Are you using Twitter for business and looking for ways to increase your reach by gaining new followers? Here are five ways to get new followers on Twitter.

1. Find and follow targeted tweeters.

Many people on Twitter will follow you back if you follow them first. But you don’t just want random followers to inflate your numbers. The key is to find the people on Twitter who you can connect with because you have things in common and who would be interested in the products or services you offer.

Not sure where to begin to find people to follow?

• Use the Twitter search to look for people tweeting keywords or phrases.
• Look in the Twitter yellow pages, Twellow.
• Follow the followers of your followers.
• Try a directory like WeFollow, Just Tweet It, or TweetFind.
• Use Mr. Tweet to get recommendations of users to follow.

2. Engage with other tweeters.

Do a search for a keyword or phrase and begin interacting with other tweeters. Reply to their tweets, answer questions and offer support.

To find questions you can use the TweetQA website where recent questions are listed and you can click a link to reply to their questions (login to Twitter before you go to TweetQA).

Don’t be shy on Twitter. Reply to tweets from well-known people in your niche. Compliment them on blog posts you learned from. Retweet their tweets.

3. Use hashtags and jump into chats and conversations.

Hashtags are words with a # sign preceeding them that allow people to find tweets for a specific topic, event, or chat. For example, #blog30 and #blogboost are two tags used by participants in recent blog challenges on twitter. Tag your tweets with appropriate hashtags. If you post a quote, add #quote to the end.

Find chats and conversations you can contribute to and get involved. You can use TweetChat to make it easier to follow the chats.

4. Do something fun or unique.

Get attention by standing out. What can you do for fun? Run a content on Twitter or offer something free to new followers.

5. Drive traffic from elsewhere to your profile.

Another way to get more followers is to let the people you’re already connected with elsewhere know you’re on Twitter. Add a Twitter link and invitation to follow you to your website, other social networking profiles, your email signature, your business cards, your print and digital ezines and on other promotional materials.