Engage more than you post — here's a compilation of Twitter growth gems from other indie hackers

I'm not a Twitter expert, and that's exactly why I'm compiling this list of the best Twitter tips from indie hackers. I want to get better at growing mine. So I skipped the generic advice on Google and scoured IH to find out what actual indie hackers are doing to grow their followings.

Tactics and hacks aside, I saw that across the board, indie hackers suggest three things:

1. Engaging with others
2. Focusing on one or two topics
3. Being consistent.

Yes, engaging on other people's posts is more important than posting.

Here's what the community had to say. 👇

Twitter growth tips from indie hackers

Here are the best tips I've found from indie hackers like us. I'd love to hear your tips in the comments too!

Twitter basics

Let's start with the basics from a comment by @xavier:

• Choose ONE topic you want to talk about.
• Create a nice bio with social proof, why we should follow you, and a CTA
• Spend 80% of your time making friends with people talking about the same topic as you
• Spend the other 20% publishing high-quality content.

Setting up a solid profile is sometimes overlooked. @YannickVeys does a good job of covering it here, but here's the TL;DR: Create a bio (with what you tweet about, a CTA, and a link), header image (with a tagline and CTA), and a stellar pinned tweet.

The importance of engaging in the community (particularly for small accounts)

From what I've learned, Twitter is all about engaging with the community — even more so than posting. Particularly in the beginning. You can see that in @xavier's 80/20 rule above. And he wasn't alone in saying it.

According to @FlorianMielke:

I was initially surprised that creating content myself did not result in massive growth, but engaging with others did!

@Excelformulabot backed this up

Social listening for both my brand and my category has been instrumental to the site's success. If someone tweets about Excel formulas, I'm there — whether it's sending a funny gif or even going as far as solving a problem for them with a screenshot of the dashboard that shows the formula. Same goes for if people are talking about the site. Leaving a comment only increases engagement and reach of a post, resulting in more eyeballs seeing the post!

@sylvainnaessens suggested a tip for getting started. He said that until you have 2,000 followers, you should:

Just choose a list of 100 people with small-size followers 100 - 500. Follow them and engage every day with them.

Like he said, it's really important to engage with the right people. According to @kevon:

I only followed people with <600 followers, they're likely to be on the same stage as me, maybe a few steps ahead. They still want to grow, so they'd dedicate time to engage with anyone who just follows them. This means they'd care about me.

@alexllr is all about this, but he suggests "stealing" followers from influencers instead of small accounts. What he's getting at is a tried-and-true method: Find influencers in your niche who get a lot of engagement. Then set up a notification and be the first to reply (or RT with a comment). And of course, you need to add value (don't promote yourself):

You need to ADD VALUE on top of the original post. And how exactly do you add value?

• Add your take to the original post
• Ask a thoughtful question so the original poster can reply
• Spark a conversation or join an existing one

So follow the right people and set up notifications so that you can be the first to respond. @san0198 shared another way:

You can also search for relevant hashtags and join in on conversations.

To drive it home, here's @arvidkahl on doing this type of engagement right:

• look for questions and give answers that have some kind of actionable component (“is it worth it to use technology X?” – me: “I’ve used X and its competitor Y in my business, and I found …”)
• celebrate other people’s wins and allow them to elaborate (“I just reached $500 MRR” – me: “that’s impressive, how are you dealing with churn? Any special pricing experiment that worked for you?”
• amplify reach by connecting experts (“I have no idea how to X” – me: “yeah, it’s hard to find resources on that, but @thispersoniknowwhodiditbefore has a lot of expertise, maybe they can help”)
  The point is to engage specifically on the things that you can actually help someone with. And skip the things where you have nothing to say.

How and when to tweet

Engaging is so huge. But you've gotta actually tweet too (sorry). Here's the best advice I found on the topic.

@harshvijay recommends Twitter threads and posting at least twice a day.

do keep a consistent posting schedule. This way, people following will know what type of content they can expect from you on daily basis. You can use tools like Hyperfury or Publer to automate some of this process.

Speaking of consistency, I've found that it's really important to focus on one or two topics so that people know what to expect from you. You should even say what that is in your bio.

