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Figuring Out Twitter

Andy Black

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@Andy Black

The thread and standalone tweet is good for someone like me, but only as motivation and as a general introduction to the world of ads.

However what is missing for audiences that I belong to, are more of a thorough breakdown of some of your posts. Actual instructions, because phrases such as "put ad spend behind" make sense from afar, but if I were to make a google ads account for the first time or twitter ads, I'd have no clue how to go about that.

Like you've said before "tell people what to do"

Then again perhaps we'd be encroaching into your paid services.

hope that helped
Thanks for that feedback.

My current thinking is that people come to to Twitter more for news, community, and inspiration. It's not really the platform people come to for heavy thinking or learning.

I could be wrong. I'm watching some of the Tech Twitter guys and their CSS threads etc. They do go into detail and those threads get shared a lot.

Another thought is that once people know what to do and why then they can Google it to find out how, or they can signup to a free/paid course. You'll hear people saying to tell people what to do and why, and sell the how. I think this is true but sad since what to do and why is way more valuable than how to do anything.
 
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Flint

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@Andy Black

I haven't followed your journey carefully, so maybe this is something you're already doing, but here's how I've seen it working.

People only see tweets from accounts they follow. They only stumble upon new content when it's retweeted or is part of a conversation in their timeline. My approach would be to engage with big(ger) accounts, either in the same space or an adjacent one where your content/value/offering is complementary, and tap into their existing network. This could be by adding value to their threads, retweeting their content with an engaging commentary or tagging them with a list of benefits you've seen them offer (a tweet they'd be happy to retweet). Visual humour helps a lot, e.g, relevant memes used as a commentary or riposte. Partnerships and shout-outs are very powerful. If I trust and value someone, I'd trust and value their recommendations, too.

I'd also try to limit my time on Twitter to specific time of the day or week only. I'd review and comment on the interesting threads with my audience, prepare a set of tweets and use some scheduling software to fire them away (and retweet some) at specified times throughout the day. Then I'd go offline and wouldn't look at it until the next scheduled Twitter time slot.

Curious about your growth strategy and tactics.
 

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Another thought is that once people know what to do and why then they can Google it to find out how, or they can signup to a free/paid course. You'll hear people saying to tell people what to do and why, and sell the how. I think this is true but sad since what to do and why is way more valuable than how to do anything.
The way I see it, how is boring.

It's technical. It's not really interesting until you've already decided to do it.

The why, what, and the results are what people like to read about.

To be inspired and motivated. Which is what most of social media is anyway.

P.S. You know my view on this topic already. Use Twitter to grow your newsletter -> Promote your offers in regular emails
 

Flint

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The way I see it, how is boring.

It's technical. It's not really interesting until you've already decided to do it.

The why, what, and the results are what people like to read about.

To be inspired and motivated. Which is what most of social media is anyway.

P.S. You know my view on this topic already. Use Twitter to grow your newsletter -> Promote your offers in regular emails
Good points. That's why big Twitter accounts are full of platitudes, motivational content or simply left vs right shadow boxing.
 
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Andy Black

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Thanks for the great suggestions and questions @Flint

People only see tweets from accounts they follow. They only stumble upon new content when it's retweeted or is part of a conversation in their timeline. My approach would be to engage with big(ger) accounts, either in the same space or an adjacent one where your content/value/offering is complementary, and tap into their existing network. This could be by adding value to their threads, retweeting their content with an engaging commentary or tagging them with a list of benefits you've seen them offer (a tweet they'd be happy to retweet).
I started out tweeting a few times and commenting lots every day but quickly bored of it.

Now I tweet once a day and put ad spend behind each tweet.

I pop in and out of Twitter throughout the day and reply to things I find interesting. Much like I do in the forum.

Visual humour helps a lot, e.g, relevant memes used as a commentary or riposte.
I've not tried much with memes. I'll be doing graphics/images soon when I create "card" ads that link to pages on a site.

Partnerships and shout-outs are very powerful. If I trust and value someone, I'd trust and value their recommendations, too.
Twitter is great for connecting with people. I don't ask or pay for shoutouts though. I'd rather pay the platform to have tweets shown for people following various handles. This seems more sustainable and repeatable. I'm trying to find a repeatable process that others can use too.

I'd also try to limit my time on Twitter to specific time of the day or week only. I'd review and comment on the interesting threads with my audience, prepare a set of tweets and use some scheduling software to fire them away (and retweet some) at specified times throughout the day. Then I'd go offline and wouldn't look at it until the next scheduled Twitter time slot.
I tried scheduling for a week or so but didn't enjoy it. I'm using Twitter as a way to meet interesting people, and to learn what tweets resonate with people. It's easy to tweet 280 characters and see if the idea resonates. If it does then it could justify a thread, an article, podcast episode, or YouTube video.

