Building a Following and Developing Relationships on Twitter

[MTF]

Despite not being a fan of social media, I'm giving Twitter a go. Here are my reasons:

• With Elon hopefully soon becoming the new owner, I have high hopes for the platform's future. Yeah, call me naive, I don't care. I believe in Elon.
• Twitter is the only major social media platform (perhaps except for Reddit) that is writer-friendly and doesn't require you to create multimedia content like YouTube or Instagram.
• Twitter makes it very easy for nobodies to get noticed by well-known people. So far I merely tweeted a link to each new issue of my newsletter and a couple of them were liked or retweeted by the guy I covered. This makes it a potential great tool for developing relationships and genuine connections.
• From what I've seen so far, it's still possible to get good organic exposure just by posting good stuff.
• Twitter lets you link directly to your website from your tweets (unlike Instagram).
• Twitter has a simple advertising platform (which I plan to use to grow my profile).

I'd like this thread to function as a group progress thread. Everyone is welcome to share where they're at now, what they're doing to grow, etc. Any resources, tips, or anything related to Twitter is more than welcome.

 

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[MTF]

Here's where I'm at now (May 3, 2022):




So pretty much I'm starting from zero. Today I posted my first thread and set up an ad to see if I can give it some traction with ad spend.

Note: tweet impressions were so high because of an ad I ran last month.

 

[Andy Black]

Following, although I’ve no intention of engaging with Twitter this quarter or maybe even year.

Here’s my progress thread that went all over the place for a while:

• EXECUTION - Figuring Out Twitter

 

[Andy Black]

I think Twitter is a good platform for quickly testing things. Putting ad spend behind tweets is interesting too. You get to find out what seems to resonate.

 

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[MTF]

@Andy Black yeah I'm treating it as a test and a way to see if I can somehow navigate the social media world and not regret it LOL. Instagram would probably be a better place for my niche (or YouTube) but my photos/videos would stand no chance. With writing, I have a chance.

 

[SDE]

From what I've seen so far, it's still possible to get good organic exposure just by posting good stuff.

True. Your account in particular will grow with time since you have solid stuff to tweet.

I'll share few things as well:


1) Pinned Tweet

Pinned tweet shows at the top of your profile. Have your newsletter sign-up link as pinned tweet. Here's an example:



You could go with the one on your website:

Join a community of hundreds of men who pursue personal excellence through voluntary discomfort

Subscribe to receive free newsletter every Sunday

[ Newsletter sign up link ]


2) End threads with CTA

At the end of every thread, have a tweet with simple CTA.

Example:

If you liked this thread, then you will love the free newsletter that I send every Sunday

Join hundreds of men who pursue personal excellence through voluntary discomfort

[ Newsletter sign up link ]

People lose interest on a long thread. That's why the first 4 or 5 tweets in a thread have more likes while the remaining tweets in the same thread have close to 0 likes. So, aim to have few tweets in a thread if possible.


3) Consistency

Tweet once per day minimum. I run an account where I tweet quotes of a semi-popular figure. Similar to the twitter account @TalebWisdom (not mine, just an example).

I started the account on Feb 28 and here are the stats as of today:



No ads or anything. I just tweet once per day and log out.

The first week, the account had 0 impressions, 0 engagements and 0 followers. Gradually, engagements and followers came through. It started with 1 like and 1 new follower and now it gets 5 likes and 6 or 7 new followers every day. The figures are laughably low but I wanted to show what consistency can bring.

I assume that twitter algorithm visibility of accounts that actively post regularly (I could be wrong). But it pays to be consistent in the long run especially for accounts like yours that share useful posts.

At the end of the day, follower count is a vanity metric. Even accounts with 50K followers gain only 100 or so likes when they tweet every time. In the beginning, engage with users who reply to your tweets. It could be difficult to differentiate bots from real users but with time, it should be easy to figure it out.

Again, if possible tweet once per day at least.

Instagram would probably be a better place for my niche (or YouTube) but my photos/videos would stand no chance. With writing, I have a chance.

Image of someone working out + quote from your newsletter + Canva = Instagram content

This one took me 5 minutes to create:




Canva will make anyone feel like a graphic designer, lol.

 

[MTF]

True. Your account in particular will grow with time since you have solid stuff to tweet.

I'll share few things as well:


1) Pinned Tweet

Pinned tweet shows at the top of your profile. Have your newsletter sign-up link as pinned tweet. Here's an example:

View attachment 43266

You could go with the one on your website:

Join a community of hundreds of men who pursue personal excellence through voluntary discomfort

Subscribe to receive free newsletter every Sunday

[ Newsletter sign up link ]


2) End threads with CTA

At the end of every thread, have a tweet with simple CTA.

