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Building an audience on twitter, is it worth it?

Anything considered a "hustle" and not necessarily a CENTS-based Fastlane

KushShah9492

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So, it's been a while since I've posted a thread on this forum. It's also been a while since I've posted on my blog. Took a break from everything. In that break, I learned:
  • Growing an audience is a great way to add value to more people
  • Twitter is an amazing platform to do so
  • If I can mix up productivity+web design..maybe I can find a niche within a niche?(web designers struggling with productivity)
For a few days now, I've been following @Andy Black 's advice on how to grow and create an audience on twitter. Although, it does sometimes feel like I'm ACTION FAKING. For example, if I'm replying to a tweet, or going through somebody's profile, I'll excuse myself by saying "Oh, this is just a part of growing an audience on twitter, I HAVE TO SPEND MORE TIME HERE TO GROW MORE." Now, the questions I'm struggling with right now:
  • Is it worth it to grow an audience on twitter?
  • Should I spend more time on twitter to get an audience faster?
  • How do I differentiate between action faking/action taking here?
  • What other platform can I grow an audience on?
 
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The web design niche isn’t as big as it seems - it’s actually quite small.

So making it more niche to me doesn’t make too much sense.

You could have a part of what you cover be about productivity but don’t make that your whole thing.
 

KushShah9492

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The web design niche isn’t as big as it seems - it’s actually quite small.

So making it more niche to me doesn’t make too much sense.

You could have a part of what you cover be about productivity but don’t make that your whole thing.
Are you suggesting being as GENERAL as possible and not going too specific selecting a niche?
There are tons of people on twitter posting on UI/UX design, sales and marketing, everyday. Maybe I should focus on just the productivity stuff then?
 

Andy Black

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So, it's been a while since I've posted a thread on this forum. It's also been a while since I've posted on my blog. Took a break from everything. In that break, I learned:
  • Growing an audience is a great way to add value to more people
  • Twitter is an amazing platform to do so
  • If I can mix up productivity+web design..maybe I can find a niche within a niche?(web designers struggling with productivity)
For a few days now, I've been following @Andy Black 's advice on how to grow and create an audience on twitter. Although, it does sometimes feel like I'm ACTION FAKING. For example, if I'm replying to a tweet, or going through somebody's profile, I'll excuse myself by saying "Oh, this is just a part of growing an audience on twitter, I HAVE TO SPEND MORE TIME HERE TO GROW MORE." Now, the questions I'm struggling with right now:
  • Is it worth it to grow an audience on twitter?
  • Should I spend more time on twitter to get an audience faster?
  • How do I differentiate between action faking/action taking here?
  • What other platform can I grow an audience on?
I’m not much for building audiences tbh. My subscriber count is small on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

For me, the power of Twitter is how easy it is to build 1-2-1 relationships with lots of interesting people. In Feb I met the guy who I now co-host a podcast with.

My advice would be to *not* have a goal to “build an audience”. An audience is a by-product of helping people, making friends, building relationships, creating win-wins, etc.



Tactically on Twitter, if someone had a brand new account, I’d advise them to:
  1. Get your goal right. Are you “building an audience”, or helping people, or building relationships? (I suspect you can do them all if you get the priority right.)

  2. Log in daily but limit the amount of time you spend on it.

  3. Do interesting stuff outside of Twitter, and write about it on Twitter.

  4. Optimise your profile so it’s obvious what you do, and why folks should follow you.

  5. Tweet only once a day, but every day.

  6. Retweet your tweet a few times throughout the day, but remove the retweet the next day so your timeline is clean.

  7. Retweet interesting stuff, but sparingly, and remove them the next day so your timeline is clean.

  8. Don’t bother creating threads, unless one of yours tweets does really well and it’s worth expanding on.

  9. Don’t use hashtags - they look ugly and desperate.

  10. Go easy on tagging loads of people. Shoutouts have been done to death.

  11. Follow accounts you’re interested in reading the content of.

  12. Mute accounts that offer no value (fortune cookie platitude accounts, etc). I also mute accounts that say “normalize”, “I don’t know who should hear this”, etc. (You’ll learn the phrases that indicate people are just copying each other.)

  13. Avoid Money Twitter and mute those folks too. I avoid Marketing Twitter too.

  14. Mute argumentative, opinionated a-holes. I don’t see so many of them. Must be the circles I move in.

  15. If you’re a techie, join in with Tech Twitter and the Indie Hacker community.

  16. Build relationships with people doing stuff. Get followers who are engagers in other peoples threads (reply to their comments, get into DM, get to Zoom, make friends).

