Nothing frustrates me more than people having ONE strategy to grow their Twitter.
Why? Because situations and priorities change as you grow.
So instead of giving you tips like many Twitter gurus out there, I want to give you a before vs after comparison so you know exactly what to do if you're starting out (0 followers) or if you're at the growth stage (3,000 followers).
Here are the 6 things you should do differently at 0 vs 3,000 followers:
- The language you use to connect with people
- How broad or narrow should you go with your topic?
- Snatching attention with your Twitter profile
- Where to spend my "engagement energy"?
- What to do with your circle of friends?
- Make good use of social capital
1. The language you use to connect with people
🌱 0 followers: You should use more "I" language
You might think that you're being selfish to talk about yourself.
This is not the case.
When you use "I" in your tweets, you tend to reflect more and use your stories to communicate with people.
As long as you wrap it up with a learning for readers.
🍀 3,000 followers: You can use more "you" language
This is when you put out what I call "wisdom bombs".
These tweets tell people "you should do this ... you should do that ..."
When you have a sizable following, you have higher perceived credibility, so you can have a bit more of this expert tone.
The benefit is that these inspirational wisdom bombs tend to get more retweets.
2. How broad or narrow should you go with your topic?
🌱 0 followers: You need to niche down on what you tweet about
As a voice on social media, one thing you do is to repeat the same thing in 1,000 different ways to educate your followers.
If you don't niche down, you're unfocused. People start to wonder what they can learn from you.
🍀 3,000 followers: You start sharing personal life and stories
When someone first knows about you, they don't care about your personal life or stories.
But now at 3,000 followers, people have followed you for some time and they're increasingly interested in who you are because they listen to you frequently.
Do you have pets? Kids? Like to go out? Do you go running? They want to know that!
3. Snatching attention with your Twitter profile
🌱 0 followers: You only have 3 seconds of their attention
Because you're a new account, you have to be extra specific and leave no room for guessing.
In 3 seconds, if they know what they can get from you, they will click that "Follow" button.
🍀 3,000 followers: You have 30 seconds of their attention
When you have more followers and credibility, you can use more space in your Twitter bio to highlight your products and offerings.
This is because your following size and frequent tweets act as validations and people are curious about what you do to get to where you are.
You can let your work speak for itself a bit more.
4. Where to spend my "engagement energy"?
🌱 0 followers: You should go to other people's tweets
When you're starting out, you don't have enough people around you to start conversations.
You certainly don't want to just sit here and wait.
What you can do is spend 90% of the time going to where conversations are happening. Create value there. If what you say is meaningful, people will check your profile out.
Remember to still tweet valuable content. Because if people visit your profile and see nothing, there is no reason to "follow" you, right?
🍀 3,000 followers: You can focus on people who reply to your tweets
It is surprisingly easy for big accounts to lose what they've spent so long to build - relationships.
Why? Because big accounts tend to shift their focus on other parts of their business and spend less time engaging with people.
You can see this when you see a big account (13,000 followers) tweets and gets 2 likes and 0 replies.
You don't want to be like them.
No matter what happen. Focus on people and give them the same respect they give you first by replying to your tweets.
5. What to do with your circle of friends?
🌱 0 followers: You focus on 30 close friends
If you're new on Twitter, you are likely not 100% sure about what your niche or target audience is.
It takes time for you to figure that out.
So what you can focus on doing is to figure out a group of people (e.g. marketers, developers, bootstrapped founders) and just make 30 close friends.
They should be your best buddies on the Internet. You tweet. You joke. You support everything they do.
This is your way to build up your confidence, circle, and traction in the super early days.
🍀 3,000 followers: You expand your circle by handpicking a new group every quarter
Now if you have a good size of friends to interact with, you want to be strategic in growing further.
You want to think about the people that can help you get to the next stage and start hanging out around them.
I suggest creating a Twitter list so that you can quickly interact with them at least once a week.
6. Make good use of social capital
🌱 0 followers: People love to help. You just need to ask!
You might be intimidated to ask for help. But let me break it to you: people love to help!
If you're genuinely asking and being appreciative, 80% of the people you talk to want to help you.
You just need to be direct and ask.
I've seen people who make big circles before they ask. You don't have to. Just save everyone's time and be upfront.
🍀 3,000 followers: Give people a lift first to get help
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When you're perceived as a bigger account, it is a little harder because people expect you to have figured it out.
This doesn't mean you cannot get help.
It just means you have to either give help or lift people up first or have an existing relationship to rely on.
In my Twitter book, Find Joy in Chaos, I have an entire chapter dedicated to compounding your social capital. This is how important it is.
So here are the 6 different strategies at 0 vs 3,000 followers.
By seeing the clear comparison, you should have more clarity on choosing the tactics that can help you move forward.
May the force be with you :)