Example:

If you liked this thread, then you will love the free newsletter that I send every Sunday

Join hundreds of men who pursue personal excellence through voluntary discomfort

[ Newsletter sign up link ]

People lose interest on a long thread. That's why the first 4 or 5 tweets in a thread have more likes while the remaining tweets in the same thread have close to 0 likes. So, aim to have few tweets in a thread if possible.


3) Consistency

Tweet once per day minimum. I run an account where I tweet quotes of a semi-popular figure. Similar to the twitter account @TalebWisdom (not mine, just an example).

I started the account on Feb 28 and here are the stats as of today:

View attachment 43267

No ads or anything. I just tweet once per day and log out.

The first week, the account had 0 impressions, 0 engagements and 0 followers. Gradually, engagements and followers came through. It started with 1 like and 1 new follower and now it gets 5 likes and 6 or 7 new followers every day. The figures are laughably low but I wanted to show what consistency can bring.

I assume that twitter algorithm visibility of accounts that actively post regularly (I could be wrong). But it pays to be consistent in the long run especially for accounts like yours that share useful posts.

At the end of the day, follower count is a vanity metric. Even accounts with 50K followers gain only 100 or so likes when they tweet every time. In the beginning, engage with users who reply to your tweets. It could be difficult to differentiate bots from real users but with time, it should be easy to figure it out.

Again, if possible tweet once per day at least.



Image of someone working out + quote from your newsletter + Canva = Instagram content

This one took me 5 minutes to create:

View attachment 43268


Canva will make anyone feel like a graphic designer, lol.

Awesome tips, thank you so much!

 

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[DWX]

Good shout. Many people generate a tonne of traffic from the platform (as well as make industry connections). I've not used Twitter beyond personal means, but if there's any advice I could impart, it's the following:

- Stay active and consistent (tweets have a short shelf life).

- To capture a global audience, try and post at different times of the day. Social media schedulers like Hootsuite could be useful here.

- Retweet your old popular tweets for additional engagement.

- Threads. They are every influencer's bread and butter (I hate the term "influencer" btw - I just couldn't be bothered to conjure a less cringy term). There are so many angles you can use when crafting them. One day you could share a short how-to guide. Another day, it could be your top reads or a story about how you or someone you know overcame a niche-related obstacle. The angles are endless. But like anything, overuse threads, and the magic starts to fizzle. This leads me to my final tip...

- Mix up your tweets. Just because it's a text-driven platform, doesn't mean they don't like their memes (the one I posted above came directly from Twitter). Additionally, you can quote-tweet people in your industry and share your thoughts on said tweet. Other ideas may include posting something controversial, jumping on other peoples' tweets, giving shoutouts... you get the gist. Keep things fresh and have fun with it.

That is all.

You're a solid writer, so I see no reason why you cannot pull a lot of traffic from Twitter.

Best of luck! Following.

 

[Andy Black]

If you tweet daily, then you can retweet it a few times a day so it can get people in different time zones. The next day remove retweets so your timeline is neat for any new visitor who checks back at your most recent tweets.

If something doesn’t work then feel free to remove it and try it again a few days or weeks later, with a slight twist.

You can’t overtweet at the start. Just tweet to your heart’s content while you get the hang of it. No-one will see them at the start anyway!

 

[Ing]

I don’t like social media, but for some reasons I log in fb quite often.
When I read the threads about twitter, I d like more and more to look, how twitter works.
Thanks for the thread!

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Interesting, I also feel Twitter might be worth a relook/re-examination once Musk takes over and cleans house.

 

[MTF]

Interesting, I also feel Twitter might be worth a relook/re-examination once Musk takes over and cleans house.

Definitely worth checking out for anyone in the entrepreneur or tech niche. I'm not sure about mine but we'll see how it goes.

 

[DarkZero]

Definitely worth checking out for anyone in the entrepreneur or tech niche. I'm not sure about mine but we'll see how it goes.

Just looking at the topics you talk about, twitter is good for it. But visual content is even better. Youtube would be your best friend as well as short form video like IG Reels/Tiktok. Just saying. Only because your niche is very popular on those platforms and do really well there.

 

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[MTF]

Just looking at the topics you talk about, twitter is good for it. But visual content is even better. Youtube would be your best friend as well as short form video like IG Reels/Tiktok. Just saying. Only because your niche is very popular on those platforms and do really well there.

I agree with you. The issue with video is how time-consuming it is to make anything good. Hence, I wanted to start with Twitter and see what I can do mostly with writing as that seems like the most efficient use of my time.

 

[DarkZero]

I agree with you. The issue with video is how time-consuming it is to make anything good. Hence, I wanted to start with Twitter and see what I can do mostly with writing as that seems like the most efficient use of my time.

You can definitely do it. It's a great way to build your newsletter and monetize.

 

[Black_Mamba_427]

I've been using Twitter for work for years and it's been pretty successful - but it's hard for me because Twitter also shadowban literally everyone in my industry for absolutely no reason - which makes it hard to be seen and stand out (don't even display on searches when people type in my name etc.)

