Twitter Growth Pitfalls: Avoid These 13 Blunders

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Learn the mistakes that are keeping you from growing on Twitter

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Twitter Growth Pitfalls: Avoid These 13 Blunders

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Getting more followers is something every creator aspires to.

Followers mean an audience. And an audience is often an unfair advantage for whatever you do.

But if you’ve ever tried to build an audience, you know it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Many people talk about what you should do to build that audience. But not that many talks about the mistakes you are probably making that keep you from building that audience.

That’s precisely what we will cover today with this article. The 13 mistakes killing your Twitter growth (and how to solve them):

Twitter mistake #1: Not picking a niche

“Niche down” is one of the most common yet overlooked Twitter growth advice.

We all have many interests. For example, you might like marketing, cooking, and hiking on the weekends.

The thing is that, at least early on, people won’t follow you because of all those things. Instead, they will follow you because of what you share about one particular topic.

This means that early on, you need to “niche down.” Meaning pick one topic and make 90% of your content about that topic.

Sounds boring? Depends.

You need to understand that you are trying to grow on Twitter with one goal in mind. This goal is often business related, so it makes sense to keep your account focused.

You can always open a different account and use it for personal use. But your account needs to feel focused and professional if you want to make the most of Twitter.

Twitter mistake #2: Not having a converting bio

Most creators make a mistake when writing their bio to make it about them.

“Wait, it’s my bio. So it should be about me, no?”

Yes. And no.

A good bio is not about the creator, it’s about the audience.

What do they get by following you? How are you helping them? What's in it for them?

That should be your focus.

Your bio is your number 1 asset to turn visitors to your profile into followers. They need to see very clearly why they should follow you. That’s not achieved by just talking about you.

To get you inspired on what a good bio looks like, here are 21 examples of good bios so you can get inspired.

Twitter mistake #3: Not curating your feed

What you consume influences what you produce.

Curating your feed should be the number 1 thing you do when starting to build your brand on Twitter. Even if you don’t notice, that will make your content better.

If you are building a professional profile, there’s no use in following your fav sports team or your friend from high school. Instead, you should follow the most relevant accounts in your niche, so you can start to engage with them and learn about what they do.

👉

Create Twitter lists to help you simplify your timeline. Learn it how right here.

Which leads us to…

Twitter mistake #4: Not having an engagement plan

50% of growth on Twitter is creating quality content. The other 50% is engaging and connecting with others.

You need to have an engagement plan. This plan doesn’t need to be complicated. Here’s what it should look like:

Make a list of the top 20-25 accounts in your niche (bigger and smaller)

Engage with them (reply, quote RT, DMs…) every day

A few things to take into account with this approach:

Don’t overdo it. You don’t need to engage with the same account every day and on every tweet.

Make those replies and engagement valuable. A simple “👍” or “Good tweet” won’t do. It’s better to make five thoughtful replies than 30 simpler ones.

Twitter mistake #5: Not writing for skimmers

Most people on Twitter don’t read; they skim. That means that your tweets need to be prepared for that.

Take a look at these tweets:

The content is the same. But the difference is in how the tweet is presented.

Using blank space and a more readable format makes the tweet instantly better and more likely to increase its reach.

Twitter mistake #6: Not paying attention to your analytics

Your tweet analytics have more use than just seeing how many followers you get every month.

Maybe you think one tweet didn’t do particularly well. But if you look closely at the data, you realize it drove many profile clicks.

And profile clicks = people interested in you = followers (if you have an optimized bio 😉)

Understanding Twitter’s analytics will make you a better creator. Check out this article if you want to dig deeper into how to use them effectively.

Twitter mistake #7: Not scheduling your content

Creating and posting content daily is not as easy as it sounds. But, for most, it is just too stressful.

The simplest solution is to schedule your content.

The best creators often create their content in batches (once a week or even once a month) and use tools like Tweet Hunter to schedule their content in advance.

Even if this seems like an obvious tweet, this simple automation will save you from so many headaches. Speaking of automation…

Twitter mistake #8: Not using automation

There’s so much you can do with automation on Twitter. However, once you start using it, you will feel as if you were previously using Twitter at half capacity.

We are a bit biased, but we feel that Tweet Hunter has the best automation to grow on Twitter. Our favorites are:

The Auto RT allows you to automatically retweet your tweets so they can reach different timezones (and more people)

Auto DM your audience so you can distribute your products, lead magnets, sign-up links…whatever you want.

Automation will make your Twitter life more manageable, saving you a ton of time. Find out what else you can do with automation with this article.

Twitter mistake #9: Not recycling your content

The best creators don't focus on coming up with 100 new ideas. Instead, they focus on telling one idea in 100 different ways.

Or better said, they are experts at recycling their content. The idea that you must be completely original 100% of the time is ridiculous. You are better off by focusing yourself and your content on 3-4 core ideas and finding different ways to share them with your audience.

I know this might sound hard, so that’s why we wrote a complete in-depth guide on how to do it.

Twitter mistake #10: Being clever, not clear

I get it. We want to show everything we know and build a strong brand for ourselves. That’s why sometimes we overdo it and write things like “supercharge,” or we use complex jargon so that people think we are really smart.

The thing is that it doesn’t work that way. Twitter may be the content platform where people consume content the fastest.

Knowing that what do you think will work best? Simple and concise language or verbose and complex words? (definitely don’t use verbose as a word)

“Wow, that tweet has amazing grammar and word choice,” said no one ever.

Twitter mistake #11: Not thinking about your thread’s hook

Threads are the growth mechanism on Twitter. A good thread at the right time will push your audience growth.

The problem with threads is that Twitter is a bit saturated with them right now. That means that your thread needs to get people’s attention.

And how can we make that happen? By writing a good hook.

The hook (aka the first tweet of a thread) is what makes or breaks a thread’s success. You should spend 80% of your time writing your thread with the hook.

Luckily for you, we put together 10 Fill in The Blank thread templates so you can skip that part and focus on your content.

Twitter mistake #12: Not being consistent

“Consistency is key” is probably the most boring yet true statement on Twitter's growth.

The Twitter algorithm rewards consistency. Posting 10 tweets in 10 days is better than posting 10 tweets in one day and nothing else after that.

You need to signal the algorithm that your account is active and worth “pushing.” That’s done by tweeting and engaging with others every day.

There’s no other way around this.

Twitter mistake #13: Not sending DMs

What you are seeing on Twitter is only the surface. If you think of Twitter as an iceberg, the visible portion is just the tip.

The platform’s true power lies beneath that surface. And the DMs (direct messages) is where it all starts.

DMs are a really powerful tool, used for:

More reach for your content: Twitter DMs are a great (and underused) distribution channel.

More traffic to your projects. DMs are a compelling feature that can drive real traffic to your various projects if used properly.

Unexpected opportunities: You never know how one connection can change the course of your life. Many serendipitous connections happen on Twitter DMs.

Making friends: If you assume that you will follow people who share your interests, it’s fair to assume that you are likelier to make friends on Twitter than anywhere else.

DMs should be an integral part of your Twitter strategy!

Knowing what NOT to do can sometimes be more valuable than knowing what to do. Hopefully, after reading this article you have a clearer vision of how to move forward with Twitter.

Let us know how it goes!