Thread by @RyanMcCready1

Building a following is tough these days.

However, you can drive a ton of growth just by asking your followers a...question.

We used this hack to boost our Twitter following by 30% in 2 months.

And increase impressions by 300% in 30 days.

Let's break it down.

🧵

Literally all you have to do is ask your followers a question.

Or two. Or twelve.

Sounds easy, right?

Wrong!

First, you have to ask the RIGHT type of questions.

At Foundation, we try to keep the questions extremely focused on marketing or social media.

Asking people what they had for dinner or what type of coffee they like...never really took off.

With these questions, you want to give your followers the ability to show off their knowledge.

If the question is too obtuse or random, people will scroll right past it.

But if you make it easy to answer & right in their wheelhouse, they will jump at the chance to answer.

For example, this question walked the line perfectly.

It was open-ended, so almost any of our followers could answer it.

But asking them for an "underrated channel" gave them the ability to show off their knowledge.

(It was our most popular Tweet for the whole month.)

This is another good example of that idea.

The question was also open-ended, any marketing tool could be the right answer.

It was framed in a way that "veteran" marketers could give some advice to a "new" marketer.

And brands could also plug their tools, which they did.

On the other hand, this question was way too open-ended.

Instead of asking for one piece of advice, we gave our followers too much freedom.

And when you give people too many options, they will never act on just one. Or answer your question.

It only got one like.....from me.

This question suffered from a similar problem.

I think it would have performed a lot better if we asked someone to describe their job in one word to their younger self.

It would have led to a lot of funny or sarcastic answers.

But sometimes you need those!

So when asking your own questions:

✅ Stick to your niche or industry
✅ Ask for a specific outcome or answer
✅ But allow for open-ended answers
✅ And help your followers show off their knowledge

If you can hit all those points with one question, you're made in the shade.

BUT asking the right questions is only half of this hack.

You have to be ready to ENGAGE after the fact as well.

Don't just hit publish & hope your question blows up on its own.

Every answer your question gets, you should try to respond to.

Unless the answer is overtly negative, or not related to the question at all.

But not every response has to be a full-blown thought.

Sometimes it can be as simple as asking the user to elaborate on their answer.

These are my favorite because it gives that user to show off even more of their knowledge.

And most of the time this leads to other users jumping into the discussion.

Another easy way to respond to every answer is by using a simple GIF.

I mainly use GIFs when the user answers a question almost perfectly.

Or if they answer it in a funny/sarcastic way.

And finally, bring your team into the conversations.

They can answer questions or respond to other users to help keep the conversation going.

I like to answer from my personal account to remind people that they are talking to a real person too!

So there you have it!

Everything I just laid out can be used for almost any type of content. Not just questions.

Matching your niche, considering your followers, responding to every share, etc.

All of those ideas can be used when you share your next blog post or video.

But if you want to learn more about becoming a social distribution pro, sign up for our newest course!

It's a 12-day course that outlines exactly how to become a distribution superstar, like @TheCoolestCool.

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