Thread by @VicVijayakumar

Hey, look at that! I went from 0 to 5K followers in...14 years 🥳😂😂

Here is my growth strategy and some observations about some of my most popular tweets:

I use Twitter as a way to document my life.

I'm a parent, runner, saas builder, engineer, former engineering director, cook, violinist. I tweet about all of it. This may not a good strategy if you're a small account wanting to grow.

Outrage is addicting. The engagement from outrage tweets is like consuming empty calories.

This viral tweet came with hundreds of followers. But the people who followed me did so for a response slamming someone else, they weren't there for me.

https://twitter.com/VicVijayakumar/status/1390066153536593921?s=20

Not all followers become part of your "audience".

For example- I follow some very political bands on Twitter whose shows I'd never buy tickets to.

Not all your followers are there for *all of you*. Some are there only for your dad jokes. Some are there for your tech rants.

Sometimes it's completely random.

I tweeted about frozen garlic last week and got 200+ likes, and a bunch of followers. Why?

https://twitter.com/VicVijayakumar/status/1505563760915890182?s=20

This tweet had people in the first half, and ended with something I learned.

It is my most liked tweet ever, that lots of people across different industries could agree with, and then share their own experiences.

https://twitter.com/VicVijayakumar/status/1435384327127318528?s=20

Shared experience tweets do well.

This was a one line joke that really resonated with a lot of other devops / cicd engineers:

https://twitter.com/VicVijayakumar/status/1468627898844303369?s=20

Unfortunately this particular one also led to LinkedIn connections from companies wanting to sell me on a better CICD solution.

Not all follows are equivalent.

Say you write a tweet that get a ton of follows from personal finance twitter, that's great!

But you are primarily a TypeScript blogger. You want more engagement on those tweets. Your personal finance audience will not engage with those.

Here's a shared burden tweet that resulted in follows from unqualified audiences.

This tweet was all over instagram and facebook groups, huffpost parenting, and other sites.

https://twitter.com/VicVijayakumar/status/1242449572699549696?s=20

Got tons of followers who never engage with me.

People who follow you today may some day unfollow you.

Your interests change. You are different people today than when you eyed each others' profiles and clicked that link. It's okay.

It's a big party. Talk to everyone. Stop talking to people who no longer spark joy.

Ultimately my strategy is to just have fun. I've made a lot of friends on here by just being myself. I respond to my friends. I post dumb jokes. I tell you when I'm being a present parent with my kids because my agenda is to have dads be more involved parents. I learn in public.

If you are still here, I am going to leave you with one of the dumbest jokes I've made on here which still makes me laugh.

https://twitter.com/VicVijayakumar/status/1340502040829685762?s=20

Stay tuned for my how I got to 10K thread in 2036.