The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide
I joined Twitter in 2020.
Like almost everyone, I used to think it was debate, politics, and people biting each other’s heads off.
3 years later, I’ve got career opportunities, have a 3.5K+ audience, created and launched 7 products, and made $1000+ in sales.
All from what I learned on Twitter and by growing on Twitter.
It changed my career and life.
And that’s not just my story..
People have started a business, selling products, and got clients by having an engaged audience there.
Twitter is the simplest platform to start a journey of making online dollars while being ANYWHERE in the world.
No need to be dancing on TikTok, creating Instagram carousels, or competing with $5 bids on Upwork.
You only need to write 280 chars and more.
If you want to grow on Twitter from tomorrow and make 2024 YOU feel blessed that you started..
Here’s how to do it from SCRATCH with steps and examples -
Stage 1 — Tweeting
Stage 2 — Fixing your profile
Stage 3 — Engage Engage Engage
Stage 1 — Tweeting
Step 1 — Think about what you are going to share
Before you start tweeting, you need to know what are you going to tweet about.
You need a topic, which in marketing terms is called “niche”
Why?
Because if you share anything and everything — there’s a low chance people are going to follow you.
How many people do you follow without knowing what they do or what they can teach you?
So, pick a topic.
You can pick your expertise — for example if you’re a software engineer, you can pick tech and coding.
Or you can pick something you want to learn — for example writing, or marketing.
Don’t assume that once you pick your niche, you’re bound to it forever or that you can write about it ONLY.
Nope.
You’ll be sharing things about your life, your journey, views too..
but consistently, you’ll be talking about your niche.
Here’s a list of niche that is widely popular on Twitter (in the circles of making money)
- Writing
- Marketing
- Tech and Coding
- SaaS and entreprenuer
- Creator and Audience Growth
- Health and Fitness
- Web designer
- Freelancer
- Parenting
Step 2 — Use the Twitter search and check out the top Tweets
You’re a beginner and you don’t know how to write a tweet.
For this, you’re going to be using Twitter search.
Let’s say — your niche is copywriting.
Go to Twitter search and type this
“copywriting min_faves:200”
Min_faves means minimum likes.
This query means — you’ll get all tweets with the word ‘Copywriting’ having minimum likes — 200.
Now that you can see loads of tweets that worked, take help from them and write.
Step 3 — Write 20 tweets and schedule them
Write 20 tweets together.
Whatever you write, make sure its
- Simple
- Has line breaks
- Easy to understand
Those are 3 basic principles of tweeting.
You don’t want to appear as a block of text when someone’s scrolling.
So, keep it clean and simple.
Now, why I’m asking you to schedule is — when you’re starting your journey, engaging is more important than tweeting.
You need to spend 30 minutes minimum every day engaging.
So why not - write your tweets in advance and get it over with?
To schedule you can use the Twitter web app (check out how NO BRAINER simple that tweet is)
Click on the button here, fill in the time and date — and you’ll be done.
Or you can use tools that help in automation (and a lot more)
The Twitter web app scheduler has just one feature + it cannot schedule threads, which are way too important for growth.
So, you can use SaaS made specifically for this.
One such tool is Hypefury.
It has an inspiration panel for a lot of niches, templates to write easy tweets and more advanced features.
We’ve understood how to write tweets.
Now let’s jump to Stage 2.
Stage 2 — Fixing your profile
You’ve started tweeting.
But you need to have a great profile for people to follow.
Your profile is like a website of you.
People will come, look at your picture, and banner, scroll a bit, and then decide if they want to click the follow button or not.
And so, before you start engaging— do a profile revamp.
Step 4 — Fix your profile picture and banner
Add a profile picture of yourself.
No one wants to talk to a circle without a face.
You can use an animated image of yourself if you don’t want to show your face.
Make sure it’s a closeup and not an Instagram mirror selfie :p
Along with this, add a banner.
Your banner should tell people what they should follow you for.
You can make an easy one on Canva.
It has a drag-and-drop interface- pretty easy even if you don’t know how to design.
If you’re struggling with what to put on your banner
- Put 3 icons related to what you’re gonna tweet about
- Write a quote that resonates with your niche
Here are some good banners + profile pictures to understand
Step 5 — Add a bio
Your bio is a small introduction about you.
It should be about yourself but also what you’re bringing to the table.
A good formula is
“What you teach about | Social Proof | A bit about yourself”
Let’s say you’re a beginner and learning about coding.
Your bio can be -
“Tweeting about webhooks and backend development. Made 5 web apps. Student and learner”
Some examples of good bios -
You can read this thread to learn how to write a bio so good that any viewer cannot stop themselves from clicking “FOLLOW”
Step 6 — Add a Pinned thread
First up, a thread is a series of tweets on a particular topic.