  17. And finally... have fun!
 
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Timmy C

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So, it's been a while since I've posted a thread on this forum. It's also been a while since I've posted on my blog. Took a break from everything. In that break, I learned:
  • Growing an audience is a great way to add value to more people
  • Twitter is an amazing platform to do so
  • If I can mix up productivity+web design..maybe I can find a niche within a niche?(web designers struggling with productivity)
For a few days now, I've been following @Andy Black 's advice on how to grow and create an audience on twitter. Although, it does sometimes feel like I'm ACTION FAKING. For example, if I'm replying to a tweet, or going through somebody's profile, I'll excuse myself by saying "Oh, this is just a part of growing an audience on twitter, I HAVE TO SPEND MORE TIME HERE TO GROW MORE." Now, the questions I'm struggling with right now:
  • Is it worth it to grow an audience on twitter?
  • Should I spend more time on twitter to get an audience faster?
  • How do I differentiate between action faking/action taking here?
  • What other platform can I grow an audience on?

Just my opinion as I wasted more than 6 months doing this.

HELL NO.
 

Andy Black

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Are you suggesting being as GENERAL as possible and not going too specific selecting a niche?
There are tons of people on twitter posting on UI/UX design, sales and marketing, everyday. Maybe I should focus on just the productivity stuff then?
Who do you want to interact with?

What do you want to be positioned as?
 

Andy Black

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KushShah9492

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Who do you want to interact with?

What do you want to be positioned as?
I like interacting with fellow designers and self-development business owners.
I want to be positioned as someone who gives out valuable content everyday, that can help them get more stuff done.

But the end goal doesn't seem optimal. Have a 1000 followers, what then? So, trying to focus more on tweeting daily for a month, engaging with people everyday over at tweets and DM's, and see how that goes. Focusing more on the process instead of the end-goal itself. And yeah, will try to have fun along the way :)
 

Andy Black

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I like interacting with fellow designers and self-development business owners.
I want to be positioned as someone who gives out valuable content everyday, that can help them get more stuff done.

But the end goal doesn't seem optimal. Have a 1000 followers, what then? So, trying to focus more on tweeting daily for a month, engaging with people everyday over at tweets and DM's, and see how that goes. Focusing more on the process instead of the end-goal itself. And yeah, will try to have fun along the way :)
The trick to any type of growth/progress is to focus on doing the steps rather than getting to the destination.

Don’t focus on losing/gaining 5lbs. Focus on walking every day, or lifting weights three times a week.

With Twitter, maybe have these goals:

1) Tweet only once, but every single day. Tweeting only once forces you to focus on the quality of that tweet, and prevents burnout. Tweeting daily keeps you consistent, which the algorithm and community will notice.

2) Reply 10 times a day to people’s replies on bigger accounts tweets. (Read that again… I’m suggesting you reply to people’s replies. Those people engage in other people’s tweets, and have something to say. They’re your ideal followers right?)

3) DM 5 new people a day. Ideally people you’ve had a convo back and forth with on the timeline.

4) Hop on Zoom with 5 new people a week. Ideally people you’ve DM’d.
 
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KushShah9492

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The trick to any type of growth/progress is to focus on doing the steps rather than getting to the destination.

Don’t focus on losing/gaining 5lbs. Focus on walking every day, or lifting weights three times a week.

With Twitter, maybe have these goals:

1) Tweet only once, but every single day. Tweeting once only forces you to focus on the quality of that tweet, and prevents burnout. Tweeting daily keeps you consistent, which the algorithm and community will notice.

2) Reply 10 times a day to people’s replies on bigger accounts tweets. (Read that again… I’m suggesting you reply to people’s replies. Those people engage in other people’s tweets, and have something to say. They’re your ideal followers right?)

3) DM 5 new people a day. Ideally people you’ve had a convo back and forth with on the timeline.

4) Hop on Zoom with 5 new people a week. Ideally people you’ve DM’d.
Great actionable steps. Especially the 2nd one, I think it might open up a conversation and increase engagement. Not sure about the DM stuff though, who should I be DM'ing? and what should I be telling them?
 

Andy Black

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Great actionable steps. Especially the 2nd one, I think it might open up a conversation and increase engagement. Not sure about the DM stuff though, who should I be DM'ing? and what should I be telling them?
DM those you end up having a wee conversation with on the timeline. They should be those you get on with right? Just extend/continue the conversation you were having in public.

