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500→1k Twitter followers in 1 month 😯

Back in October 2022, I had 500 followers on Twitter. I was roughly getting no engagement – struggling a lot.

Here are 4 learnings that doubled my growth in just one month. 👇

1. Images power

I started posting content on Twitter back in July 2022. At this time, I didn’t know nothing about it. Through my experiments, I discovered how much visual elements are powerful to create engaging content — especially on Twitter!

“Text is not enough, and videos are too much. Images are just right.

Why? Well… first, they makes it easier (faster) to get your point. And secondly, the post takes more place in people’s feeds — so it stands out.

However, there are a few rules to follow if you want these images to reveal their full potential. 👀

1k

2. Tell them stories

People are lazy when it comes to content. The easier it is to digest, the more engagement it generates. It’s that simple.

Stories are good for that. 👨‍🏫 Good news: anything can be turned into a story!

For instance, instead of just sharing a simple chart, Marc turned it into something that people can learn from:

Marc example

3. Mobile-first

Most people are browsing Twitter on mobile. That’s why you should make sure your content is appealing to their eyes as well:

  1. Avoid small details
  2. Choose backgrounds that helps highlighting the important things
  3. Use arrows to point at cool stuff

Mobile-friendly is also desktop-friendly. But not the other way around. 🤷‍♂️

For instance, instead of simply sharing a UI screenshot. I zoomed on the area of interest, and added a big red arrow to show the new button!

Affiliates

4. Delayed retweets

That one isn’t about images, but definitely helped my growth a lot (~4x my impressions).

And that trick is …🥁 retweeting your own posts!

I first heard about that in a Twitter course I bought from Arvid Kahl:

"I retweet my own content 6-12h after it’s posted. That way, I reach stragglers and Twitter friends in other time zones."

There are different reasons why it’s so effective.People aren’t online — or they might not be ready for your content. There’s a rule in marketing called “the rule of 7” saying that on average, someone needs to see your thing 7 times before they “buy”.

Auto-rt


Bonus: A quick plug 😅

In case you want to try this delayed retweet thing, but doesn’t want to wake up at 3 am: I’ve built a simple tool to automate them. You can claim your 7 days free trial here.

Oh… and btw, if you fear these retweets will clutter your feed, Sidebird has a « clean feed » feature which basically cleans every retweet made after 24h, so your feed remains perfectly clean. ✨

  1. 3

    Lillian, thank you for sharing. People love stories, and that's a great point.
    I like your attached pictures, can you tell me what tool you used?

    1. 2

      I appreciate, Joseph!

      I mostly used Figma 😊

  2. 2

    Great Twitter tips and sidebird is not only a great idea but also its website and UI appears really clean.

    May you please share what you've built the website and sidebird's UI with? Do you make use of themes respectively UI libraries or is this custom styling?

    1. 2

      Oh! Thank you so much Alexander ;)

      I've built it with Nextjs + Tailwindcss + Daisyui. 😉

  3. 2

    Just now found this gem, thanks for the tips Lilian! 🤙

    1. 1

      Glad it helped you, my friend! ❤️

  4. 2

    Hey Lilian these are some great insights, would love to implement some of them. Another method I previously read about regarding growth was to communicate with people by hosting or engaging in twitter chats and also interacting with other participants under the chat as it can bring a community together.

    We can also use a more targeted approach to understand the pain points of the audience directly. Have you tried that? Was it fruitful for you?

    1. 1

      Glad it was helpful! Twitter chats are great as well, indeed.

      The thing is: engaging publicly allows anyone that reads the chat later to benefit from the value you gave and so to become a fan!

      What's your twitter account, mate? 😊

  5. 2

    Whoa! This is really handy. I've been trying to grow on Twitter for the past year and it's been rough. I'm going to try out these strategies. And the Sidebird service looks really clean. Great job!

    1. 1

      Thank you so much! 🙌

      Growing an audience is really tough (at least it was for me ). But once you start getting some traction, it becomes so much fun 🤩

      I'm know asking myself why I didn't start earlier ;)

  6. 2

    Nice shots instead of quick&fake lifehack tips :) Thank you!

    1. 1

      I appreciate, mate! 🫶

      Glad it could help ;)

  7. 2

    Cheers for the tips! It's something that I've been thinking about it for a while.
    Currently I have around 80 followers which might be harder to make double in compare to 500! or maybe not :D

    1. 2

      You can definitely get there faster than you think!

      The most important thing to do at this stage is to interact with other creator's content. Both from your account size and bigger.

      🙌

      1. 2

        This comment was deleted a year ago.

  8. 2

    Useful insights. Thanks for sharing.

    1. 2

      Glad it helped, buddy 😊

  9. 2

    What a motivational plan of action , thanks for sharing

    1. 1

      Glad it helped, mate! 😊

  10. 2

    Pretty awesome Lilian! Thanks for sharing :)

    1. 2

      Thank you, my friend! 🥰

      Can’t wait to see all these mind blowing pics poping in my feed haha

  11. 2

    Well done, Lilian! It's super awesome following along on Twitter. Keep it up.