Curious about your growth strategy and tactics.
Currently it's to tweet once a day, NOT do threads anymore, and to put ad spend behind organic tweets.

I'm not really trying to grow the Twitter account. I think growth will be a byproduct of creating content that resonates and dialing in who I'm best serving.

I'm getting a site built out so I can run "card" ads (images that people click and get sent to a specific URL) and video ads.
 

Timmy C

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Thanks for that feedback.

My current thinking is that people come to to Twitter more for news, community, and inspiration. It's not really the platform people come to for heavy thinking or learning.

I could be wrong. I'm watching some of the Tech Twitter guys and their CSS threads etc. They do go into detail and those threads get shared a lot.

Another thought is that once people know what to do and why then they can Google it to find out how, or they can signup to a free/paid course. You'll hear people saying to tell people what to do and why, and sell the how. I think this is true but sad since what to do and why is way more valuable than how to do anything.
You'll notice they get shared a heap as most accounts are in engagement groups and it is other large accounts(producers) that are doing the sharing to help each other out and not so much consumers.
 

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I have over 10K followers and I follow about 1K .My suggestions are below

- professional looking photo and proper intro (urs work). Lessen the marketing substance because every other person in Twitter is a self proclaimed guru.
- Add a star or globe emoticon after your name.
- Scheduled tweets, as simple as shout outs or good mornings.
- buy followers. I personally don't like it but some do.
- choose a select few people to interact with, preferbly people slightly more followers than you but not by a big margin. Get chatty with them but if the don't response don't appear desperate.
- don't spend more than 30 minutes of your day on Twitter.

Last point is important because Twitter is a result of your success but success doesn't come from Twitter. Stop wasting too much time on Twitter - REALLY.
 
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Andy Black

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witter is a result of your success but success doesn't come from Twitter. Stop wasting too much time on Twitter - REALLY.
Amen. Someone on Twitter did advise that your success on Twitter depends on your success off Twitter.


For posterity, this is my current profile and pinned tweet:

1624272409339.png
 

simplymoto

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Amen. Someone on Twitter did advise that your success on Twitter depends on your success off Twitter.


For posterity, this is my current profile and pinned tweet:

View attachment 38500
After "Andy Black" write something such as "Andy Black (globe emoticons) Canada Entrepreneur / two companies sold / Helping people succeed / whatever" . The reason being people with lots of followers when they look at their followers they can only see your twitter name and handle so you want to give them as much info as possible to follow back. Your following and followers ratio is nice, that shows substance 10:1.
 

Andy Black

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After "Andy Black" write something such as "Andy Black (globe emoticons) Canada Entrepreneur / two companies sold / Helping people succeed / whatever" . The reason being people with lots of followers when they look at their followers they can only see your twitter name and handle so you want to give them as much info as possible to follow back. Your following and followers ratio is nice, that shows substance 10:1.
Thanks @simplymoto. I originally had “Andy Black | Google Ads & Inbound Marketeer” but I got bored of it.

I can’t think what to put at the mo. I’m less interested in growing a following at the moment and more interested in just finding a place to journal.
 
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Andy Black

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Andy Black

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Cliff-notes for Jun-21
  • I'm using Twitter as a place to journal and drop updates about what I'm up to.
  • I'm not really engaging in conversations much, and I got bored of reading a lot of junk.
  • I've made friends with the mute button.
  • Twitter Ads fizzled out a bit when putting ad spend behind normal tweets.
  • I'm getting a website setup so I can run Twitter Ads sending people to pages on the site.
  • I'm also about to do a co-hosted podcast with someone, and a solo podcast. Both will allow us/me to run ads for episodes.

Activity for the last 28 days:

1625212775998.png

Twitter Ads stats for Jun-21:
  • Odd how this says 416 new followers but the analytics above (for the last 28 days) says 178? I wonder if folks are doing follow-unfollow?
1625213476859.png
 

Andy Black

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A 10k account tweeted a thread that went a bit nuts. They tagged me and a few others in that thread.

You can see the effect in the past couple of days:

1626375740779.png
 
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dgr

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A 10k account tweeted a thread that went a bit nuts. They tagged me and a few others in that thread.

You can see the effect in the past couple of days:

View attachment 38930
That's amazing Andy!

Your account keeps growing at a good pace, you're doing an excellent job (as always, providing value)

I've heard of some people having those followers peaks and they say that you have to have something ready to take advantage of the momentum achieved.

btw, I experienced something similar commenting on bigger accounts (20-50k). Some of those accounts retweet a lot of comments or quotes of their tweets when they are good points or validate by experience their insights.

My account is very small still, not working actively, but those peaks in impressions were caused by 3-4 retweets I got from that kind of accounts
1626433333270.png
 

Andy Black

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That's amazing Andy!

