The art of attracting followers on Twitter?

Post Reply New Topic

I've avoided Twitter until just this year, when I finally got a Twitter account in April 2021, as a way to try to promote my autism community-related goals.

I would appreciate any advice anyone can give me on how to attract followers on Twitter.

In the meantime, I'll also share what I've learned from my own experience so far, most of which is probably obvious to experienced Twitter users. If anyone notices that the following is mistaken in any way, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Perhaps the most important thing I've learned is that it is generally better to reply to other people's tweets than to post original tweets of one's own. It seems that if you don't already have tens of thousands of followers, hardly anyone will see your original tweets. So your tweets are much more likely to get seen if you post in already-existing threads that were started by someone with lots of followers.

Thus, the vast majority of my tweets are replies. Occasionally I also do re-tweets, mainly as a way of keeping track of stuff I may want to refer back to later. My re-tweets, just like my very few original tweets, aren't likely to be seen by very many people. But re-tweets (along with "Likes") are, at least, an effective way of expressing good will toward the person being re-tweeted (unless the re-tweet is accompanied by a nasty comment, of course).

In my experience, not only are replies generally seen by many more people than original tweets, but replies to replies are generally seen by even more people than replies directly to the original tweets. Indeed the best way to be seen, as far as I can tell, is to jump into a discussion involving at least two relatively high-profile people.

Because my special interest is the autistic community, I keep a list of links to autism-related hashtags (on my website, here) and look at them semi-regularly to find discussions I can make a hopefully-worthwhile contribution to.

One basic thing I haven't done yet, that I know I should do sooner or later, is to give myself a suitable avatar and profile picture. I just haven't yet gotten around to figuring out what images I want to use for these.

Hi Mona,

Building a following can feel like a catch-22 problem - you need exposure to get followers, but you need followers to get exposure - or, that's how it gets framed. It has led you to a few conclusions which are technically correct, but not as useful as you'd think. Here's a few things I've learned in the business, and while growing a facebook audience for pages I've run.

Replying to already popular people might increase the number of people who might see you, but it does not help any of them actually notice you. It's like being a particularly loud audience member. You're still in the crowd, and are lost in the sea of other comments, no matter how good yours might be. Retweets you get as a result help THEM, but not so much YOU. Your responses help prop THEM up, but don't make YOU stand out. Especially if it's a conversation between two or more popular people - everyone is gonna be looking at them, more so than the comments or replies.

Original content drives the machine. When you post on other people's posts, or retweet their posts, you're doing more for them than you. My suggestion would be to take your responses, and instead post them in a manner where you're the one starting the discussion, and your thoughts regarding it. These tweets will then lead back to YOU, rather than the person you're replying to. Using replies and retweets requires the person to change direction from the person they were initially following - assuming they even single you out in the comments to begin with - too easily lost in the noise and flow.

Make the content yours, and make a lot of it, and post it often. Be consistent and persistent. Take advantage of salience. If people see a thing more often, they are more likely to remember it later on. Make at least one post every day, reminding people about your website with resources, as a sort of public service reminder, in addition to whatever other content you make.

In the beginning, the trick is to not rely on twitter itself to be the thing that builds your following. Wherever you are, pitch your site. Here, other forums, other platforms, IRL, friends and family, smoke signals, graffiti on a water tower or highway overpass, whatever it takes, every chance you get. Pitch it, push it, pimp it.

I used to do the same thing as you, reply in a lot of places hoping people would follow it back to me - never happened. I started making a bunch of posts about things I felt people could use - in particular I posted a printable template that helped fabricate a custom part for a popular tuner car I drive, and wrote up a few how-to's on some procedures that people asked about a lot. I also switched from simply replying to posts, to engaging directly with people, and overtly suggesting "check out my facebook page!" And not just on facebook, but anywhere I was, online or IRL, if I thought they'd be interested, I'd suggest it. "Oh, you're into cars? Check out my facebook page!" Once I got about 100 followers, and it was my own posts that were being followed, whenever they shared or liked the post, it was MY post, and not someone else's post, that got the attention, and I started noticing increased traffic growing on its own.

A decent avatar and picture are good things, but not quite as important as the rest. It takes a little time, and a little work, but once you've corralled enough people towards your site / account, it will start to grow itself from people sharing your original content directly. It was a similar deal with the facebook page I ran for my father's business. I made a ton of content, released it twice a day or more, and pitched it constantly, anywhere I went. The business is now closed (father retired) but the page still has a fairly decent following from the people who went there.

No guarantees, but give it a shot. It should help. If you have a webpage as well, make sure the page and twitter both mention and suggest the other directly, with a link if possible. Push them both wherever you go.

Hope this helps.

I do have other avenues of outreach. My primary outreach is via Meetup.com. I also have a website and a Wordpress.com blog.