For instance, me and you are having a conversation in public in this thread. Maybe I DM you and give some more details or say hello / wish you luck?


My #1 tip about social media:

The magic is in the DMs.
 

Andy Black

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Imagine I took our conversation to DM and messaged you this:

Thanks for <insert something relevant here> Random.

Here’s something I wrote a while back on Twitter. I’ll dig out some more stuff.

Curious if you’ve DM’d folks before on Twitter?

View: https://twitter.com/andyblackjnr/status/1406296481238245379?s=21
 
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Itizn

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I’m not much for building audiences tbh. My subscriber count is small on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

For me, the power of Twitter is how easy it is to build 1-2-1 relationships with lots of interesting people. In Feb I met the guy who I now co-host a podcast with.

My advice would be to *not* have a goal to “build an audience”. An audience is a by-product of helping people, making friends, building relationships, creating win-wins, etc.



Tactically on Twitter, if someone had a brand new account, I’d advise them to:
  1. Get your goal right. Are you “building an audience”, or helping people, or building relationships? (I suspect you can do them all if you get the priority right.)

  2. Log in daily but limit the amount of time you spend on it.

  3. Do interesting stuff outside of Twitter, and write about it on Twitter.

  4. Optimise your profile so it’s obvious what you do, and why folks should follow you.

  5. Tweet only once a day, but every day.

  6. Retweet your tweet a few times throughout the day, but remove the retweet the next day so your timeline is clean.

  7. Retweet interesting stuff, but sparingly, and remove them the next day so your timeline is clean.

  8. Don’t bother creating threads, unless one of yours tweets does really well and it’s worth expanding on.

  9. Don’t use hashtags - they look ugly and desperate.

  10. Go easy on tagging loads of people. Shoutouts have been done to death.

  11. Follow accounts you’re interested in reading the content of.

  12. Mute accounts that offer no value (fortune cookie platitude accounts, etc). I also mute accounts that say “normalize”, “I don’t know who should hear this”, etc. (You’ll learn the phrases that indicate people are just copying each other.)

  13. Avoid Money Twitter and mute those folks too. I avoid Marketing Twitter too.

  14. Mute argumentative, opinionated a-holes. I don’t see so many of them. Must be the circles I move in.

  15. If you’re a techie, join in with Tech Twitter and the Indie Hacker community.

  16. Build relationships with people doing stuff. Get followers who are engagers in other peoples threads (reply to their comments, get into DM, get to Zoom, make friends).

  17. And finally... have fun!
not on twitter that much but I've heard of "money twitter" and those types of accounts.

Why do you suggest avoiding or muting them?
 

Andy Black

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not on twitter that much but I've heard of "money twitter" and those types of accounts.

Why do you suggest avoiding or muting them?
That’s my preference. I don’t want to be part of Money Twitter, and don’t want to pick up their language or style.

To me, Money Twitter is folks trying to inspire consumers to get started on their entrepreneurial/business journey. It’s a B2C play. I’m B2B.
 

MattL

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not on twitter that much but I've heard of "money twitter" and those types of accounts.

Why do you suggest avoiding or muting them?
Negative influence. Misleading or oversimplified advice. Faking action x1000.

I guess you could say the above for most social media though. :)
 
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KushShah9492

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DM those you end up having a wee conversation with on the timeline. They should be those you get on with right? Just extend/continue the conversation you were having in public.

For instance, me and you are having a conversation in public in this thread. Maybe I DM you and give some more details or say hello / wish you luck?


My #1 tip about social media:

The magic is in the DMs.
Yes, that actually wouldn't seem like I'm forcing someone to have a conversation with me.
 

KushShah9492

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That’s my preference. I don’t want to be part of Money Twitter, and don’t want to pick up their language or style.

To me, Money Twitter is folks trying to inspire consumers to get started on their entrepreneurial/business journey. It’s a B2C play. I’m B2B.
There are a lot of those just posting motivating/inspirational quotes everyday instead of actionable advices. I don't even get how people end up buying their courses. Their sole purpose seems like they just want to make money.
 

KushShah9492

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Negative influence. Misleading or oversimplified advice. Faking action x1000.

I guess you could say the above for most social media though. :)
It’s especially true for Instagram, however if you follow the right people on twitter, chances are you’d be wiser.
 
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