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After 70 days, I hit 1000 followers.
I'm enjoying the journey immensely. Here are a few things I've noticed along the way.
↓ #thread
I'm enjoying the journey immensely. Here are a few things I've noticed along the way.
↓ #thread
1. I find much more joy in replying to others than I do posting into the proverbial void. This may change when I have a following that regularly engages me. This also tends to be the best way to increase my followers short of going viral (which I have yet to experience).
2. My bio and profile photo has changed several hundred times and will likely continue to until the rest of my "funnel" (I prefer to think of it as a choose your own adventure) is in place and my experiments in content and execution reveal themselves to a finer and finer point.
3. I still don't like the term "followers."
4. Participating in content challenges (micro-essays, 100-tweet threads, The Wall of Unread) is a great way to refine your purpose, message, and make friends.
5. There are a lot of different (noun) Twitters. Marketing Twitter, Money Twitter, Second Brain Twitter, Game B Twitter, Culture War Twitter. You can get stuck in one and forget others exist. Curate your feed with followers from each.
6. You don't have to keep tweets that don’t perform well. I'm constantly deleting old tweets and rephrasing them to hone the message I'm attempting to impart or to ask better questions.
7. I continue to experiment with different daily cadences. 20 tweets a day, 10 a day, etc. I've settled on 5 scheduled and allow myself to add spontaneously throughout the day.
8. If you put out a lot of content, something will resonate and stick but I find I'd rather play a longer game as my quality and enthusiasm wanes when trying to overwhelm the algorithm.
9. The lead tweet is great for punch and engagement. Use replies to add nuance. Tweets are only a map and the map is not the territory. If you don't understand a tweet, ask for the legend.
10. I haven't yet experimented much with threads. Most of them are genuinely bad but they perform well in the like department because they have the illusion of providing a lot of value. Most people save them and never return. I'm not convinced it's a good ROI to do regularly.
11. I like the Two For One strategy when posting platitudes: find the idea that is seemingly opposite from what you just said but is complementary. Together they're closer to the truth.
12. I can't bring myself to care very much about "the best time to tweet." It's too restricting.
13. I love aesthetics and it forces me to routinely delete gif responses and other imagery so my Media tab (and 3×2) looks nice.
14. Your niche is revealed through action. Even if you don't want to niche down, you will eventually just based on your interest or how you approach topics.
15. At around 500 followers I noticed a few people regularly showing up to engage my tweets. That has more or less doubled at 1000 followers.
16. Most of my content is generated from IRL conversations, reading, and showering. You'd do well to notice when you're the most mentally active a build in some time to record those notes to repurpose as tweets.
17. Humor is far more valuable than truth.
18. Real or simulated dialogs perform very well. Lists are boring but we're addicted to them. Rhyming is fun and sticky, but tricky.
