Christopher Murphy · 10 September, 2020
In our hyper-visual age, it's tempting to think that all the action is on Instagram and that Twitter's past its peak. I think that's a big mistake.
Twitter has a large, and growing, audience and to overlook that audience is to miss out on countless opportunities. As we know – all too well, in an era of presidential tweets – Twitter plays host to everyone from entrepreneurs and executives to pop stars and presidents.
The possibilities for connections are endless, but making those connections requires intent and a considered strategy.
If you're building a business – like I am once again – Twitter is an incredibly powerful channel to have at your disposal. Invest some time in it and you'll accelerate your opportunities.
If there's one thing I've learned on Propel it's this: Never stop experimenting. This is certainly the case when it comes to crafting a content strategy for Twitter.
In one of our Founder Firesides, Connor Murphy – who is busy replacing LinkedIn with a fantastic startup called Bridge – shared a lesson that really stuck with me:
You need to experiment, constantly.
As Murphy (no relation) put it: "Never stop experimenting, because you never know if your next experiment will deliver a ×10, ×100, ×1,000 (or more) return." There are lessons in every experiment and there are no failed experiments.
I've found this to be the case with Twitter. Like any communication channel it passes through phases. In its first iteration, tweets were constrained to 140 characters. In its current iteration, tweets are a more leisurely 280 characters.
That change, from 140 to 280 characters, fundamentally changed the platform. Strategies that might once have held true for the constraints of 140 characters don't translate to twice the space.
You need to experiment, constantly.
It's never too late to start growing your audience, but where do you even begin to start?
In late May, Jens Lennartsson very generously gave me a copy of his excellent book, worksheet and screencast: Twitter for No-Coders: Grow an Audience of Paying Customers in 30 Days. I started reading it last night and it's filled with actionable advice.
If you've ever launched a new product only for it to fall flat on its face due to disinterest or found your follower count growing in slow motion, you'll find Lennartsson's book indispensable.
Like all good books (and like almost all of the books I've written) it's essentially: