39
33 Comments

I grew my Twitter by 45k in 10 mos & made $12k on my app before launching it. AMA!

Lemme take you back to September 2020.

  • I had ~600 followers on Twitter (probably mostly bots or family members.)
  • I couldn’t figure that app out to save my life.
  • I wanted to grow an audience so I could share my projects with the world.

Zip forward with me to the present day:

  • I have 45k followers on Twitter
  • I got my dream job as CMO of Copy.ai
  • I started another company on the side called Float.so (transforms your Notion doc into an online course instantly.)

Happy to answer any and all questions you may have, especially about sandwiches.

  1. 6

    I'll ask the obvious question... how did you grow your Twitter account so fast?? I've started using my Twitter account more often, but have seen very little growth.

    Any thoughts would be appreciated! Congrats on the success btw

    1. 5

      First off, I've been creating content online for 6 years.

      I've put in a lot of reps and figured out a LOT of things that didn't work.

      Like, a lot.

      I'm a huge believer that quantity leads to quality.

      I would prioritize publishing 10 tweets per day at first.

      Collect data on the topics and formats that seem to click with your audience.

      Eventually, your account will slowly snowball, but don't get discouraged by long periods of very slow growth.

      Last note here: create based on formats and topics you LOVE.

      If you try to chase trends, you'll get bored and quit.

      The initial uptick in traction isn't worth it.

      1. 2

        Interesting! Thought I'd piggyback off this question since I was wondering the same.

        1. Are you using a tool like Buffer to schedule your tweets or just posting them as you think of think of them?
        2. Do you try to keep your tweets to a certain character count?
        1. 2

          Great Qs!

          1. I only schedule threads and tweets that I want to send early in the morning for my overseas audience. Most of my single tweets are spur of the moment, not a ton of planning or scheduling there. When I do schedule, I use Typefully.

          2. I try to keep my tweets as shortly as they can possibly be while still being coherent. I try to edit down at least 50% of my original tweet. I don't follow any strict code for character count though.

      2. 2

        This is absolutely awesome advice. THANK YOU!

      3. 1

        I like this concept quantity leads to quality

  2. 2

    I'm amazed by the tech of Copy.ai
    Keep it up!

    1. 1

      Thanks a ton Alejandro! Much more to come!

  3. 2

    I you had only one advice to someone that want to grow his audience, what would it be?

    1. 2

      Post an insane amount of content and analyze every single result without bias.

  4. 2

    What's your favorite sandwich?

    1. 3

      Excellent question. Having lived in France and the USA, I need to give a sandwich for both as these are very different.

      France: Jambon-Beurre Parisien (simple, elegant, delicious)

      USA: Philly Cheesesteak

      1. 2

        Ah le jambon beurre!

  5. 1

    Best picks of sandwiches ever. I have lived in both countries too, and those would have been my picks.

  6. 1

    What an amazing growth story! You've been one of my favourite follows of 2021, Blake!

  7. 1

    Don't have many questions, but I absolutely love how you are repurposing content from Twitter on here. Think that's very smart Blake!

  8. 1

    Twitter seems incredibly rewarding platform

    For those who are slavishly devoted to it

  9. 1

    I'm following you for a couple of months now, great content!

    If you had to name one or two breakout moments in your Twitter account growth, what would those be?

    I'm trying to grow my Twitter account for a while now but still finding it hard.

  10. 1

    Hi Blake, what advice can you give for someone that is totally new and just starting on twitter. I don't have any followers but follows a couple of guys that are in tech. If I keep posting content, would followers come? What should I do to have a small number of followers that relates to my space? Thank you and Congratulations!

    1. 5
      1. Spend 30 minutes per day leaving thoughtful comments on related accounts (preferably accounts just barely above you in follower count)

      2. Tweet 10 times per day to start learning what topics and formats seem to work better. Double down on those, scrap the rest for now.

      3. DM 5 new people every day. Don't ask for anything, just start a conversation and see what kind of content you can create for them.

      1. 1

        Thank you so much! Very helpful! <3

  11. 1

    I love this! Thanks for sharing this, @uxblake

    Can you share a bit on how you drove followers to your app without being too salesy to the point that you got $12k in sales?

    I'm guessing the main CTA is from long threads?

    1. 1

      Hey Ramli!

      So the Float LTDs were sold only to a limited group of people (ended up being about 80 customers).

      We sold about half just from random tweets I put out that said "I have X amount of LTDs available -- who wants one?" and the other half from a livestream I did with a very popular Notion community. Did a demo and presentation and the LTD was the only CTA in the prezo.

  12. 1

    How did you presales for float?

    1. 1

      Tweeted about it twice, created urgency with a limited amount of lifetime deals.

      Also did a livestream in a very popular community to give a demo and offer the LTD at a discount.

  13. 1

    Hey Blake! How do you choose which communities to engage with or focus on contributing to? There are so many across Twitter, FB, LI, Quora, Reddit, IndieHacker, etc.
    Thanks! Fred from bliinx.com

    1. 3

      Engaging with others is awesome, especially in the beginning. But I'd actually focus more on creating your own unique content (even if it isn't very good to start.)

      If you want to supplement your own content creation with an engagement strategy, I would focus on just one platform at a time and go all in.

  14. 1

    First of all, congratulations on your success!
    With that said I would like to know exactly what type of content you put out there. For example: "tips and tricks", "dev memes", "hot takes", "showing off new tools and libraries", or anything like that.

    Also what metrics do you use to inform the performance of a piece? Do you use quant or qual data and how do you balance the two.

    I am a Twitter noob and have never used the platform but am aware of the organic audience growth potential so seeing your results, any feedback you could give would be much appreciated.

    Thank you!!!

    1. 2

      I appreciate the thoughtful question!

      The types of content I've mostly leaned on are:

      • Threads diving deep into actionable marketing advice
      • Short, punchy tweets about marketing, startups, and productivity
      • Build in public updates about my current side projects

      For metrics, I rely heavily on the rate at which users that visit my profile actually hit the follow button.

      Likes and retweets help me gauge certain topics that may merit longer-form content, but they aren't the core metrics.

      1. 1

        That's very helpful I appreciate the response! I'm going to look into using related threads to build credibility.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 29 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 15 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments