X is Twitter’s new name. And since the platform was born in 2006 people have been struggling to get more followers.
Growing on X/Twitter isn’t as difficult as most people think. After finishing this article you’ll have clear blueprint on how to grow an audience on X/Twitter.
So, whether you’re selling a product, offering a service, or you’re just starting out on X/Twitter, this guide is perfect for you.
If you would prefer to watch the video version of this guide:
We have outlined three major stages and what to focus on on each stage.
Stage 1: 0 - 1000 Followers
This is the stage when you’re just starting out. Nobody knows you. Your major aim is to make yourself known out there. In other words, increasing your follow conversion ratio (Making sure that the people who visit your profile click the follow button)
Here’s how you can do that.
Optimize your profile
If you’re profile is bad, people won’t bother following you.
To improve your profile you must take into consideration three things:
1. Profile Picture
This is the first thing people see when they visit your profile. So make sure it represents you in the best possible way. This means no cat photos.
Use your face because people connect better with faces. This humanizes your brands and creates a personal connection with your followers.
A clear and friendly picture can attract more people to follow you. Clean or colorful background is another nice touch and its even a good idea to get a professional photo done.
2. Bio
The next important thing is your bio. X/Twitter gives you only 160 characters to talk about yourself. So you must make it count.
Your bio should clearly communicate the value you offer to your followers. Let them know what they’ll gain by following you.
A well-crafted bio tells people who you are, what you do, and why they should follow you. Make it concise, yet impactful.
3. Banner Image
The last important thing is your banner image. The bio is only 160 characters so you can utilize your banner to tell people more about you.
Your bio’s design should go along with the colors of your profile picture (if you used any).
Here is an example of a profile which does all these things well
Reply to tweets and build connections
Most people make the mistake of tweeting more when they start out but this is wrong.
They don’t have an audience to begin with so nobody sees their tweets. This causes them to lose motivation and give up.
What you should focus on instead is replying to other people’s tweets.
Other people start to notice you from your replies, click your profile and eventually follow you.
There are three main things that you’re supposed to do:
1. Engage with bigger accounts
Engaging with larger accounts in your niche can help you get noticed by a broader audience. When you comment or reply to tweets from bigger accounts, their followers might see your interaction, be curious to check out your profile and maybe follow you. It’s like you’re renting their audience.
Also the big account themselves can reply or quote tweets your reply giving it an engagement boost. Or they might even follow you 🙂
Take a look at how this comment performed. It brought 10 new followers. You may think that 57 likes and 10 new followers are not much but do that three times a day, you’ve got 30 followers in a day and 1000 in a month.
What you can do to make the task of engaging with bigger accounts in your niche easier is creating an X list and adding them in it. Then you dedicate a couple of minutes everyday to engage with them.
Alternatively you can use Hypefury’s Engagement Builder to interact with your list.
2. Respond to every DM and comment
Show your followers that you value their interactions by responding to all DMs and comments. Engaging with your audience creates a sense of community and encourages them to keep interacting with you.
You should also look out for growing creators like yourself and build friendship with them. These are most likely the people whom you will grow together with.
3. Leave valuable comments
Make your comments meaningful and relevant to the conversation. Genuine engagement goes a long way. When you leave valuable comments, other users see you as someone who adds value to the discussions, which can lead to more followers.
Daniel Vassallo follows people based on their replies. Tweets may get you followers, replies get you followers and meaningful connections
With that said, let’s go over how you can reply the right way because people also fail in replying.
First, what not to do:
- Do not share a link to your own tweets unless the author specifically asked or the tweet relates.
- Do not share a link to your website or something you’re selling.
- Do not start arguments in replies.
Now that’s out of the way, here is what to do:
- Use simple words.
- Avoid making typos and spelling errors.
- Make sure your replies contains on thought or topic.
- Make sure the reply can stand on it’s own as some creators my retweet or quote retweet.
Tweet daily
Notice how tweeting daily is the third thing. Because at this stage your profile and engaging with other matter more than you tweeting daily. Only when you have the above two right you should focus on tweeting daily.
Now in terms of tweeting, you should post 3 tweets daily. This is for retaining you current followers so that they know you post useful stuff.
If you don’t post and you wait until you grow to post, you will be losing followers because nobody wants to follow someone who doesn’t post anything.
Stage 2: 1000 - 5000 Followers
Write threads
Threads are powerful storytelling tools. You can take your readers through a unique story using threads as opposed to just tweets with 280 characters. Threads allow you to showcase your expertise and knowledge to your audience. It’s very rare that people grow on X without threads.
A thread’s success largely depends on the hook. Once you nail the hook you can be sure that your thread will succeed.
Take a look at Jon Brosio who nailed his Thread hook and re-used it over and over again while just tweaking a few things
Luckily, we have hand-curated viral thread hooks that you can re-use and get inspired from in Hypefury so that you increase the chances of your thread going viral.
Create unique content
At this stage you’re getting more eyeballs, you should not copy other people’s content. You should be unique. Because people follow you for your unique touch.
It’s okay to grab inspiration from other accounts. And this is encouraged. But do not copy. Try to learn what works and do more of that.
Genuine conversations
Build authentic connections with bigger accounts by engaging in meaningful conversations. Networking and building relationships within your niche community can lead to mutual support and exposure to each other’s followers.
If an opportunity to help a fellow creator presents itself make sure to take it without expecting anything in return.
The key is to be genuinely interested. People know if you just comment so you can get engagement.
Prioritize quality
As your following grows, focus on maintaining the quality of your content to retain loyal followers. High-quality tweets, threads, and interactions are vital to keeping your audience engaged and interested in what you have to say.
Stage 3: 5000 - 10000 Followers
Write one thread a week
A viral thread can get you more followers than a viral tweet. This is why you should write a thread every week. It is not guaranteed that you’re thread will go viral, but by being consistent you maximize your chances.
Choose a day to post a thread and make sure you post a thread on that day.
Use giveaways
Giveaways can get you anywhere from 100 to 1000 followers depending on your audience. Some accounts host giveaways every week and they gain many followers. While hosting a giveaway every week may not be possible for many, you can host a giveaway once a month.
And the good thing? You don’t have to spend money on them. Just prepare something of value then offer it your audience. You can create a video, an eBook, a checklist, a notion template or anything related to your niche.
Then you can give it away for free by asking your audience to like, retweet or comment something so you know that they are interested and you send it to them.
Do thing manually can take a lot of work but you can make the process easier by using the Auto-DM feature in Hypefury.
You can create a giveaway tweet by just writing the tweet, the action a user must complete to get the product (follow, like, retweet or comment) and the message you will send the in their DMs. It’s just that simple.
Attend X spaces
People are on social media either to be educated or entertained. And you can educate people by attending and hosting different spaces and providing knowledge to your audience.
By doing this you will be perceived as an expert and people in your niche will follow you.
And that’s it! That is the plan you can follow if you want to grow your X followers from 0 to 10,000.
