Contrary to popular belief, Twitter is still an excellent place to grow a following. The problem? Even the best strategies and tactics tend only to work gradually at best.
So, what’s the key to Twitter growth in 2022? In this video, David shares his best tips for increasing your following and boosting your engagement.
Video Highlights:
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 00:08 – Why bother with Twitter?
- 00:48 – A winning Twitter growth strategy?
- 01:36 – Setting up a magnetic profile
- 02:17 – Scheduling your tweets
- 03:04 – Retweeting and engaging with other users
- 03:42 – David’s new discovery – #WritingCommunity and #WritersLift
- 04:40 – The key to Twitter growth is #WritersLift?
- 05:25 – Our own hashtag: #AbundanceLift
Transcription:
So, is Twitter even worth it as a musician?
Hey, It’s David Andrew Wiebe with music entrepreneur HQ. And today I have an update about Twitter growth.
Why Twitter?
Now, you might be asking yourself, “Well, why would I be on Twitter in the first place?” especially if you’re relatively new to the internet. This is one of those old guard social networks, right?
And the reason is simple. Even my friends are surprised that with a small following, they can get a huge number of impressions on a single tweet. Oftentimes, it is hard to tie that to real business results. But all things being equal, wouldn’t you like more views on your content rather than fewer?
So, Twitter is cool like that. And there’s a community of people who actively use it and love it. Some people even say they exchanged their use of Facebook completely, abandoned it and moved themselves over to Twitter.
Twitter Growth
Now let’s get into the main topic, which is Twitter growth. Obviously, if you want to grow on any social network, you need a strategy.
And last year, I went deep into Twitter. I bought a few eBooks; I took a couple of HubSpot courses. And I learned a few things I didn’t know about the platform that I thought might help me grow my account.
But after months and months of crafting tweets and sending call to actions and retweeting others, and liking their posts and engaging with others, I gained a whole 50 followers. So, I was like, well, something’s probably wrong here. Either I’m shadow banned or I’m doing something so completely wrong, I’m not even aware of. But I didn’t really think it was the latter because there were people starting to engage with me, and I was starting to build a little bit of a community around me.
Twitter Growth Tactics
I’ll walk you through the paces. A lot of people are going to say, “Okay, if you want to build your Twitter account, you’ve got to set up an impeccable profile, you’re got to have a bio that talks about your potential customer or audience, you’ve got to have a header graphic that also speaks to them, and a profile photo that calls them out.”
And you’ve really got to ask yourself – how much do people look at your profile? I know it’s not nobody, but whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or elsewhere, reality is people are probably seeing your posts more than they’re seeing your profile.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have a nicely crafted profile at all. But I don’t think it’s going to be the biggest difference maker either.
Next is scheduling 10 tweets per day. Basically, the advice was something along the lines of, “know your niche, create the kinds of tweets that would appeal to your audience, give them little tips and advice, maybe post the occasional tweet thread, and send out a call to action at the end of the day.” That was really the only advice.
Now again, you don’t want to send people to an empty profile when they go looking for you. So, there is some value in having tweets go out regularly. Like I said earlier, you can get a lot of impressions on a single tweet too. But in terms of Twitter growth, I don’t know how much of a difference that’s going to make.
You might see an uptick in likes and retweets and maybe a little bit of engagement, but not enough to say “okay, this is worth my time to schedule tweets for an hour and a half every single week.”
And the next thing was to engage other Twitter users. And I tend to agree with that. It’s a good idea to retweet them, to like their tweets, to leave a comment – something valuable, not just something Random.
“Oh, that was a great tweet,” or “100% agree,” or just restate their tweet in some way. That’s not really going to get you anywhere.
I do think building connections with people is valuable. But time and again, what I found was a lot of the sharp people on Twitter sort of have their closed network already. They’re connected to 10 or 20 other people. And they retweet each other, but they don’t include others in that. So, that was only working so well.
A New Discovery – #WritingCommunity and #WritersLift
Now, I was on Twitter just the other week. And I discovered a couple of hashtags.
First one was #WritingCommunity. And the second one was #WritersLift.
The way it works is this. Basically, you’ll get an invitation to share your blog post or your latest book or your YouTube channel or podcast or something like that in the comments. The whole idea is, as more and more people share their stuff, that tweet is boosted in the algorithm because of all the engagement. And some of people participating in #WritersLift will ask you to retweet or follow them.
I’ve seen this work. I’ve tried it for a couple of weeks now. And every single day there’s people doing these #WritersLift. I might log into Twitter for half an hour or an hour, post my stuff in 20, 30, or 40 different places while I’m engaging with others, while I’m retweeting, while I’m commenting on various tweets. And before you know, overnight, I’ve gotten multiple likes, multiple retweets, and a bunch of follows.
Okay, so What is the Only Way to Grow on Twitter?
So, you’re probably expecting me to say the key to Twitter growth is to participate in #WriterLift.
That’s not really the point, right? That’s a tactic. It might work for a while. But there’s no guarantee that it’s going to work long term.
it is worthwhile to post your stuff to #WritersLift right now. But I think the key, the number one thing that I want to share about Twitter growth is to build connections.
It’s just like any other social network in that you’re better off working with other people. Whether it’s a tweet partner, or a tweet group, or community that you belong to. It could be the hip-hop community, for example, you start tagging everything with #HipHopCommunity, tweet out your stuff, get others to retweet and share it out. And before you know it, you’ve helped each other grow on Twitter.
The #AbundanceLift Hashtag
We also created our own hashtag called #AbundanceLift. So, if there’s blog posts, or podcast episode, or video, or new music release you want to promote, I would encourage you to use the #AbundanceLift hashtag.
But it comes with one warning, which is basically this. If you’re going to use the #AbundanceLift tag, please make sure that you’re engaging and liking and retweeting other people’s tweets, because that’s the only way we grow. If you don’t share other people’s #AbundanceLift tweets, then we don’t grow.
Thanks for watching. That’s my update on Twitter growth.
Subscribe to the Music Entrepreneur HQ YouTube channel
- 297 – How to Build a Magnetic Reputation as a Musician - June 2, 2023
- 296 – Investing in Yourself to Grow Your Music Career - May 26, 2023
- Moog 70th Anniversary & The Return of the Minimoog Model D - May 23, 2023
