Here's a Quick Way to Find (and Follow) Top Influencers on Twitter

Update: Unfortunately, as of 12/15/2015, Topsy no longer exists. They were bought by Apple in 2013, and closed their doors today.

So you’re new on Twitter & don’t know anyone except your usual group of friends.

You want to connect with the interesting people but don't know where to start.

You can:

1. Follow random people you find
2. Follow relevant & influential people in your industry

I definitely recommend #2.

When I tell people this, the always ask the obvious next question:

How do I find relevant & influential people in my industry?

The answer may surprise you. ;)

Here's a Quick Way to Find Top Influencers on Twitter

1. Use Topsy

One of my all-time favorite tools is Topsy -- because it only takes a few seconds to find top influencers on Twitter.

>> Click to Tweet <<

All you need is a blog post URL!

For this example, I used Post Planner's most most popular blog post:

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The article has more than 5,000 shares -- and 337 of those came from Twitter.

The first step is to head over to Topsy.com & add your URL:

Click search & you’ll see a page like this:

My query pulled up a list of more than 290 people who have shared our post on Twitter.

What's amazing, though, is the button labeled "Influential Only".

Click it & you'll see the most influential users from that list -- based on Topsy's algorithm.

And here are some things you can do with this list:

1. Follow the top influencers individually
2. Create a new Twitter list (which I usually do) and add these influencers who've shared your posts to that list >> Click to Tweet

To do #2, just go to the influencer's Twitter profile & click “Add or remove from list...”:

If you haven't created a list yet, just click “Create list”.

This will help you categorize these new people -- and easily follow & track their tweets.

And if you interact with them & get them to follow you back, you'll increase the chances of them sharing your blog posts in the future.

2. Use Twitter Lists

If that's too much work & you don’t have time to do the Topsy thing -- I have another quick & easy method.

Just search for a few influencers you know to get started.

I used ShortStack for this example:

When you find the influencer's Twitter profile, click “Lists”.

This will show you:

1. a list of people they follow
2. Twitter lists they have been added to by others

To check out #2, just click “Member of”:

From here, you can open any list you find interesting.

For example, I opened the “Social Media Experts” list from Lisa McMahon.

Lisa has compiled 69 industry experts in this list:

Then you can either follow everyone on the list by clicking “Members”, or subscribe to the list -- and open it when you want to engage with these influencers on Twitter.

The cool thing about Twitter lists is they work with nearly all industries.

Check out all the people who list one of Twitter's most popular fashion bloggers:

No matter what industry you’re in, chances are you’ll find interesting influencers to connect with on Twitter.

Just remember that finding these influencers on Twitter is not the last step.

After finding them, you need to build relationships with them -- so you can eventually turn contacts into Twitter followers & brand ambassadors.

>> Click to Tweet <<

Your turn!

What do you think?

Are you going to try these methods?

What other methods are you using to find top influencers on Twitter?