Do it at the right time. According, to san0198:

Try to tweet during peak hours. The more people that see your tweets, the more likely you are to get engagement.

For the record, that is generally 9 am Monday through Saturday, with Tuesdays and Wednesdays being best. But your niche might be different so experiment a bit.

As far as content, you need to provide a lot of value. But you need to add your personality too. @mgirkins had a simple tip:

Don't be afraid to inject humour into tweets

Unpopular opinions get people talking too. @LibertarianCountry said said:

…it grew pretty fast by doing two things together: retweeting relevant content with commentary, and posting somewhat controversial topics with relevant hashtags.

While we're on the topic of hashtags, @parkeradam916 suggests including hashtags, keywords, and images:

If you use a popular hashtag, you’ll have a much easier time getting noticed… Keywords are the search terms that people type into Google or Bing when looking for information online. You want to make sure you’re using relevant keywords throughout your tweets… Images help break up text and add visual interest.

That said, it's worth noting that when overused, hashtags look spammy.

One thing you shouldn't include is a link — at least most of the time. According to @Philoinvestor3000:

Twitter's algorithm doesn't like it when you put external links.

Some folks suggested the opposite (linking to good content), but I believe @Philoinvestor3000 is right about this one.

And here's one thing we've all seen to be hugely helpful. It grows your audience at the same time as marketing your product, and it makes people feel invested in what you're doing to boot. Just document your journey and #buildinpublic

Other Twitter tactics

In a post by @SikiraAmer, he shares @arvidkahl's tactic of checking out the profiles of people he follows, and following their followers. It doesn't scale, but it's a great place to start.

The reason behind this is that he still remains in the same/similar niche, yet he is getting out of his Twitter circle.

@Philoinvestor3000 pointed out that you should always direct people to Twitter from your other platforms.

You could also grow your account by getting people from other platforms to follow you on Twitter. i.e. Using your existing audience/following.

Here's one from @clsmooth that applies to everyone here on Indie Hackers. If you didn't know, you can link your tweets and they'll automagically embed.

My tip? Compile a list of active forums in your niche that allow Twitter embeds and post them there (especially value-packed threads that require clicking back to Twitter to see the rest of them). That extra step of clicking through to your profile (and subsequently satisfying their curiosity) can be a difference-maker and earn you a follow.

There's also good, old-fashioned influencer marketing. You can create relationships with (small) influencers, or you can pay them, or you can go a more organic route. @Excelformulabot had influencers coming to him

I was very fortunate to gain a tremendous amount of awareness through "productivity hacker" social influencers who were just looking for good content to share. My website has been shared by several hundred of them because influencers LOVE promoting free tools to their audiences… So a big part of this is being a "free" tool.

And let's finish strong @jdnoc's point, which I only saw once, despite it making all the sense in the world.

Do something really great that's not on Twitter, and talk about it on Twitter.

Buttoning up their advice

I know, I know, there is no silver-bullet growth hack that's going to blow you up — but I think that's kind of the point. You grow by consistently and authentically contributing and interacting with the community that you create on Twitter. That's it.

The more you do it, the faster you'll grow. But there are ways to get better at it.

Resources from fellow indie hackers

I wouldn't waste time or money on generalized courses or books from random Twitter gurus. Here are the best resources created by successful indie hackers if you want to dive deeper.

• This tweet from @arvidkahl is free as a bird, and it's got a ton of gold.
• @xavier has a free playbook on gumroad.
• @arvidkahl's Find your following course is $50, but I think it's worth it if you've got it.
  @dvassallo's Everyone can build a Twitter audience course is only $25 and people swear by it.

In the news

It's worth noting that, as we all know, Elon is shaking things up at Twitter. Some say this is the end of Twitter. Me? I think it's actually an opportunity. I'm not a big fan of the guy personally, but he's a pretty smart dude. I think he'll make it work, and maybe Twitter will be the next big thing… again. But decide for yourself before you spend time building your account.

And a word to the wise

And my personal advice… don't let Twitter take over your life. To me, Twitter is the lesser evil when compared to Instagram, Tiktok, etc., but it's still social media, which generally isn't good for a person's mental health. Maintain balance. And remember that you can grow a business without a following, so if you have aversion to it, skip it.

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What did I miss? How did you grow your following?

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