Also, before COVID, I did a fair bit of in-person outreach. (Still can't go back to business-as-usual in that regard, especially here in NYC.)

One problem, though, is that my Meetup.com and Twitter accounts have two very different (though related) use cases:

1) The primary purpose of Meetup.com is to promote local groups in a locally-focused way. So I use Meetup.com as my primary outreach for the sake of building my own local autistic peer-led groups.

2) On the other hand, on Twitter, I encounter very few New Yorkers, but lots of #autistic people from all over the world -- many of whom (more so than most of the Wrong Planet crowd) have strong societal/political concerns about the human rights of various marginalized categories of people, including autistic people. So, on Twitter, my main aim is to encourage #autistic people to form other autistic peer-led groups, in other locales, as discussed on the following pages of my website:

- Longterm visions for the autistic community
- Autistic Workers Project

My main website straddles both of the above use cases and more. It contains pages about my local groups as well more general stuff like the two essays linked above. Hopefully it will eventually, also, contain large and well-organized lists of resources, including local services for autistic adults in NYC and some of the more-informative adult autism resources on the web generally.

My Twitter profile contains links to my main website, and so does my pinned tweet.


That's odd. You NEVER got ANY followers that way? That's how I got the vast majority of my (admittedly not very many, only 65 as of today) followers since I started my Twitter account in April of 2021.

On Twitter, I typically make the rounds of the hashtags listed here and make sympathetic remarks about whatever issues people are complaining about, and then remark about how it would help a lot if someone could create an autistic-led organization of some relevant kind (most often, an organization of autistic autism researchers -- an org I myself am in no position to build).

When I reply to other people's tweets, about 10% to 20% of the time my reply contains a link to a relevant page of my own website. I don't do this ALL the time, to avoid looking like a spammer, but I do link to my website when I have good reason to believe that the person will appreciate it.

On Twitter I also participate in other ways too, e.g. by answering questions.


I think the way I use Twitter is actually a form of what you call "engaging directly with people." I don't usually reply directly to tweets by the most-popular people. Instead I usually reply to replies to ... replies, as far down in the thread as possible.


Twitter, by its very nature, is hard to use as a primary source of substantial content. At least a tweet is now allowed to contain 280 characters, not just 140, as used to be the case until November 2017. Still, even the 280 character limit is awfully short.

So I am more interested in using Twitter to attract attention to my website than vice versa.


Probably the most useful thing on my website, currently, is my list of Online forums and social media for autistic people, including message board forums (such as Wrong Planet), Twitter hashtags, Reddit communities, and Discord servers.

Also there's the section of my website on Autistic-friendly social skills vs. blending in with NT's, which contains several pages with links to various tutorials. (The tutorials are by people other than myself, although the lists are prefaced by some commentary by me.)

At some point I should probably add social media share buttons to my website's, template so people can more easily share my website's pages on social media if they so choose.

Now back to the beginning of your post:


As I explained above, I usually don't reply directly to the popular people, but rather to other people who replied to replies to ... replies to the popular people. That way, not just the popular people, but also at least a few other people, receive notifications about my tweet (if their settings allow this, at least). Usually at least one of the people from the thread above me -- and a few other people, as well -- then reply to me and/or "Like" my tweet, and in some cases start following me. This is how I've gotten nearly all my followers, so far, apart from a few people who followed me at the very beginning because they are either personal friends or regularly-attending members of my local groups.


Of course, other factors being equal, it would be better to be on the stage than be just a "particularly loud audience member." But what would be the point of being on the stage of an almost-empty room, with hardly any already-existing audience?

Perhaps, also, I should clarify to you what my aims are, in the first place. See below.


I don't mind helping them as well as myself, given my aim of helping to build the autistic community as a whole -- of which I don't ever expect to become a leader of more than a small part. I don't aim to become one of the big autistic stars who run around on the autism conference circuit.


One problem, for me, is that I just don't have the energy to create huge amounts of original content. Replies are a lot easier.

I do create some original content, but I prefer to put my original content on either my website or my blog rather than on Twitter. However, on my website and blog, I would rather create a limited amount of high-quality content than a whole lot of content-for-the-sake-of-content.


This would be the case if I were replying directly to the popular people, but not if I'm replying further down in the thread, as I usually do. I almost always get at least some response, either a "Like" or a reply, or both, usually from at least two or three people at a time.

It doesn't matter if meetup is for local people. Local people have non-local friends. Any one of them that likes or follows or w/e now exposes you to all of their friends, whoever and wherever they are. Like the "two people each telling two people", except instead of two friends, it's two hundred or two thousand. It's the same logic as your replying to replies to replies, but implemented more from the top down than the bottom up. In that same token, it doesn't matter if Twitter is more global, it's still entirely common to advertise local resources publicly over twitter. Even people who aren't near it, may still repost it for those who are.