Your account keeps growing at a good pace, you're doing an excellent job (as always, providing value)

I've heard of some people having those followers peaks and they say that you have to have something ready to take advantage of the momentum achieved.

btw, I experienced something similar commenting on bigger accounts (20-50k). Some of those accounts retweet a lot of comments or quotes of their tweets when they are good points or validate by experience their insights.

My account is very small still, not working actively, but those peaks in impressions were caused by 3-4 retweets I got from that kind of accounts
View attachment 38940
Yeah, I changed my profile and pinned tweet slightly to be more in line with the thread that brought all the followers. I’ve even changed what I’m tweeting about for the last few days. It doesn’t seem to have made a difference to engagement, which I’m a little surprised about. I’ll see what I can do to get more engagement, but I’m not too fussed tbh. I’ll continue using Twitter more as a journal.
 

Andy Black

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Stats for Jul-21
  • I've stopped running ads for the moment.
  • Still tweeting once a day only.
1627843946938.png


Current profile:
  • Scrolling through my tweets (and forum posts) I see the theme is to stop building stuff and just help people. So I changed my profile to match that.
  • I've not mentioned Google Ads in my profile. It seems most of the time I get Likes and help folks is when I'm not talking about Google Ads.
  • I pinned a recent tweet that did better than normal. Interesting that it's a personal story.
1627844119595.png
 

Andy Black

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It seems I’m settling into a style of tweet. Not short platitude style, and not long threads, but something that takes up most of the 260 characters.

I don’t bother looking at individual tweet stats anymore. I create them so I can link to them in future.

This one did quite well copared and I pinned it to my profile:

View: https://twitter.com/andyblackjnr/status/1419079742494593025?s=21



Here’s yesterday’s and today’s tweets:

View: https://twitter.com/andyblackjnr/status/1421892887428702210?s=21


View: https://twitter.com/andyblackjnr/status/1422117364930318336?s=21
 

Andy Black

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I was at a funeral in the UK a few weeks ago. It was the funeral of a 55 year old cousin who was full of life.

I was with my mum and other relatives so removed Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Circle(.)so from my phone.

A few weeks later I’ve not added Twitter or LinkedIn back on my phone, and I only just logged in via desktop a couple of days ago.

My Twitter notifications are just about tweets from people I follow. None of the daily content I’d been putting out have any new engagements.

In the meantime, I had an email from a large US University asking to link to one of the videos on my YouTube channel. That video is over a year old, but was still discovered and resulted in a new connection.

I’ll put Twitter on hold for now and will focus on my blog, podcast(s), and YouTube channel.
 
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Andy Black

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I'm no longer thinking of Twitter as a marketing channel.

Instead, I'll use Twitter as a place to journal in public.

I've now simplified my bio description loads:

Twitter profile.png
 

Andy Black

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I posted to Facebook and LinkedIn this morning.

Written content is waaay easier for me to produce than video or audio.

Thought I'd log back in and post to Twitter.

Posted to Twitter.png
 

Andy Black

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Yesterday's tweet seemed too wordy. I deleted it and tweeted again. My tone/voice is also a bit more authoritative.

Posted to Twitter - shorter.png
 
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Andy Black

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Hey Andy, you can join the ship30for30 cohort.

Definitely improved my writing. Might be helpful to you as well.
Thanks. I've seen the essays people write. It's not for me as I'd like to write shorter, and not be on a content treadmill.
 

Andy Black

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I was aimlessly scrolling Twitter and saw a tweet about jobs vs freelancing.

I posted the following into the random chat thread and a few people liked it.

So I tweeted it and put $2/day behind it for a week out of curiosity:

2022-06-09_11-32-35.png
 
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Andy Black

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Wow. This was a super slick signup. I've not been on Twitter for a bit... I don't remember seeing these.

2022-06-09_12-32-11.png


EDIT: Well that was easy!

Twitter Profile.png
 
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Andy Black

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Sheesh. Twitter is such a time suck. I’m going to focus on YouTube.

2 hours last night bouncing around on Twitter. Imagine I’d extracted a short video from my 90 min workshop and published that to YouTube instead?
 

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Sheesh. Twitter is such a time suck. I’m going to focus on YouTube.

2 hours last night bouncing around on Twitter. Imagine I’d extracted a short video from my 90 min workshop and published that to YouTube instead?

Haha I see that your relationship with Twitter is even more complicated than mine. Though mine isn't complicated anymore, I just stopped using it.
 
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Andy Black

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Haha I see that your relationship with Twitter is even more complicated than mine. Though mine isn't complicated anymore, I just stopped using it.
The power of Twitter is being able to connect, communicate, and help people directly - in DMs or in public conversations. That’s what I love doing but it can be my Achilles heel.
 

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The power of Twitter is being able to connect, communicate, and help people directly - in DMs or in public conversations. That’s what I love doing but it can be my Achilles heel.
Agree with this. Although, you need to be intentional when you use twitter. It's hard to get out once it draws you in lol
 

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