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How are you growing your online business with Twitter?

I'm stepping into the Twitter ring by using it to help promote my upcoming SaaS app. So far I've been posting daily updates on the "business" account, then retweeting and adding further info via my personal. Only on day 5, so not expecting much return just yet, but interested to hear what other tactics people are having success with?

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    Your best bet is probably to grow your audience as quickly as you can by growth-hacking it.

    The idea is that, the larger your audience, the greater the reach of your content, the more profile visits/content views you get, and therefore the more traffic you get to your landing page.

    Audience is everything.

    Think of Twitter as a giant mega-funnel that sucks up all your leads and dumps them at your landing page so you can convert them into users and customers.

    With that said, here's probably what you want to do, especially if you're starting from scratch/near-scratch (repurposed from a past post on IH I wrote):

    • Before you do anything, optimize your profile. I wrote about it here: https://zlappo.com/blog/ultimate-guide-optimize-your-twitter-profile-more-followers-and-conversions-examples-given/.
    • Next, start following 10-20 key influencers (big accounts) in your niche/market.
    • Add them to a private list called "Snipe." THIS IS WHERE YOU LIVE NOW.
    • Comment 10-20 times on these key influencers' tweets daily.
    • Do this for 3-6 months consistently. Day in, day out.
    • Make sure your comments add a ton of value and can actually stand on their own merit as their own tweets.
    • Double-down on influencers who engage back; cut off influencers who ignore you.
    • The goal is to leverage other people's large followings to build your own, to maximize your visibility in the easiest way possible, and also establish yourself as an up-and-coming influencer in your niche to entice people to 1) click on your name and 2) end up following you, so your profile and your content have to really look the part.
    • In 2020, this is the state-of-the-art growth hacking trick for Twitter, why else does "Eugene Gu, MD" comment so often on @realdonaldtrump's tweets?
    • Also, commenting on Twitter is a very delicate art, Twitter has its very own specific social culture/networking etiquette, here's an article I wrote on Twitter commenting strategies: https://zlappo.com/blog/4-smart-twitter-commenting-strategies-grow-your-followers-examples/.
    • Once you get some traction, start scheduling your own original tweets, automating retweets for your evergreen tweets, etc. to leverage automation to the fullest to turn your Twitter profile into a giant mega-funnel for your site/app/blog: see https://zlappo.com
    • Double-down on followers who engage with you and your content; don't bother with those who don't.
    • These people will probably be your first advocates, customers, affiliates, testimonial providers, and promoters. Treat them like your friends. Networking 101. They're your tribe.
    • Yes, you need to constantly write original content for Twitter. Platitudes, lists, actionable insights, stories, tweet storms, infographics, what have you. Here's a list of ideas: https://zlappo.com/blog/10-easy-high-engagement-tweet-ideas-grow-your-audience-faster-examples-given/.
    • You should definitely auto-retweet your evergreen/most-popular content in the background as well: https://zlappo.com/blog/how-automatically-recycle-your-evergreen-tweets-step-step-guide/.
    • You do this consistently enough, you don't even have to sell. The sale will find its way to you.

    Disclaimer: yes, I'm the founder of a Twitter growth tool company + author of a Twitter growth hacking blog

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      Amazing value here, thanks for sharing.

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    Just watched this video on growing an audience. Super helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDefPe9AhHQ

    The actionable ideas they go into detail about were:

    Create 10+ tweets a day
    Use spacing and punctuation
    Lists increase virality
    Links hurt virality
    Reply to everyone
    A good gid is worth a 1000 favorites

    There’s a whole lot more in there. Highly recommend.

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      Nice! Will have a watch. 10 tweets a day feels hard to achieve when talking about a product, but I suppose I’ve seen some companies share related news or talking points in their industry to pad it out. Thanks!

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    i'm not a pro at twitter... i just have used it for a while.

    i think it's important to just focus on a few spots, in the beginning. so, maybe just use your personal account instead of trying to use both? especially if you're new to twitter.

    gotta learn the ropes!

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      I agree - as a user I don't really like following business Twitter accounts because they don't feel as personal.

      That said, I have followed some of these because they're bootstrapped makers too.

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        i've tried making my "biz" twitter account more personal. ... i think it's working?

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      Maybe a good idea yep. I will say I used twitter way back at the start, but hoping to use it in a more business type way :)

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        i'm going to pivot away from it much later.

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    Hey Scott! For Shipright.co, I've done some Twitter ads targeting followers of specific accounts that I felt could have an interest in what we're doing. The twist here was: I did this from my personal account. Not with a typical advertisement, but just posting a question as part of our early research (linking to a Typeform e.g.).

    This worked pretty well, as it fitted more within the natural context of Twitter (actual people connecting). Gave us quite a bunch of results on the survey, which also asked if people would be up for a call / give our product a try (so this helped in getting some users to try the product)

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      Hey Frank! I think this is super smart on your side, using ads making it look like organic content. I would love to hear more cases (if you have them) on experimenting with this, since I might start trying ads myself!

      Thanks!

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    I mostly focus mostly on my personal Twitter, since it has more followers, and then retweet from my business. Seems to work well for me without being all that much more work having two accounts.

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    Hey Scott,

    I use my personal profile which I've optimized for "business". I've been on Twitter for over 10 years but have seen most of my growth come in the last 6 months (I was at 4K followers in December and am now over 6,200).

    I engage with everyone who responds to my tweets and I try to share lots of helpful information and tips. My value add is that I'm a content strategist and engineering PM who has a background in marketing, UX, and developer relations, and my goal is to help software developers become better content creators. I'm selling digital products which folks can buy, I have a free newsletter they can sign up for, and of course, I tweet!

    Engage with other accounts, especially people in your target audience. Don't just engage passively (liking or retweeting); craft thoughtful responses to their tweets and, if welcome, share some resources. Do the same on your own feed; only RT what you think is of most value to your target audience but more importantly, offer your perspective about what you're sharing. You want your feed to include highly valuable insights/tips/content that are helpful to your audience, which will drive up engagement.

    Your results may vary with this approach but I've found this incredibly helpful.

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    I was doing the same thing when I was building designtack. I used to share the progress with audience on personal twitter, then retweeting on business account. It did get me some audience.

    Since I launched the Saas a couple of days ago, I have been sharing it on twitter as well BUT I am trying my best to not appear spammy. As there is a difference between the impressions I get on tweet and the engagements on it.

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      Sounds like a similar situation! Let me your your Twitter and I’ll give you a follow :)

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        Sure, You can find me on @vaibhavthevedi .

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            Followed you back :)

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