Welcome comrade.

So you finally joined Twitter?

No? ok you decided to stop reading and RTing and finally post something? Great!

Wait wait! you already have been here on the platform for some time, you are still welcome to read.

I am here to fill you in with some ideas so that you can build upon them as this new experience unfolds.

This is not a 0 to 100 follower guide or a growth hack guide. I do talk about follower growth but it’s more about how you can improve your Twitter experience.

The first thing I ask you.

Why have you joined twitter? what brings you here?

I had joined Twitter for the following reasons

  • Learn more about my niche, it’s people and networking opportunities
  • The serendipity aspect / to increase my luck by increasing visibility. Follow David
  • Find tribes to discuss my ideas
  • To sharpen my writing & thinking skills

New goals added as my journey and intent unfolded

  • entertainment
  • shitposting (oversimplifying: sort of memes but text version)
  • talking to new people, each offering different perspectives. My DMs vary from age 16 to 60. The variety of people I met here, the things they told, even found some absolutely amazing mentors.
  • entertainment and drama (yes again)

(not mentioning any more here xD)

Here is an interesting read by Manas Saloi who is regarded as one of the best shitposters on Twitter in my circles.

Twitter helps to discover your tastes and interests to some extent, so you may discover more reasons and goals as your twitter journey unfolds (as with any adventure)

Useful concepts for navigating the internet in general

  • Mimesis (we tend to copy others), so think for yourself.
  • I want you to watch this video on critical thinking in this information age.

Critical thinking is essential for a good twitter experience.

New poster?

So you have decided to post some tweets right? start posting!

You soon realise you need some followers who read your stuff. You are in good luck because I am going to talk about how to gain “good” followers throughout the rest of this blog.

Don’t be like: yo I don’t need followers. imma gonna just post stuff here. Nope. You need some followers to read your stuff, people who resonate with you, who can offer other view points and point out your mistakes or RT them lol if they find it good

Here’s an obvious tip. The initial few months are going to be a grind unless you already have some friends who use Twitter. You can tell your friends you joined twitter. Some of them might follow you back. (My college friends did, very generous of them to tolerate my early on tweets ooof)

Who not to follow initially and how many to follow?

Avoid celebs

Firstly, avoid following celebs except the ones you did really want to follow. Okay?

Avoid twitter algorithm follow recos

Avoid following based on Twitter’s recommendations. It tends to suggest people who have high number of followers, whose tweets you have liked/replied. (It’s shitty). Those folks won’t notice you.

Define a threshold for quality control

If you want high signal to noise ratio, follow less people. Max 100-150 people of areas of interest. Avoid the near celeb status ones because they are almost never going to interact with you.

More the followers, the lesser chance they are going to interact with you

Sidenote: You can additionally use lists for different categories.

I follow mostly around 450 - 500 people. (getting a follow back from me is pretty hard, haha)

These may include people of your areas of interest, niche, people whose takes you like etc. and people you followed back based on interaction.

The idea is to define a threshold. Defining a threshold promotes quality control. I suggest 256/512.

Another observation is when you follow 1000 or 2000s of people with a low follower count (Following : Follower ratio is important) , I sense that you do not care a lot about your SNR. You are less likely to interact with me too because I will appear lesser in your timeline (exception being you already interact with me). You can draw some more corollaries.

Timeline curation, creative and analytical elimination

Optimise for what you want to see more of - @visakanv

When you join the platform (or if you are yet to follow people), I suggest follow aggressively based on your interests till you reach 75% of the threshold; Leave some space for mutuals/follow backs.

This is a discovery process which is best performed by the creative brain or when your analytical brain is not active (yeah, I know this sounds a hand-wavy but ok). This is similar to write first, then edit and repeat. Following aggressively is to write the draft first.

When you scroll and read tweets, you can unfollow non-mutuals based on whether you don’t like / despise their tweets. Mostly based on the vibes, feels and instinct. → creative process

You can occasionally reflect on people you have followed and unfollow in bulk (those who do not interact, those who are inactive etc.). → analytical process

I found the creative process spreaded over the long term to work more accurately. It helps to uncover what I like and don’t like.

Sidenote: When you are a low follower account, it’s better to follow back. However, if you want to be selective, follow back folks who interact with you. (This works well when you grow a bit say >500 followers)

Who to follow, like really.. Finding your tribe

Let’s slowly build up from here.

Types of Twitter users based on time spent

  • Lurkers (these people typically read stuff and take screenshots and gossip on whatsapp groups). They don’t tweet.
  • Occasional posters
  • Active people - post regularly, interact etc.
  • Addicted (Not me) - are more active than active people
  • Celebs/Content Creators/Influencers - millions of followers, they rarely interact with you

The people you want to be friends with are the occasional poster, active and addicted category.

