Tweeting a little vs Tweeting a lot
In January, I tweeted an average of 3.5 times a day. Sometimes I would tweet up to six times a day.
It wasn't easy. Racking my brain for content ideas every day was difficult, and I would spend around an hour a day thinking about what to tweet.
Somehow, it worked. By the end of January, I managed to grow from zero followers to 322 by staying consistent and writing every day.
But at what cost?
My biggest fear is that I'll become known for posting generic content on Twitter. You know, those accounts that post « Best tools for solo founders » four times a month.
The more you post, the less value you can provide.
At some point, my tweets started to sound like every other tweet. My busiest days consisted of tweets like « Communities you need to be a part of as an indie-dev » and « The best podcasts for Indie Hackers. »
Those tweets work. But everyone's seen them a thousand times.
You end up building a community that doesn't care about you or what you're making. You become just like everyone else.
Switching things up
In February, I started taking a different approach. I'm now tweeting on average, 2.4 times per day. Doing so has allowed me to:
Talk about things I truly believe and care about
Have more fun using Twitter
Care less about numbers and more about connections
Stay 100% authentic 😎
And my growth hasn't completely slowed down! We're at the midpoint of February, and I've found over 500 friends on Twitter!
My growth is now more linear than exponential. However, the genuine connections I'm making, and the fun I'm having make up for it.
I'm not saying you should tweet less. However, doing so is allowing me to build a following that I'm proud of and not one that serves as a vanity metric.
I think that the timespan of a tweet is rather small on people's timelines so increasing frequency can defiantly help to get more exposure and interaction.
BUT id does not change the fact that the biggest reach will be for value posts that people appreciate, in that sense the frequency does not matter that much but the value you bring does.
So I would still put emphasis on tweet quality over quantity.
I spend around 20-25 mins a day to post on Twitter.
Generally, it's around 1-2 posts and 5-6 comments to other accounts. I don't get a lot of followers, but oher indicators (impressions, clicks) are ok.
Agreed on being authentic however I don't think it's possible. With this perspective; to be able to make me follow you. You'll need to tweet about things I'd be interested. To be able to provide value, those needs to be things that I don't know about, yet.
I get triggered when people say they provide value, it's nothing personal.
2.4 tweets/day = 876 tweets/topics per year. Even with a %10 of success means you'll need to be more informed in 88 topics than each of your followers. And it's for 10% value that you assume to provide.
Of course everyone has a different take on value, recently I asked for people to tell me "you can do it" and they did. They was the best thing I get out of twitter so far. Even it sounds dumb, that's what I needed at that moment.
"The more you post, the less value you can provide." I can argue that twitter doesn't work like that. We don't necessarily need to be online at the same time. It's possible to leverage different time frames. I can't tell if it's survivorship bias but I saw it worked for many people. Who retweet their own content in 12 hours or a week later with 12 hour difference. Plus positioning yourself as the "X person". Marketing guy, meme guy, saas guy is requires that repetition and works well. IMHO.
I'm not telling you or anyone should tweet more often especially with such a fear. This is what works for you. So keep it going 🚀
I should probably rephrase.
It's also worth talking about what value is. I also get triggered somewhat when I see the term "value," but I see myself using it more and more nowadays :P
Of course, "value" should be subjective, as it depends on your niche.
To be clear, not every tweet I make is informative. I also use Twitter to ask questions, share milestones and engage with people, so I can't say that math checks out.
How you tweet also depends on your goals.
As I mentioned, if your goal is to gain followers, then tweeting more undeniably works.
If your goal is to build relationships and find individuals interested in your work, tweeting less might be the way to go depending on what you talk about.
That being said, everyone's case is different. So there's no perfect number of tweets per day or definition of value. Keep experimenting to find what works 🚀