Up Your Twitter Game And Grow Your Audience

I recently wrote about how to get to 1000 followers on Twitter (I’ve done it a few times now). That post was pretty high level and I’ve had great feedback from readers wanting a more in depth analysis of the Twitter game.

I’ve also been checking out Ed Latimore’s post on a similar subject. Ed’s Twitter is blowing up – If you read my earlier post, you’ll know why.

There’s been a lot of trial and error in my Twitter usage. I want to steer you in the right direction and help you up your game and grow your audience at the same time.

Twitter Game: Find Your Own Scene

There are a lot of copycats out there. Some are blatant, others less so. It’s OK to be a fan of someone and pick up on their techniques. An observant person will see this at my Twitter. But if you really want to grow an audience, you’ll need to find your own voice.

Be original, be funny, be serious – whatever. Just be yourself.

I’m quite outgoing and jokey. I like to have a bit of a laugh with people and at the news. You’ll see that in my tweets. If I came across as being serious and outraged all the time, it would be all fake.

Your scene is the people that want to hear what you have to say or share with them. Find that scene and you’ll build your audience. Forget being all things to all men (or women). Be niche and you’ll grow. Be vanilla and it’ll be slow.

Be A Salesman

Someone recently said ‘Everything is sales’. And they’re right. Sales and copywriting are linked with blogging. Right now, I’m selling you on the concept that I know about Twitter and my advice can be trusted – is it working?

Good copywriters also write good content. Even if you’re not a writer, Tweets that convey a message or share an article should be like a mini-sales letter. Ultimately, you want people to click on the link, or favourite the tweet or whatever.

I want to focus on the sales part here:  I’ve recently been A/B testing Tweets to see what people find engaging. Here’s a couple of examples:

1. The Simple Question
   

If you could be more relaxed in just 15 minutes a day, would you do this?https://t.co/6gKtRJ5yjC

— Neil M White 🇬🇧 (@ThisDadDoes) June 29, 2016

Asking questions is a key part of good sales writing. I also suggest that the reader could be more relaxed in 15 minutes and pointed them towards the post. Notice I didn’t say ‘click here’ – that’s a bit obvious and ‘beggy’ although it can work.

One of the rules in sales writing is that people don’t want features, they want problems solved. If a lack of relaxation is a problem, the 15 minutes isn’t too long to solve it.

2. The Broad Spectrum

If you like @jaltucher, you'll love this fast paced interview with @Cernovich. Great value. https://t.co/OU4iPe8fsG

— Neil M White 🇬🇧 (@ThisDadDoes) June 13, 2016

In this Tweet, I purposefully appealed to fans of James Altucher and Mike Cernovich. I tagged them both and suggested that fans of Altucher’s would enjoy the video. I also added my own endorsement at the end. It lets your followers know that you’ve really enjoyed it too and aren’t just spamming them some rubbish.

Pro-Tip: Donald Trump does this on Twitter all the time. He’ll make a closed statement and then add a little two or three word power phrase at the end to sum up or hit his point hard. Here’s a (non-contentious) example:

Spent time with Indiana Governor Mike Pence and family yesterday. Very impressed, great people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2016

You’ll see that my tweet had a lot of engagements – retweets and favourites. That’s because both Altucher and Cernovich shared this tweet with their followers and BAM – 23,000 impressions.

When you share articles or other people’s tweets, do it for the right reasons. Do it because you want YOUR followers to read and enjoy what you’re giving them. This is where abundance comes in. If all your tweets just point to you or are fishing for retweets from your favourite blogger/celebrity, your feed is going to be dull as ditchwater.

You can also structure tweets using A.I.D.A which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. This is a challenge in 140 characters but can be done with a little practice:

3. The AIDA 140 Character Sales Letter

Too many kids are deprived of outdoor play. Mine aren't. Read this to find out why. https://t.co/A5m6v0jyE3

— Neil M White 🇬🇧 (@ThisDadDoes) May 7, 2016

Let me break it down:

• Attention: ‘Too many kids…deprived’ – That’s a pretty shocking start. No one likes to think about children being deprived of anything. It has your attention though.
• Interest: ‘deprived of outdoor play’ and ‘mine aren’t’ – Now you know what the article is going to be about.
• Desire: Already at this point, you want to know more. So I verbalise that. You can find out more.
• Action: ‘Read this’ – you are now compelled to click on the link. That’s the only way to satisfy your curiosity about these deprived children and how my kids are different.

If you want to know more about AIDA (and copywriting in general), I recommend Neville Medhora’s book ‘This Book Will Teach you to Write Better‘ – I wrote a quick review here.

Up Your Game but Be Patient

If you’re serious about growing a Twitter audience, then you need to be prepared to play the long game. Twitter is a great way to share your message and build a platform to launch products or services. But it takes time to build up the kind of following that Ed Latimore (@EdLatimore) has obtained.

Some days you’ll get loads of new followers and engagements. Others, you’ll lose followers and things will be flat.

While I write this, my Twitter has lost a bit of momentum. I know I’ll get it back. Plus it probably just seems that way because I’ve come out of an exceptional growth period.

Remember – you’ll grow your audience one follower at a time. No more, no less.

A Word on Adverts and Pay-Per-Click

Some people go down this route to build their audience. Twitter ads are expensive and I’m not convinced that there is a good return on investment for buying clicks or followers unless you’re promoting a service or a new product and have money to spend on ads.

Better to focus on quality tweeting, honest interaction, thanking people and sharing articles that will interest your followers. Your audience will grow naturally and it won’t cost you anything other than time.

I’m pretty open about using Facebook ads for some of my posts. But there’s a reason behind that which I’m not going into in this post. Needless to say the extra traffic is negligible for the amounts I put in. But then that’s not why I do it…

Closing Thoughts on the Twitter Game

Where does this all lead? If you want to grow an audience and have a vision of where you’d like to end up, then only you know the answer to that. In the meantime, use Twitter wisely and intelligently. Watch what successful accounts do that you’re not doing. Put more thought into what you write and be a salesman.

One thing I haven’t covered here (on purpose) is viral tweets. That’s because I haven’t got it cracked yet. It seems to be hit an miss and while others appear able to get tweets viral at will, I’ve struggled. If you want to know more on that subject, learn from the master, not the student.

 

Neil

 

P.S. This post has a lot of words. Thankfully my emails are shorter. Plus, if you sign up, I’ll send you my free Ebook. Sign up here.