Types based on motivation

I can go into more nuances (btw, nuance is a word which you might encounter a lot on twitter) but will keep it simple.

  • Content Creator / Marketing motivation => where they are selling something, tweets are mostly for the sake of engagement, marketing, gain clout. They are here to build an audience and monetise.

  • Genuine tweeps / little Marketing motivation => they like engagement but they shitpost and nerdpost, talk, interact. Here for fun.

If you want to gain clout, your goal should obviously be to gain your following by whatever content strategy you have share resources, tips, materials, anecdotes. And you wanna grab the attention of these folks and collaborate with them, conduct spaces etc.

If you are on Twitter not to gain clout but for making a good network, entertainment, enjoyment, discussing ideas, then you wanna be friends with genuine tweeps. Target certain niche and ecosystem people, mixer events (share you handles everywhere lol). I am more into this, so is the blog inclined towards being a genuine tweep.

The Credibility equation

  • Followed by (especially how many good mutuals of yours follow this person). It’s visible below the bio.
  • Bio (covered later in the blog)
  • Their takes
  • Fuck credibility, just follow that schizo anon if you like their tweets

Btw anon accounts have the most interesting tweets (once you discover your taste)

Finding your tribe (part 1)

Twitter is for the people, by the people. Use the people as the recommendation algorithm.

See who your mutuals are interacting with. (Use Latest timeline)

  • see their replies section
  • see their likes section
  • see the comments section
  • see who they are following (little bit grind)

Say you want to find more people on Art Twitter. Ask your friends or tweet to ask about art people. then follow based 2-3 art people. Then you can follow and explore who replies to them.

Say you want to join BLR twitter, follow someone who seems to be at center of BLR startup twitter. For ex: popular founders or folks like Amul. See who interacts with them, whom they interact with etc. and repeat above.

Finding your tribe (part 2): “good mutuals/followers” aka friends

You want some people to interact and share your ideas. Best case outcome is conversion from interactions to DM. DM to whatsapp. Finally, real life although I guess whatsapp also counts xD.

Please read this thread by Amul. He’s the OG of networking. (Despite his follower count, if you give him thoughtful replies, he will interact with you. Your aim should be to make similar friends). I have mentioned same text in a quote below the thread.

Twitter growth doesn’t have to be about followers only 🙃 Unique folks I interacted with in last 1 year by level of interaction👇

L1 Meaningful one time DMs : 83 L2 Long engaging DMs : 61 L3 IRL (Zoom/Phone) conversations : 15 L4 Repeated IRL talks & friendship : 6 L1 is mostly a genuine sync between you & a person (supported by public likes & comments). Didn’t count transactional messages (referrals or single URLs etc).

L2 is the true magic of twitter. This is where you are finding your tribe & having a deeper conversation. This conversation is often async spanning days. So many interesting insights uncovered in free flowing thoughts …

L3 is a bit nuanced. Given the context of India, we the people (including me) aren’t comfortable sharing contact number. I always prefer a Google meet/ Telegram connect rather than WA/Phone. It makes everyone feel safer. Respect people’s time - be prepared/have clarity.

L4 is simply letting serendipity play out. Be genuine even if it’s against what people want to hear in a very polite & balanced manner (try not to be a yes person).

Anyone had a similar experience which was beyond “let’s gather more followers” 🙃 Finding your tribe/tribes is the essence of Twitter experience and it requires a decent amount of time and energy investment.

Letting your tribe find you (Part 3): The Engagement Equation

You want your tweets to get smashed on other people’s faces. For that you need engagement.

(click on view analtyics to see number of impressions etc. Also, you have Twitter analytics on the platform which I recommend looking into occasionally, it should not get over your head haha)

Impressions

  • shitposts (dating takes work really well although I don’t personally tweet much in this genre for some reasons..)
  • participate in relevant spaces of friends or influential people (Thank you @satyadeeproat)
  • achievements and life updates. I feel somewhat uncomfortable here but it’s good to share your achievements/life updates.
  • genuine/valuable/interesting ideas
  • certain keywords/trends (don’t spam, OKAY??)
  • twitter algorithm
  • higher than your follower count friend/sugar daddy accounts/ influential accounts (Authenticator APIs as @ghuubear calls them)

If you are here to market, then go ahead with your content strategy. Document your journey, collaborate with people, share useful resources, write some useful threads (not copypasta)

I have found that the combination of nerdpost + shitposting works well. The label nerdpost means posting “deep” stuff, nuanced, potentially valuable, realisations, technical stuff. You get the riff.

Shitposting is pretty broad. Here are some examples, something personal, natural. tit bits from your day. funny takes. absurd takes and realisations, jokes. memes in forms of text. It’s pretty broad honestly. Satire. Takes on reality etc. I recommend following some occasional and anon and schizo. Won’t make recommendations here.