I've noticed a big change already in the last couple of weeks, so I'm not sure if the current twitter algorithm is already changing - but I'm super optimistic with the new takeover and seeing how that changes.

TikTok has been great for me lately (only started it last month) - but I'm keen to explore that more. I think it's massively undervalued by a lot of businesses, and it is super easy to go viral easily.

 

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[Andy Black]

I agree with you. The issue with video is how time-consuming it is to make anything good. Hence, I wanted to start with Twitter and see what I can do mostly with writing as that seems like the most efficient use of my time.

You could test to find text tweets that resonate, then have a business case to create longer articles and/or image/videos.

You could also hire someone to take your tweets and turn them into short videos.

 

[Andy Black]

Use socialblade to track subscriber growth.

The first time you enter a Twitter handle to follow it will then start recording.

E.g.

• https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/discomfortclub

 

[Andy Black]

This is a smart thread @MTF.

• When you tag an author they'll often see it, and their fans may see it too.
• Authors love seeing a nice breakdown like that - it shows you've read it, and appreciate it.
• The author is inclined to retweet it.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1521392046665129984

View: https://twitter.com/DiscomfortClub/status/1521392046665129984?s=20&t=uFiOJSo55znzAux2FehrdA

 

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[Andy Black]

@MTF

• Even on a desktop your headline is hard to read, as is your avatar.
• What if the avatar was a zoomed in image of the D and C or something?
• For the bio, can you swap the "I document my lessons from studying exceptional, tough men." for a CTA?

 

[Andy Black]

Had to chuckle at some of his tweets:

https://twitter.com/dagorenouf

 

[Walter Hay]

Interesting, I also feel Twitter might be worth a relook/re-examination once Musk takes over and cleans house.

Elon Musk's reputation as a business builder is encouraging, but I would be concerned that sometimes he is like a loose cannon, and might change direction very suddenly.

Should that happen, a lot of work put into building a presence on Twitter could vanish.

Walter

 

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[MTF]

Even on a desktop your headline is hard to read, as is your avatar.

I'll ask my designer to create a set of social media images as I don't have a better image for the headline now.

What if the avatar was a zoomed in image of the D and C or something?

Thanks, just switched it to the logo only.

For the bio, can you swap the "I document my lessons from studying exceptional, tough men." for a CTA?

Done. Thank you for your feedback.

 

[MTF]

I've noticed a big change already in the last couple of weeks, so I'm not sure if the current twitter algorithm is already changing - but I'm super optimistic with the new takeover and seeing how that changes.

That's interesting since Elon isn't the owner yet. Unless he already has some influence with his current shares.

You could test to find text tweets that resonate, then have a business case to create longer articles and/or image/videos.

You could also hire someone to take your tweets and turn them into short videos.

If I were to do videos I think I'd rather do something myself specifically for the format as I don't think that having someone take text and turn it into video produces good results.

Use socialblade to track subscriber growth.

The first time you enter a Twitter handle to follow it will then start recording.

E.g.

• https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/discomfortclub

That's cool, thank you.

This is a smart thread @MTF.

• When you tag an author they'll often see it, and their fans may see it too.
• Authors love seeing a nice breakdown like that - it shows you've read it, and appreciate it.
• The author is inclined to retweet it.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1521392046665129984

View: https://twitter.com/DiscomfortClub/status/1521392046665129984?s=20&t=uFiOJSo55znzAux2FehrdA

I plan to do that for almost every issue of my newsletter so there'll be a lot of similar style threads coming soon I'll give each thread some traction with ads (as I did with this one).

 

[Black_Mamba_427]

That's interesting since Elon isn't the owner yet. Unless he already has some influence with his current shares.

It could be just a fluke, as like with everything there are ebbs and flows - but the timing seems coincidental.

For example, I've tweeted about 50% less than the previous month, but Impressions are up 38%, profile visits up 40% (!!).

I've also got around 150 more followers this month, as opposed to the previous months where I was pretty much breaking even give or take.

Or maybe it's to do with TikTok driving traffic to my twitter page. Not sure.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't a way of seeing how users found your page / were referred to your Twitter page / where they came from. You can only see the engagement of tweets, increase in followers and all that kind of stuff in twitter analytics.

That's why it's quite hard for me, because I can't advertise my "business website" direct on TikTok, I have to advertise my twitter or Instagram handles, or hope someone manually searches my handle on Google. Or I can direct to AllmyLinks (similar to LinkTree) and then track the analytics on that (but then that's only advertised on Instagram and Twitter, because it's banned on TikTok) haha. So confusing...!

I wanted to start using Google Ad's, but my industry is banned from that. I assume the same is for Facebook Ad's, but perhaps Twitter Ad's could work (but not sure how that would work if they are or were shadowbanning me). And I found that I can advertise on the major "hub sites" for $0.03 CPM, which I'm planning on doing this month too.