The point of performing for an empty room, is for there to even be a room for people to come to in the first place, to see you perform. You can't fill a room that doesn't exist. OTOH, while being a voice in the crowd may get you "heard" by a few people, you're till not the Headliner, the Main Act. Exposure is not the same thing as recognition. If it was, we'd all know who designed the 20 dollar bill. Certainly some people do, but it's hardly widespread. Yes, it increases the number of people who could see you, IF they bother to look there. Yes, you do get a few, but how many, compared to the total number of views you should or could be getting if all that exposure was all that helpful.

Nope, didn't get a single follower that way. Even people that kept asking me for advice, still didn't actually like or follow the page till I prodded them to do so. To them, I wasn't my own page, I was a useful entity on THAT page. They would just post more on THAT page, hoping I'd respond. People would like my comments, on THAT page, and would share them, from THAT page, but none of it translated back to traffic on MY page. When my comment got shared from their page, I wasn't my own page, I was content on THEIR page. And while there's nothing wrong with helping others, if the goal is to also help yourself, then making sure you do actually help yourself seems relevant. A few likes here and there show support, but as you can see, it still doesn't exactly propel things on its own.

OTOH, I made ONE post, providing something I knew was desirable, tracked down people who were looking for it, and waved it in their faces, with the link leading to MY page - whammo, likes shares follows. Kept doing it, things kept improving.

Even if the main goal is to use Twitter to attract people to the website, that still requires your twitter to have not only exposure, but recognition. The goal may be slightly different, but it doesn't really change the approach. Bottom line, for whatever reason, to make your twitter more visible, whether for itself, or as a vehicle to help propel the website.

Turning a response into original content is pretty easy. A reply can be original content, if both the question and answer come from you. If you're replying to someone else's tweet, all you do is paraphrase their comment as a premise to which you are responding, having asked it yourself. A simple example. If someone says "I don't know how to help my autistic son", and you reply with some relevant resources or advice, to make that into an original post, all you do is make your own post that starts with "I recently saw a concerned parent ask for help with their autistic son. Here's the advice I gave them" and then copy paste the response you already wrote. Follow up with "for more advice, like follow share, and go to my website". That's only slightly more work than the replies you already write in the first place. All you're doing is taking the thing you already wrote, giving it a short intro to provide context, and adding a website plug at the end.

Original content doesn't mean "something totally unique". It just means you're running the show. "Original" as in it originated from you. Your replies ARE your original content. You're just framing them more directly. Rather than being the tail end of a discussion already in progress started by other people, you're now starting it as your own discussion, on your terms.

It's not enough to just be out there where people can or might see you. You still have to catch their attention, and stick in their memory. Many people don't even follow comments or replies, let alone replies to replies. You can put your sticker on someone else's car and hope people notice, or you can drive around like Ace Ventura with your head out the window, announcing your twitter handle to anyone within earshot. I have found the latter to be far more effective.

While you might be getting "some" response, is it actually translating into exposure that you can use, to help push your website? Their "like" and response is still just as buried and lost as your reply, which does you no good if more people don't notice it. If they actually went to your page as a result, and liked and followed YOU, rather than just your post, that would be helpful. It's like singing along at a concert. The person next to you in the crowd might hear you and say they like you - even a dozen or so might - but at the end of they day, they're going to remember the person in the stage more than the person in the crowd.

Which leads back to performing in an empty room - you make the noise to draw the attention to get people to come into the room. And then OTHER people are commenting on YOUR posts, which helps you in the same way that you commenting helps others. But you have to make the posts for people to comment on them. You have to have the room to play in, for people to then come in to. And people are more likely to come into the room if music is already playing, than if you don't start playing until AFTER you get people into the empty room they have no reason to be in just yet, cos no music is playing.

It sounds like you're doing a lot of good stuff - it just needs a little adjustment as to how it's implemented. It wouldn't take much to change your format, to both reply as you're doing, and to tweet your replies out directly as a discussion of your own creation.

Things like this often take more work than people expect - sometimes lots more work - to get them off the ground. There aren't really any shortcuts or secret tricks other than "get lucky" or "already be famous".

Can't hurt to give it a shot. At worst, you lose a little time and effort - at best, you do get more followers.

This reminds me of back when I was running a webshop and was active on a forum about the software used.
When a question I knew an answer to was asked in the forum, instead of answering it there and then, I'd sometimes write a blog post, if I hadn't already, and point to the blog post instead.

/Mats

Perfect example of converting a reply into original content.

I suspect that the disagreements between uncommondenominator and myself might be due to differences between Facebook and Twitter.