Shitposting is best done naturally, when you get creative bursts/inspiration.

Ok coming back to the blog, most people don’t have the mental bandwidth to read complex takes, they are on the platform for entertainment and relaxation. This explains the effectiveness of easy takes.

What you post determines the people you attract

If you post shitposts, people who like shitposting will follow you.

If you post deep takes or tech content or say dating takes, then people who are interested in those topics will follow you.

The kind of tribe you attract is heavily determined by the kind of your tweets. (pruning through randomness)

If you tweet only for your college circle or tech circle, your circle will be limited to that mostly. (You may decide to just post tweets for your niche, that’s your choice)

If you tweet for college circle, you might be having some internal references which outsiders won’t understand.

If you tweet for everybody, not specifically for your college folks, then you will gain a wider audience.

The main idea here is “How much common context (e.g ideas, interests, taste, knowledge, technical expertise) do you share”. The overlap decides who interacts with you.

If you tweet deep technical stuff, then only people who minutely understand that will read (if the tweet reaches them).

General relatable takes usually garner a lot of engagement. e.g dating takes are really popular.

Something to which a lot of people can relate to is candidate for high engagement. The caveat is you might have more engagement but not the desired mutuals (say nuanced folks who like to engage in discussion). When I get viral tweets, I gain more followers than usual etc. but most of them do not interact with me..

Conversely, if you post stuff which takes some mental energy to read, then people who like that stuff will get attracted but other people are ignored (and these folks often don’t like funny takes xD) This is selective filtering.

You can adjust your following based on what you post to a certain extent.

Bio

Your bio plays a decent role in attracting folks you want when you have decent impressions going on. I recommend putting some of your credentials / required keywords in your bio to attact people / clout or people who are interested in that niche. (clout = people who do not interact much)

If you write “anime” in your bio or “shitpost”, people who like those topics and seem to stumble across your bio might follow back. However, if you want to say “test your writing skills” or “how sharp are my ideas”, you may keep your bio clear. (say to avoid getting followed by people who just care for brand and not for your writing) e.g ghuubear does this. (Go follow him for nuanced takes and learning about writing better!)

Good reply game (go search “good reply game from:visakanv”))

Practice good reply game, whatever way you want other than being offensive/toxic.

There are a lot of genuine tweeps with <1K followers. Do not conflate small follower count with quality or intelligence or status or anything. Follower count is somewhat a vanity metric.

There are lots of absolutely amazing people with low follower counts. You wanna make friends with these, whether they follow you back or not, that is not a major concern (although if they do, it’s great lol, makes interaction smoother. Why?? read my blog on validation ahahaha)

  • you practice good reply game with them (or whatever way you want to interact other than offensive trolling, abuse, spreading toxicity etc.)
  • you ask them questions which makes them feel good while answering lol. ok, no ask genuine questions, don’t spam
  • find opportunities to slide into DM or just introduce and talk (very powerful)
  • Do above naturally

You can practice the above points for people with whom you genuinely / naturally want to interact with. We want a good network, which feels not artificial.

My riff to the idea of shitposting+nerdposting

You want to increase engagement: Do more shitposting

You want to share ideas and engagement is going decent: Do nerdposting.

Also interact whenever you feel you have something okayish to add to but respect the time….

Once you have 200-300 followers of tribe, you may choose to nerdpost all the time. Again depends on you. My job is to give some ideas in this blog.

Tips for smoother experience (Twitter etiquette)

  • Don’t take tweets so seriously, give benefit of doubt for offensive replies (people are often sleep deprived and in bad mood/suffering. hard to do I know)
  • Quote tweet not for dunking (especially non-mutuals) but to support or add
  • Good or genuine reply game. avoid toxicity/offensive remarks
  • Avoid talking about politics, gender, religion. Especially the latter two.
  • Stay away/be careful from outrage/toxic accounts

More pointers on making good mutuals

  • The kind of people you attract highly depends on how good you are with words, substance, randomness favouring you(luck), influential accounts following you etc.
  • Always filter your shitposts a bit to avoid turmoil (if you are not anon)
  • shitposting and interacting with all people (outside niche too) works well. IMO, this is the best way to gain like-minded people.
  • interact with people of niche (fast follow back)
  • go to events / college and tell people your twitter id xD (i have not utilised this at all haha)
  • You can be a reply guy also to larger accounts although this is mostly a waste of time. Those folks do not reply (for reasons i won’t explain here). However, you may be a reply guy (good thoughtful or funny replies) to those people who you naturally like and people who are open to replying/discussing stuff. (you can find a lot of such people in <5K follower category)
  • Embrace slow growth. When you are a small account, you can tweet more unhinged stuff haha (if you are not an anon account) and interact with people easily. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

End.