How I Added 44,716 Twitter Followers in 18 Weeks

In a noisy world, attention is your best friend. It can literally power your entire online business.

In the last 18 weeks, I’ve added over 44,716 new Twitter followers using a simple 7-step process.

Now I want to share the journey (and the steps I took) so you can replicate them.

If you can get this system right, you’ll grow on Twitter. And with Twitter growth comes massive opportunities: a better network, better jobs, podcasting and speaking opportunities, monetization, etc.

Unfortunately, most people stumble around Twitter for years and can’t figure it out.

Why?

No process.

You cannot grow predictably on Twitter without a process

When I see people starting out on the platform, they are just screaming into the void without any real strategy.

• They aren’t consistent.
• They don’t share valuable information.
• They don’t spend time networking with people.
• They don’t use tools to make Twitter growth easier.

I’m going to share how you can avoid these traps and follow a better plan.

Here's how, step by step.

Step 1: Build your publishing habit

You cannot grow on social media if you don’t publish. And publishing is like a muscle that you must build.

On October 26th, I started building my publishing habit by using a formulaic approach.

Each morning, I Tweeted “Happy {Day} to X". Here's an example:

I had 2 simple goals:

1. Build my publishing muscle.
2. Put my name & face in front of people daily.

By using a formula, I made it easy. This is a simple way to get that muscle built.

Step 2: Educate your audience

The problem with using formulas is that after a while, your audience gets less value from them.

So if you’re pumping out a daily Tweet in the morning and expecting to grow...

Not so fast.

You’ll need to show your audience that you’re worth following.

So each afternoon, I started sharing tips from my journey.

Topics include:

• Audience growth
• Service businesses
• Building info products
• Using social media effectively

I pretend that I'm writing to help one single person learn how to do something important.

Here’s an example of a tip that resonated with my audience:

Step 3: Leverage threads for accelerated growth

After a month or so, people got familiar with my name and face each morning, and came to expect a nugget of help each afternoon.

That helped me grow slowly and steadily, but I wanted to pour more gasoline on the fire.

I had a hypothesis that showing the audience more of how I think more would foster a connection.

So, I started writing Twitter threads. This allowed me to show a much deeper knowledge of particular subjects in a format that was more likely to get retweeted (and therefore, go viral).

My goal is to walk someone step-by-step through something critical in solopreneurship. Here’s an example:

Step 4: Build an engaged ecosystem

Too many new Twitter users come onto the platform and start rapidly producing content.

The problem is they forget that growth is largely due in part to being “social”. It’s social media after all, isn’t it?

My goal was to establish relationships with people with a similar follower count. This reduced the likelihood that I would get “big-timed” by someone with 10x the followers of me.

The other benefit of forming relationships is growing together. The same people you chat with at 5k followers will be your friends and partners at 50k followers.

The journey is just easier together.

Step 5: Comment underneath large accounts

While you might worry about getting “big-timed” by larger accounts, you can still participate in meaningful conversations underneath their Tweets. This is one of the easiest ways to get your name, face, and thoughts in front of a lot of people.

I like to set up notifications for large accounts that are relevant to the space I'm in (solopreneurship) and leave comments when they Tweet something that resonates with me.

This is a great way to pick up additional followers and attention. Check out this simple one-word reply that got me 6.7k impressions. Pretty powerful for a 3-second action.

Note: You are much more likely to get traction by leaving more thoughtful comments than this particular example.

Step 6: Analyze and Pivot

After executing the 5 steps above, I started to analyze what was working and what wasn’t working.

For example, my morning Tweets (Good morning to X) we’re getting less and less traction. I really wasn’t enjoying writing them either. That’s a good sign to do something different.

At the same time, my afternoon tips were getting more traction and I really like sharing things that help other creators and solopreneurs.

So, I eliminated the morning platitudes and replaced them with additional tips, observations for my audience, or offers to help answer questions. I do through by leveraging my Content Operating System for creating 6 to 12 high-quality pieces of content quickly and easily.

Almost immediately, the traction went back up.

Don’t forget to analyze and pivot.

Step 7: Improve your inspiration with tools

Now that my account was humming, I needed to streamline the process I followed to create and distribute all of this content.

So, I sought out the best tools available for content inspiration.

Remember: tools matter once you get your process down. They are much less important when you’re just starting to figure everything out.

I wrote an entire newsletter about the 5 tools I use to streamline my entire process.

You can find those here.