On Twitter, the method I described actually IS getting me followers (not just "Likes" on my individual tweets) -- albeit slowly (just two or three new followers per week, currently) -- whereas uncommondenominator says a similar method on Facebook didn't get him any followers (or whatever you call them on Facebook) at all.

On the other hand, because Facebook doesn't have Twitter's length limit on posts, a Facebook page can be used like a blog, to a greater extent than Twitter can. Neither Facebook nor Twitter has all the features of a proper blogging platform (like Wordpress.com or Google Blogger), but Facebook is more blog-like than Twitter, and thus lends itself better to being a source of original content. This might make uncommondenominator's approach more feasible on Facebook than on Twitter.

What is your Twitter account? I couldn't work it out from the link. Gave me some interesting resources to follow though, thanks.

Clicking on the link didn't work? Or do you just mean you weren't able to copy and paste the URL? Here's a link with the URL spelled out:

https://twitter.com/MonaPereth

Is this better?


I'm puzzled. This sounds like you did succeed in viewing it, at least?

Or are you talking about some other link in one of my posts?

Here on WP, I have a link to my Twitter account in my signature, so I didn't bother putting it in my posts themselves too.

Do you have WP set to suppress signatures?

The methods I have described were taught to me while attending e-commerce training at the city chamber of commerce. They generally apply equally to any form of social media, regardless of it's format. I would use these same methods, altered slightly as needed, on pretty much any platform. Twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, blogs, etc.

This isn't just "stuff I noticed while doing facebook". I only reference facebook specifically, as it is a real-world example of having actually applied these principles, and it being effective. I learned it formally from professionals, then implemented it with positive results. Were I on twitter, I would aim to use the same methods.

Twitter is not prohibitive to original content just cos it has a character limit. ""Come look at my website!" is original content, if it's a tweet that originated directly from you, rather than being a reply to someone else. Taking a tweet that you used as a reply, and copying it to a new tweet fresh from you, not replying to anything, suddenly becomes original content. "Original" as in the conversation taking place originated from you, rather than it being a reply to others.

Think of it like replying to a thread on here. While the thread is in the process of growing, a few people might see your responses - but in the long run, people will most often read the first page and the last page, and the post now lives in obscurity. Once that post dies down, it then fades down the list of up-to-date topics, making it even less visible.

OTOH, those who start the threads get noticed for starting the threads. No matter how many replies they get, the entire conversation is still pointed at their name. Their starting of the thread sets the stage. This very thread is an example of original content. You personally started the conversation. My replies, while my own words, are still an extension of your topic that you started. This is your conversation, and you will be remembered for it. Me, not so much, especially if this thread grows big enough that my posts get lost in it.

My suggestions are certainly not the only way. But they are highly effective methods used by professionals. I suppose I am a little confused as to what kind of advice you're looking for.

If you were to use them on Twitter (as a newbie, starting from zero followers, without an as-yet well-developed ability to bring followers in from your other social media accounts either), I think you would have discovered that your trainer was wrong about Twitter, even if they were correct about other social media.

Or maybe the e-commerce training session you attended, however many years ago, is just out-of-date w.r.t. Twitter today? How long ago did you attend that training session?


My experience as a newbie on Twitter is that my original tweets get completely ignored (even when I use relevant hashtags), whereas my replies do get occasional followers and occasional retweets as well as plenty of replies and "likes." Hopefully, as I gain more followers, I will eventually reach a point where my original tweets can get some attention too.


You are correct about Wrong Planet. (Only problem is, the moderators don't like it if you post too many new threads.)

Twitter -- and other social media -- work very differently from old-fashioned message board forums like Wrong Planet.


That's true here on WP, but less so on Twitter.

Here on WP, threads are listed in reverse chronological order of the last reply, NOT ranked on popularity of the user who posted the original post. Also, here on WP, threads are listed in the same order for everyone who views them, NOT based on some algorithm that guesses which threads a given viewer will be most interested in, as is the case on nearly all of today's social media platforms.


I was looking for refinements to what I've learned already about attracting followers on Twitter, specifically. I was hoping to hear from people knowledgeable about Twitter, specifically. What works well on other social media platforms might not, for one reason or another, work as well on Twitter.

Ah, I didn't see your Twitter link in your signature. I clicked on a blog post link you posted in the OP with useful social media links.

I would recommend a colourful profile photo for Twitter. It doesn't need to be you, but something bright and eye catching.

When I see a blank profile head I always think "this person isn't invested in this account".

Yes, I know I should put something there. I just haven't yet figured out what.

Some advice about Twitter etiquette from Autistic Max (@MaxieMoosie) on Twitter:

Makes sense I guess.

In the past, I've had a tendency to write long tweet-threads as replies. Maybe I should put the long replies in separate blog posts, to be linked to in a single tweet.