And threads GO VIRAL.
They’re also a great way to share your story and expertise in detail — since tweets have a character limit.
You can pin a tweet/thread on the top of your profile— so it's the first one people see when they come.
A pinned thread should tell
- Your journey
- Your expertise
- Your best bits
It’s your first impression. Make it count.
Some types of pinned threads you can do with examples are —
- Your journey
It could be a fat-to-fit story, or how you failed at something and won, or anything about your life.
This is to make people feel invested in you and your growth + show you’re a human too.
Try to end it with lessons for your reader — so they have something to learn.
2. Your expertise
Share what you’ve achieved.
And a step-by-step process to achieve the same.
In all the threads or tweets you write, make sure there’s value for the reader.
Even if it's a personal story or your expertise, break it down in a way, and add lessons in the end so there’s value.
Here’s an amazing thread by Mike whose niche is landing pages.
3. Your best bits
Share the best of your journey and help everyone.
It might not be much — like making million dollars but even if it is $ 0 to $1 or hitting publish for the first time, it is valuable to someone.
Do not underestimate it.
Here’s what my pinned thread looks like!
So by now,
You know how to write tweets and your Twitter profile is revamped.
Now the most important part is to engage with people.
When you’re starting, you’re tweeting in a void.
No one’s going to come across your profile on their own.
It's like if you’re at home, you can’t make new friends.
You have to get out there.
That’s what engaging means.
You read everyone else’s tweets and you reply.
When people come to read comments or comment —
they see your reply.
If it’s good, they go “oh wow interesting, let me check this guy out”,
come to your profile, and then depending on the profile + tweets (that we already did in 2 stages), they follow you.
So let’s start the final stage of engaging with the right people.
Step 7 — Purge your follower list. Follow the correct people.
First up, your Twitter account must be old.
And you may be following your president, media houses bla bla bla.
Unfollow everyone. Don’t do politics now.
Start following good accounts of your niche.
Don’t follow companies since they won't engage.
Write your niche on Twitter search, check out people it recommends, and follow them.
For example - if I type Marketing I see some names
Go follow the names that appear (and not the groups/companies).
Then go to their “Following” so you see more people in your niche.
And follow some more.
Step 8 — Engage
Once you’ve followed some 200 people, stop.
Don’t follow a thousand people because following : 1000 and followers:10 doesn’t look too cool.
Whenever their tweets come on your feed, reply to them.
Engage with them.
Don’t just write “Great tweets” because that’s not interesting enough to click on your profile.
Ask yourself if you can
- Ask a question
- Add to the wisdom
- Add your past experience
Then do so.
One sneaky tip — You likely followed people with HUGE follower count in step 7.
Now whenever you check their comment section, you’ll find small/medium creators who have similar niches to you and are growing.
Check them out and follow them.
They are more likely to engage with you than the big names.
You need to engage with the big names because replying to their tweet will give you more visibility.
You need to engage with small/medium accounts because those will reply back and probably become your online friends.
Step 9 — Use Twitter lists
While engaging everyday remember 3 things
- Your reply should make them CLICK
- You should reply to the same people consistently so they start knowing you
- Reply to 20 BIG accounts (greater than 20K followers) and 20 Small/Medium Accounts (followers between 0–20K)
To make everything easier, make a Twitter list.
In a Twitter list, you can add accounts, and then you’ll see tweets only from people on the list.
This is how you make it.
That’s it.
3 Stages and 9 Steps.
To Recap
Stage 1 — Tweeting
- Step 1- Think about what you are going to share
- Step 2- Use the Twitter search and check out the top Tweets
- Step 3- Write 20 tweets and schedule them
Stage 2 — Fixing your Profile
- Step 4- Fix your profile picture and banner
- Step 5- Add a bio
- Step 6- Add a Pinned thread
Stage 3 — Engage Engage Engage
- Step 7- Purge your follower list. Follow the correct people.
- Step 8- Engage
- Step 9- Use Twitter Lists
Do this for the next 45 days and you’ll reach 1000 followers.
You only have to do two things consistently
1. Tweet everyday
2. Engage with at least 40 people
It might seem a slow process at the start but as they say, the first 1000 is the hardest.
Everything becomes easy after that.
Building an audience is great insurance against recession and job loss.
Once you have this, you can expand your sources of income.
Imagine earning your rent money online and clearing your debts from online hustle.
It’s possible — if you start now.
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Hi, I’m Arunima. I’m a writer and crazy about creating digital products and building an audience.
If you liked the story, could you give it some love? I would love to reach 100 followers sooner — to send my articles to publications.
You can follow me here for more stories on writing, building audiences, and digital products!
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Thank you for reading :)
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