planned up for the future.

What tips would you give for non web businesses on using Twitter?

Everyone has to be in Twitter. It is the place where there are clients, potential clients and competitors. This is irrespective of domain of business.

The other important thing is the change of web structure. The search based web is changing to Social web. Its all going to be word of mouth driven business in future, and engagement will rule. businesses need to get ready for it.

What tips can you give me for improving my Twitter traffic, that is for a niche blog

I would suggest to follow good blogs and bloggers, tech enthusiasts and engage with them in fruitful discussions. It will not only give you direct traffic and blog engagement with comments, it will help you find original topics too.

Its the talk with people that bringout original problems of the industry, and give a head start in predicting the tech shifting thats upcoming. This makes you a value blogger and not a me too blogger. I think this may sound tough for anyone as soon as they hear it, but its really easy once you start off and you may even get addicted to it. This is the only advice I can give for bloggers.

Tell us, what makes Buzzom different from others such as Hootsuite and SocialOomph

Buzzom, as many fans complain, is not great in UI. This is the only area we are losing with our competition. But it will change very soon. We are working on it. Buzzom is a complete Social Media Manager. No apps in the world is as complete as we are.

I see your also planning to enter into online advertising, we would love to hear a bit about it from you

We have bigger plans in that space and have run a test case with Buzzom Blog Ads. The idea is to produce a complete ad platform that serve the social web better.

The response we have got through Blog Ads is optimistic and we will come with a complete social ad engine very soon. It should be possible by year end.

Twitter is of course one of the main strategies used for Buzzom’s success, Bhupendra couldn’t wait to share his success story with others, so in the beginning of 2010 he published is long awaited book on Twitter marketing.

Demystifying Twitter Marketing makes a clean breast of social media and explains how a business can take a full benefit from its presence. The book is more focused on using Twitter as a marketing medium. The book contains views from an experienced marketers and business professionals. It also contains amazing successful business studies with focus on their key strategies.

So if any of you are interested in social media marketing or trying to build their company’s social media presence, I’d say that this book is a must for you.