Starbucks has 2 million+ followers on Twitter; McDonald’s has 400,000+ followers on Twitter.
If you’re a local business, chances are that you’re finding it difficult to attract Twitter followers.
And there are so many articles online about how to grow your Twitter following for more business, but how can you even accomplish “more business” if you don’t have a following in the first place?
This post is NOT about how to get more Twitter followers for your blog or personal brand. This post is specifically about how a local business owner can attract Twitter followers to his business.
Who should read this post: local business owners that want to use Twitter for marketing but can’t seem to gain Twitter followers
What you will learn: what you can do right now to start gaining traction and followers on Twitter
Editor’s Note (2026): Twitter rebranded to X in 2023 under Elon Musk. The local marketing principles below still apply to X and other social platforms like Instagram and Threads.
⚡ Speed Run Notes
- Local businesses on Twitter should not aim for followers — they should aim for relevant followers. A thousand irrelevant followers is worse than a hundred locals. Relevance is more defensible than volume. The business that obsesses over local geography builds a moat; the one obsessed with follower count builds a vanity metric.
- The highest-impact Twitter activity for a local business is replying to neighbors. Search for people tweeting about the neighborhood and reply. Each reply converts a stranger into a warm follow. This scales to exactly the size that matters and no more.
- CD5 (Social Influence) on local Twitter is visible: neighbors see neighbors following the same shops. That visibility is a free acquisition channel most businesses ignore. Every existing follower is a billboard to their own network, and the network is geographic.
- Posting about the neighborhood beats posting about the business. Customers don't follow for menus; they follow for belonging. A shop that covers local events, complains about local weather, and celebrates local wins will out-follow any shop that only posts specials.
- The deepest insight: on Twitter, a local business should sound like a local — not a brand. Every post should pass the “could a friend have written this” test. Passing that test is the entire strategy. Failing it makes the account invisible regardless of budget or frequency.
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
1. What is the reason a Twitter user should follow you?
This is your starting point.
Why should a Twitter user follow you? Here are examples of why Twitter users following the following local businesses:
1. Ask feedback from customers
Philz Coffee uses their Twitter account to ask questions to their followers:
2. Let customers know that they’re addressing complaints
Fraiche Yogurt lets customers know that they listen to feedback and are making the changes accordingly.
3. Tell customers about special promotions and donation events
Coupa Cafe tells customers about upcoming events and specials such as the one below.
Of course, you can decide to use Twitter for all three methods above, but the reason it’s important to figure out your core use of Twitter is described in the next step.
2. Display your reason in-store for Twitter users to see
Create a sign to display in-store to let your customers know that you have a Twitter account and why they should follow you.
Examples that you can use:
Follow us on Twitter @CompanyName to…
- be informed about our upcoming live music events
- be the first to get our special promotions every week
- be the first to know when our homemade bread has been freshly prepared
- get special coupons available only to Twitter members
3. Display a sign to receive feedback via Twitter
At times it’s difficult to receive feedback from customers.
Because a lot of customers use smart-phones, a clever way to receive feedback is to use Twitter. Post a small sign at tables or at the pick-up counter that says:
Let us know how we’re doing. Tweet us @CompanyName to give us your feedback, questions, and comments. Thanks!
If your customers give you feedback via Twitter, then they have a good chance of following you as well.
4. Hold a weekly contest/giveaway via Twitter
Customers absolutely love giveaways and contests to win stuff.
It doesn’t have to be free food; it can be merchandise from your store – such as a t-shirt that further helps to promote your brand.
We recommend running your giveaway via a Twitter hashtag.
What is a Twitter hashtag: Twitter hashtags (#) are used to categorize Tweets. For example, here are all of the Tweets that are under the #JohnnyDepp hashtag.
Therefore, you’re going to tell your customers to Tweet the #CompanyNameGiveaway hashtag to participate in your giveaway.
Step-by-step instructions:
- Create a sign to display on tables that says the following: Join our weekly giveaway! Tweet about your favorite experience at CompanyName and tag it with #CompanyNameGiveaway. One lucky winner will win an award each week!
- At the end of the week, go to Twitter Search and type in #CompanyNameGiveaway to see who has entered your giveaway
- Choose a winner at random and tell him via Twitter that he has won
You can get creative with your giveaways. Here are suggestions for creative ways to require a customer to enter a giveaway:
- Tweet us an image of what you ate/bought this week to enter the giveaway
- Tweet us an image of you and your friends eating/shopping at our location to enter the giveaway
The above 4 tips will give you a solid foundation to start gaining Twitter followers today. You can do it!
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification? Definition, Examples & Framework
- Top 10 Marketing Gamification Cases
- Top 10 eCommerce Gamification Examples
- 90+ Gamification Examples & Cases with ROI Stats
- Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges & Leaderboards