And how you can too
Last night around 4:20am the Hear in LA podcast hit a milestone: 20,000 followers on Twitter.
How on Earth?
How did a podcast about non-famous people hear in LA that’s only made two new episodes in a year, reached a number fewer than 4% of Twitter users will reach, on a platform that rewards MAGA, and ignorance and influencers and baloney?
Let’s try to figure this out.
1. Don’t be full of shit
Way back when the world wide web began, Ken Layne warned bullshitters by writing, “it’s the Internet, we can fact check your ass.” On Twitter it’s even easier to do that with the aid of Grok, which isn’t 100% perfect, but good enough if you don’t want to click around on Google.
The best way to lose good followers who will retweet you is to lie, be consistently wrong, or embarass them when they quote you. So keep it real and when you’re wrong either admit it or immediately delete your error so it doesn’t spread.
2. Don’t be afraid of being blocked by those who are full of shit
If you’re keeping it real, and especially if you’re exposing people doing bad things, not only will they block you but their fans will too.
Grow a thick skin. Not everyone is ready to admit when they’re wrong.
There are hundreds of millions of active Twitter users. Many are humans who are interested in your little niche. Don’t be nervous someone may block you. It’s part of this stupid thing.
3. Tweet at least 9 times a day
At its best Twitter is a conversation. There are tons of accounts who only tweet links to their shit. That’s an infomercial and it’s boring. We all have something to promote but no one wants your ad.
If you surround the one thing you want to promote though with 8 other things that are interesting, or God help you – a link to someone else’s cool shit, you will come across as someone who is sincerely interested in the ecosystem as a whole instead of being a selfish self-serving prick who only wants to yap and not hear.
But beware. As the chart above shows, just because you’re tweeting a lot (the blue line) doesn’t mean the followers (the green line) will come at the same frequency. Don’t panic. Even 1 tweet can tap into a new group of people who are just discovering you and deliver a flood of new followers. Rarely is this something you can predict or control.
They would have never come, though, if you hadn’t tweeted. So keep tweeting.
4. Answer every question. Reply to your replies. But don’t fall into quicksand
If you are even halfway good at writing and you are obeying Rule 1, you should have no problem answering any question or replying to all of your replies, even on tweets that go “viral” and reach over a half million accounts.
You don’t need to engage in debate, nor would I recommend doing it for too long because of the diminishing returns. But if 90% of your followers are lurkers, they want to see you defending your thesis – in part because if you are effective they will incorporate it when they find themselves arguing the same thing.
If you find yourself in a back and forth with someone who either seems unserious or ignorant about the topic, check to see how many followers they have. You might be battling someone who is a bot – or worse – the burner account of someone who blocked you who has no interest in doing anything other than wasting your time. It’s perfectly ok to Mute them and move on.
5. If you can’t find something you liked on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, put it on Twitter
Not everyone likes Twitter. It’s a cesspool most of the time that suggests some of the worst accounts that were previously banned by the former heads of the platform.
So if you see something on a different platform that you liked, odds are others will like it. If it’s video, download the video, do a quick summary, and link back to where you found it. It may not get you a gazillion views or followers, but that should never be the point.
The point should always be: adding something interesting to the conversation that isn’t there.
6. be yourself no matter how many people tell you youre crazy
the secret weapon that you have is you.
no one is like you. and you should tap into that. honor it. let it out of the bag.
the other unfair advantage you have is your friends and those around you.
hear in LA works on Twitter, I think, because I am not afraid to be myself and because I love the people hear in this crazy town. when those two forces are combined it is unlike anything out there.
you too have crazy ideas, beautiful friends and neighbors, and you are living a unique life. if you are on Twitter and you are wondering why what you’re tweeting isn’t gaining traction, maybe you are not showing enough of yourself and/or others.
this rollercoaster we’re on is not going to happen forever. write the things now. be vulnerable. keep it real. be brave. and don’t stop.
if this podcast that no one asked for, that’s barely a podcast, who is 2x older than your typical social media director can run circles around 96% of them, imagine what you can do with your freak flag.
Good luck and thank you to everyone who follows this account, the website, and all the other ventures.