    And thank you for sharing your thoughts ^

    1. 1

      I appreciate the support, Phillip! 🙏

      Cheers 🥂

  12. 2

    Sidebird looks awesome! Just signed up. I've used Tweet Hunter in the past. It's a great product but I canceled my subscription ($50/m) because the only thing I was using was the scheduling and retweet features. I think you are on to something.

    1. 2

      Thank you so much, Wes! 😊

      I'm actually planning to release a browser extension of it and adding basic scheduling features as well . I'd love your feedback in few days 🙌

      1. 2

        For sure, feel free to reach out.

        1. 1

          Will do! Have a nice day ;)

  13. 2

    Hey Lilian, Great post!
    Twitter has become one of the most influential social media platforms. As such, many businesses are using it to promote their brand and gain new customers.

    Does repurposing our blogs into threads work with Twitter? How about your suggestion on it?

    1. 1

      Thank you so much, Arthi 🙌

      From my experience, I’d say that repurposing does work — yeah. But you have to keep in mind that: the shorter the better on twitter.

      Images work also on thread btw 😜

      1. 1

        Hey, got it. Thanks ✌

  14. 2

    This is an awesome post. So awesome I will try some of the tricks. Thank you for sharing.

    1. 1

      Wow! Thank you for your kind words ❤️

      Would you mind giving your twitter @ so we can connect there as well?

  15. 2

    And how do you create those images to post? I've been hovering around the 210 to 245 follower mark pretty much the whole year.

    1. 1

      I sometimes use pika.style, sometimes figma.

      I think the key at your current stage is really to focus on interacting under other people’s content to create a base audience. 😊

      1. 1

        Thanks for the recommendation and advice.

  16. 2

    man, this is like gold, I'll start to aply from the beginning!

    1. 1

      I appreciate the kind words, my friend! 🙌

      Looking forward to it! ( +1 follower haha)

  17. 2

    Great post, Lilian. It's been inspiring to watch your growth! ❤️
    I'm going to start testing these techniques... images inbound! ⚡️

    1. 1

      Images to the moon! 🚀

      It's been a pleasure to meet you online, Ray.

      Cheers to our both $10k /mo soon haha

  18. 2

    Thanks for the article, I learned so much from this Lilian!

    Congrats again on 1000 followers. You are a machine.

    1. 1

      I truly appreciate your kind words, Joe ❤️

      I'm sure you will get to 1000 soon as well!

  19. 2

    Great article Lilian!
    Your twitter growth is really impressive and you quickly became a super active member of the building in public twitter community.

    It's time to go for 5k now! 🤩

    1. 1

      I appreciate, Andy 🙏

      I discovered this community and instantly loved it. Glad I've met amazing people like you!

      Btw, you're growing really fast as well! 🚀

  20. 2

    That is great! Congrats. Thanks for sharing your tips.

    1. 1

      Thank you so much! 🙌

      I hope they'll help as many people as possible.

      How're you doing since we chatted last time, btw?

  21. 2

    Hi Lilian, thanks for sharing this. One question ❓ what would be your best tip if you are starting from zero?

    1. 2

      Hmm that's a brilliant question 😅.

      I think that would be to follow the right people. Find accounts that are posting content that inspires you. Because by doing that, you'll naturally engage with them!

      Engaging with other creator's content is by far the most important thing. Bc you'll create relationships with these people and they'll become the base of your audience 😊

      Are you thinking about creating a Twitter audience?

      1. 2

        I agree with @_justlilian . I am revamping my old twitter account. And I only have profile views when I engage with bigger accounts.

        1. 1

          Thanks for the support, mate! 😁

      2. 2

        Thank you for the tip, I have had a Twitter account for more than a decade 🙂 but
        was never active on Twitter .. Just started to engage and testing the waters

        1. 1

          To be honest: 0 to 100 followers is REALLY hard.

          I think it's even harder than 500 to 1000. But once you start to have some traction it becomes a lot more fun!

          Btw, what's your twitter @?

          1. 2

            I can imagine 😊, I just followed you on Twitter

  22. 1

    Great insights Lilian, images are really powerful on Twitter. Showing your designs/product works insanely well.

  23. 1

    I hate retweeting my own posts. I feel like it's bad taste.

    1. 1

      Totally understand. I felt like this in the beginning as well!

      But then I realised that most big accounts are doing it 🤷‍♂️

      1. 0

        Well, even if somebody very big does it, it doesn't make it a good taste... so, no, not for me. I prefer something else. Btw I was able to grow my account pretty fast to 1800 followers without this technique at all.

  24. 0

    I don't simply hit RT on posts but instead, quote RTs with different ledes. I also don't schedule tweets because I've seen things happen in real time that make brands appear tone-deaf to the moment (life-affecting breaking news). That's tough because it takes us away from middle-of-the-night readers or when we're working on other things and can't be all in, but it's a safe practice for brands. Of course, many do each of these and do it successfully. As a publicist (@gpublicity1), I work with real-time posts on all social media. In your pictures and stories part, Lillian, the word "always" comes to mind. Just as important, be SOCIAL on social media. Engage with people you follow. Yes, there's a lot of trash, but like anything else you have to be choosy -- know that your sources are credible before sharing their information. Do that and you will be rewarded.

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