Thread by @dunkhippo33

From my experience in starting from 2k and going to 75k followers as well as watching others on Twitter, here's a Monday thread on using Twitter as a tool to:

-grow your audience
-find new hires
-find investors
-sell your product

Read on >>

1) In this day and age, I think that MOST people / entities can benefit from being active on Twitter.

Even if you are not well-connected and don't have a network, you can build one NOW on Twitter. I LOVE that.

Here are some poster-child examples:

2) Finding investors:

I think @MacConwell did this super well for his $10m fund. He went from nobody to famous-VC is about 1-1.5 years. If you haven't heard his @twentyminutevc podcast, it's really inspirational - and thank you for the shoutout in it!

https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings/status/1455246315668086784?s=20

3) How did he get LPs w no network?

He tweeted great thoughts about investing & startups. His tweets were inspirational & informative. He was consistent! It's not good enough to tweet a bit & stop.

This is actually why I invested personally as a small LP - he is great at mktg.

4) Finding new hires (and investors):

@PaulYacoubian has done an AMAZING job building in public with @copy_ai. They are the poster child of transparency. (Thank you for letting @HustleFundVC invest!)

https://twitter.com/PaulYacoubian/status/1438960229753008128?s=20

5) Paul has also posted about company building, hiring, culture, etc.

This has helped get them investors / customers / new hires. People get to know @copy_ai from Twitter. This is a huge recruiting edge.

This is how he got his first hire:

https://twitter.com/PaulYacoubian/status/1364646309286662147?s=20

6) You might say "well @copy_ai 's audience is marketers and they all hang out on Twitter, so how does this apply to my business?"

@AmandaMGoetz whose co @house__of__wise sells to women has been using Twitter from day 1 to build community & get sales.

https://twitter.com/AmandaMGoetz/status/1417137781021855756?s=20

7) The key similarity across all these founders is Twitter consistency.

@AmandaMGoetz even talks about how her goal was to tweet 3-5 times *per day* in the beginning as part of her strategy.

https://twitter.com/AmandaMGoetz/status/1322196096953831425?s=20

@house__of__wise just surpassed $1m rev runrate in year 1.

8) Here are a couple of reasons why people don't build a large Twitter following.

a) They give up too quickly. This is probably the top reason.

9) When I was at about 10k followers or so, I felt like I was stuck at a wall. Gosh, why are my tweets not working?!?!

Later, I downloaded a CSV of my tweets. And I noticed there were many days where I did not tweet even once.

10) If you're going to do marketing, you need to do it consistently -- ALL THE TIME for at least a yr.

It's not good enough to post once a wk or every other day. Although it felt like I was pretty active on Twitter (and I was), I wasn't tweeting 3-5x per day everyday.

11) It's no secret that large Twitter followings are highly correlated with lots of tweeting!

So why do ppl not tweet a lot? Often it's because they're afraid of saying something silly. Or take too long to publish their tweet thread. Or are trying to find the right timing.

12) In most cases (not all), the right answer is to just post. And keep posting, collect data, keep measuring, and create feedback loops.

13) That brings me to the second reason why ppl are not successful at growing large followings -- ppl are not analytical about what works OR are too analytical too early.

At this point, I know what topics will really resonate with ppl and will draw followers.

14) You won't be able to draw those conclusions in the beginning. At all. It will feel splotchy. Because there are so many variables -- who likes your post initially, how quickly your post gets engagement, time of day, etc.

It's not just about what you write.

15) And so ppl give up because Twitter is a chaotic machine that is unpredictable.

But if you keep posting, two things happen a) eventually you will figure out what *tends* to work. Not always. But most of the time.

16) And b) even if it doesn't work very well at first, if you have more followers just from brute-force tweeting, then you'll get more likes on your tweets that will push your tweet to become popular later. What do I mean by this?

17) So for example, I know that for me, tweeting in the mornings on a wkday is generally not effective. Few ppl engage.

But with more followers, if I can get enough likes, then it will be popular *enough* to show up in people's feeds at a better time later.

18) So sometimes tweets that are posted at a bad time hang in there long enough to become popular when more ppl engage with tweets later.

Slow-start tweets can pick up steam. But that only happens if you have enough followers. So this doesn't show up when you have 1k followers.

19) And this can be discouraging because then it's hard to make heads or tails of what tweets work and when.

So you need enough followers to be able to analyze this well and that's why "brute force" consistency in itself is important. Tweet everyday.

19) So tl;dr

-most ppl / companies can benefit from Twitter for customers, investors, hires, etc
-patterns don't show up until you have lots of followers; don't overanalyze and talk yourself out of tweeting
-so tweet a lot
-like everything else, consistency and patience is key