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19 Comments

One random tweet - 159 new twitter followers and 17 project inquiries

Hey fellow indiehackers! 👋

Some of you probably know who Andrew Wilkinson is.

Last Wednesday, I noticed his fresh tweet (to be honest, I have notifications turned on 😉) and replied with a link to our Dribbble.

No expectations, just a casual share since I thought he might find it useful.

Then it all started. For someone who has never really killed it on Twitter and most of the time screams into the void, that was huge for me.

Likes, follows, replies - a couple of hours of constant dopamine hits.

the_tweet

Some stats

After 15 hours:

  • 92 new followers to my personal twitter account

  • 51 new followers to Altalogy twitter account

  • 53 new followers to Altalogy Dribbble account

  • 11 project inquiries (4 my twitter DM, 1 Altalogy twitter DM, 1 Dribbble DM, email 4, Linkedin 1

Total one week later:

  • 101 new followers to my personal twitter account

  • 58 new followers to Altalogy twitter account

  • 64 new followers to Altalogy Dribbble account

  • 17 project inquiries (5 my twitter DM, 1 Altalogy twitter DM, 3 Dribbble DM, email 7, Linkedin 1

Also, tweet analytics.
the_tweet

What's interesting to me is that almost 1/3 of people who visited my profile hit follow (345 profile clicks -> 101). That's of course approximate since some people may came to my profile from other sources.

The other thing is Altalogy account follows - that's surprising to me since the account has not been referenced in the tweet and looked mostly abandoned. We rarely share anything and had around 50 followers back then.

My theory why it worked

  • I think the thumbnail showed a shot that matched what Andrew was looking for - typography, color, branding. That wasn't my intention, though. It was just the last shot uploaded.

  • I was quick. When I posted my reply, there was only two of them and mine was the one with any visual aspects to it. It was also less than a minute after Andrew sent his tweet.

  • Andrew replied he loved it - best social proof ever. When I talked to people who decided to get in touch, most of them mentioned that that was exactly what triggered them to reach out.

  • It didn't feel as much of a self-promo. I just recommended to check it out, no begging for contact, etc. That goes a long way IMO.

Key takeaway

That is flashy stuff. One-off spike. It helps a lot to have these every now and then as it keeps you motivated and provides new opportunities.

But this is not a sustainable way to grow.
Focus on repeatable actions and tactics. Almost no product/service took off on a single PH launch or viral tweet.

Thanks for reading thus far, your feedback/questions are more than welcome! 😉

Oh, and this is the tweet

  1. 2

    This is pretty amazing Dawid. Did you follow this guy or used Twitter search to find people currently looking for designers?

    1. 1

      Thanks! I'm a long time fan on Andrew and I just have notifications turned on for all his new tweets :)

  2. 2

    Good insights 👏
    You mentioned it yourself that the thumbnail was a really good fit. Could part of a strategy be to ensure you have a thumbnail that matches or use an image instead?
    I think that your visual helped a lot, also as you state time was fast.
    Congrats in your success. :)

    1. 1

      Thank you! 🥳
      Having a thumbnail that matches the requirements mentioned in the tweet was serendipity.

      If I were to adjust it, I wouldn't be that quick with my reply, so there's a trade-off between being first and being the best fit :)

  3. 2

    Nice write-up Dawid, one more reason for the success of the tweet is that your work is really good, if it wasn't, none of the other reasons would have mattered :)

    I expect this write-up to also be a success and lead to more exposure, not sure if you meant it though :)

    Thanks for sharing

    1. 1

      Thank you! To be honest with you - last Wednesday I decided to wait one week and write this story once I have the big picture on the outcomes.

      Of course, I though such a post might be well-suited to indiehackers community, people would find it interesting etc.

      Although I didn't expect to build a twitter following by sharing it, I'm super happy to see fellow indie hackers find value or inspiration here :)

      And speaking about exposure, that's always nice but I don't think it will be of similar order of magnitude :)

  4. 2

    Good job Dawid, it's so satisfiying to see hard work pay off, I am happy for you because you really do a great work!

    1. 1

      So kind of you Johan, thank you!

  5. 2

    Great write-up. Good work :D.

    1. 1

      Cheers Jeremy! 😊

  6. 2

    Nice! I actually see the original tweet and your reply while it happened. I noticed the engagement also 😉

    1. 1

      Yeah, I will miss that day 😅 Cheers, @Paolo!

  7. 2

    Some newbie questions here. How did you follow up Andrew's response in which he said he loved your work? Did you contact him via DM and introduced yourself? Or maybe after seeing his comment you felt confident enough to wait until he approaches you first?

    1. 1

      Ha, great question!

      I replied to his tweet and gave heads up I'd DM him in a moment.
      I did and never heard back 😂

      I'm sure he received zillions of DMs that day so that's ok. What happened is beyond my expectations anyway 😎

  8. 1

    Cool! Thanks for not witholding this from us :D, actually was looking for tactics on how to grow followers (even-though this is not repeatable per se)

  9. 0

    Nice work! If anyone is looking for custom share graphics for their website pages then check out https://www.socialimage.app.

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