Twitter reset v3.1

I’m still kicking myself for not realising this fast enough – that I should have taken a more direct marketing approach of tweeting about writing for creators. I was doing the wrong things for more than 80% into my #100daysofmarketing journey. *face palm

Sign… I guess, the mistake was part of the journey. Maybe this 100 days is less about finding 1 repeatable distribution channel, but uncovering the 1 repeatable niche I want to position myself in.

But back to my Twitter reset v3.0 approach.

Previously I was doing it indirectly. Tweet about my indie hacking journey, building in public, hope that people will check out my Twitter profile and get funnelled to Lifelog. I was getting traffic alright. Some tweets went viral, got some good impressions. But no conversions.

I was simply funnelling the wrong audience.

These were not folks who are interested in writing. They were only interested in my journey as an indie hacker, founder or creator. Moreover, I was following and replying in high follower accounts but they are not in my problem space. Hence no conversion.

The old approach would make sense if my product was something directly related to indie hacking or creators (like Twitter utility tools), but daily writing is not a natural overlap with that category of folks. I was going fast, making lots of progress, but in the wrong direction.

That’s why I went with a direct approach of tweeting about writing habits for goals, productivity and success. The “habit hacking guy for writing”. I’d since started tweeting daily in that category, and it’s fascinating to observe the kinds of people replying aren’t the usual folks who reply in my other indie hacking tweets. And guess what, within the week I switched, I got my first organic conversion via @WinkLetter. (Thank you!) Not someone I knew previously or engaged with before.

OMG it’s working.

But it’s still hit and miss. Tweets about writing habits for goals might work, but it’s tweeting to an audience who’s didn’t initially follow for that. I might only reach my intended “writing + creators” audience by 2nd or 3rd degrees of separation. And while I might be able to build that audience slowly, it might be too haphazard.

I need to get even more direct.

But how do I find these people in the creator + writing space?

Some thoughts building on the Twitter reset v3.0, for this v3.1 approach:

• Research and find accounts in my problem space – creators + writing. Who are the influencers I look up to in this space? Follow them.
• Screen through 5 such accounts with >10k followers and 5 accounts with 1-3k followers.
• Follow them, turn on notifications. Add them to a Twitter list.
• Refer to your notification feed or list feed. Reply to every tweet they tweet out.
• Here’s the most crucial step: Turning on notifications also means I can see their every reply to other accounts. Accounts which I assume are their target audience. I’ll in turn reply to every account they reply in.
• Of course, with every reply, provide value and attention-worthy content.
• That way, I expose my account to the right people who are my potential customers, by riding on the audience of these influencer accounts.
• Caveat: Avoid Money Twitter accounts - they have their own inner circles and replying there won’t give returns.

This makes me feel even more optimistic! Previously, I could never figure out where my target customers hang out. Ads didn’t help. I couldn’t find the right people via search. So replying on replies by these high followers accounts in my problem space is the next best way.

The early data is promising. Will report back after a few weeks!