Edit: Sorry for hijacking your thread and going off subject.

Tips that I've kind of learned though, are Sharing Original Content thats valuable/high quality will always get feedback.

As cringey as it is, ASKING for RT's or Likes, or comments - work! I really don't like doing it because it looks desperate, but it works.. so...

Use Tweetdeck to schedule tweets at popular times.

Engage with other people within your industry and comment on competitors stuff so that their customers see you.

Build up a memorable brand / become known for X

 

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[SDE]

@MTF

Have you considered using a twitter feature where people can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your twitter profile?

It looks like this:





When the subscribe button is clicked, a confirmation page pops up where they can subscribe with a single click:




But to do this, you have to create a free Revue account, link it to your profile, use Zapier to integrate Revue and the newsletter platform you're using. I recall it's Mailerlite, right?

Not sure if it's worth the work and setup.

If you'd like to set it up, here are some resources on how to do it:

1) How to add your newsletter to your Twitter profile (even if you don't use Revue) | Jacob Mørch

2) How to get newsletter subscriber signups from your Twitter profile

3) Collect Newsletter Subscribers Directly on Twitter.com with Revue

4) Revue and Mailerlite integration using Zapier: Connect your Revue to MailerLite integration in 2 minutes | Zapier

Also, about Zapier pricing from one of the sites above:

The only downside with Zapier is its pricing. You can get started for free—add up to 100 subscribers each month on the free tier—but it can get reasonably expensive quite quickly. For example, if you send more than 750 new subscribers to your newsletter via Revue each month, you will need to pay $58.50/month

 

[MTF]

Have you considered using a twitter feature where people can subscribe to your newsletter directly from your twitter profile?

Thanks for the instructions. I think I'd rather want them to visit the website first and see what it's about than sign-up directly from my Twitter profile. Ultimately I'd rather have a smaller but engaged newsletter audience than more subscribers but many inactive ones. I may reconsider it in the future but for now I don't think the set-up is worth the trouble.

 

[MTF]

So far Twitter Ads for followers are incredibly expensive. My cost per follow was $2.33. I'd be happy to pay this much for a newsletter subscriber but not for a social media follower. I've been testing engagement ads as well and while these get a lot of likes and retweets there are almost no followers from these.

I don't get it. For both follower and engagement campaigns you need to select a tweet to promote. If you go with a follower campaign you won't get almost any engagements and if you go with an engagement campaign you won't get any followers.

It's super confusing how this works - after all they're promoting the same tweet so why are the results so different?

Other than that, I noticed that many Twitter profiles are inactive or active very rarely. Some even state outright in their bio that they're on Instagram. Instagram seems like a much better platform audience-wise for my newsletter but I'm not sure if I could gain anything there with my writing or if it's 99% pure image skills.

I was thinking that I could post various pictures of me doing uncomfortable stuff along with a story but I generally don't have any excellent images of me doing stuff. Compared to professional photos, they're super ugly.

 

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[Black_Mamba_427]

Other than that, I noticed that many Twitter profiles are inactive or active very rarely. Some even state outright in their bio that they're on Instagram. Instagram seems like a much better platform audience-wise for my newsletter but I'm not sure if I could gain anything there with my writing or if it's 99% pure image skills.

Have you thought about using Jarvee or MassPlanner (I can't remember what it's called now, they changed the name), but you can have a bot that runs a script which auto-follows and can auto-message followers of your competitor, or of another page which has people you think may likely be interested in your page.

It has a TON of features so you can choose to only follow people who have posted within the last X days, or have above Y tweets, or have a following to follower ratio of Z amount etc.

 

[Denney Knives]

Despite not being a fan of social media, I'm giving Twitter a go. Here are my reasons:

• With Elon hopefully soon becoming the new owner, I have high hopes for the platform's future. Yeah, call me naive, I don't care. I believe in Elon.
• Twitter is the only major social media platform (perhaps except for Reddit) that is writer-friendly and doesn't require you to create multimedia content like YouTube or Instagram.
• Twitter makes it very easy for nobodies to get noticed by well-known people. So far I merely tweeted a link to each new issue of my newsletter and a couple of them were liked or retweeted by the guy I covered. This makes it a potential great tool for developing relationships and genuine connections.
• From what I've seen so far, it's still possible to get good organic exposure just by posting good stuff.
• Twitter lets you link directly to your website from your tweets (unlike Instagram).
• Twitter has a simple advertising platform (which I plan to use to grow my profile).

I'd like this thread to function as a group progress thread. Everyone is welcome to share where they're at now, what they're doing to grow, etc. Any resources, tips, or anything related to Twitter is more than welcome.

I used to use Twitter but cancelled. I can post from my stay shop to Twitter. I'm thinking about it.