How to Get 5,000 (Real) X Followers in 30 Days
Plus, it's Wild mint day. And Miami Art Basel 2023 is almost a month away!!
Ever wonder if 30% of X is bots? How could someone possibly assemble a meaningful large audience in these botted times. Well, at Supernova, we’re all about organic growth. So I want to share our strategy for acquiring a small army of real human followers on X.
There’s no one-size-fits-all method
I wish we had some magic eight-ball to drive Twitter growth, but driving user behavior is totally unpredictable. It’s even more unpredictable if you’re a B2C product. Just ask Quibi.
Mix in a new technology like web3 or AI into your marketing flour, and the recipe becomes even more complicated. You can have a great method and still not know what to expect when you finally open that steamy content oven.
With that said, there are some tactics we can employ that do feel nearly bulletproof.
X growth requires (at least) one of the following to succeed:
sweat work
word of mouth/compelling content/product experience
targeted distribution (network effect)
artificial (paid) hype
For this exercise — the road to 5000 in 90 days — let’s assume…
our product or value needs some extra work
we don’t have a solid network
we don’t have money to generate meaningful hype
To be successful, we need to earn some sweat with some good-ole-fashioned scrappy WOM growth marketing.
What we don’t want to do…
Crypto Twitter is exhausted by promo messages and bots. Retention is low in market downturns, let alone acquiring new users.
Avoid poorly written automated messages and spam. And we aren’t following anyone hoping they’ll follow us back like a 17-year-old boy praying his crush will notice him before Prom.
We will however, leverage automation tools like Drippi to craft beautiful outreach campaigns that reach our desired audience with 5%+ hit rates. Need help crafting excellent copy? Email us.
Here’s how we’re approaching 5000 followers:
Days 1-3
Optimize your profile for max engagement!
Compelling bio, clean banner, consistent branding, clear CTA
Draft a week or two’s worth of quality content (announcements, stories, features, shower thoughts) ready to deploy when needed
Here’s some examples of Twitter accounts we like:
ArtBlocks: clear demonstration of what they do, compelling branding, links are centered around their core offerings. Content is very creator-focused, and aligns with their target audience.
ONE37PM: clear CTAs, top links without clutter, strong keywords. A banner that inspires and stays on-brand. Limited hashtags, content is very grassroots even as a mature account.
Kook Capital: you know if they match your vibe immediately. clear target audience. doesn’t feel spammy. shares authentic opinions, which can tell a more personal story if your target audience is ready to hear it.
Days 3-7
curate a list of 50-100 accounts with followers you want.
audit their audience using a paid tool like Sprout or Upfluence. If you want to go cheap, just scroll through their engagement and follower list — look for bots, low-quality accounts, and who’s liking it, not necessarily obsessing with how many.
narrow that list to 30-40 accounts.
you can also use tools like Drippi to build out a larger list of lookalike leads
Days 7-10
now’s the hard part, we know who we want, but how do we convert them?
yes, you can follow/unfollow and DM individually, explaining how great you are. but we’re going to do something different.
From the 30-40 accounts we targeted, we probably have a nice 100k-1m audience size to pull from. But that can be overwhelming. To start, I want to create a list of 1,000 high-quality, bulletproof Twitter profiles worth engaging with.
Download followers from target pages and filter
There’s a free tool called BirdIq that lets you download up to 100 Twitter followers (or more if you pay) from any Twitter user.
We can pick ten accounts and easily download 100 accounts from each.
To make things move even faster, let’s create a twitter URL for each profile so you can click one after another and start engaging.
create a column with “twitter.com/” and use the following excel formula, =ARRAYFORMULA(C2:C&D2:D) to merge the Twitter handle and create your twitter URL.
I like having my target followers in Sheets cause you can do cool stuff like filter by total tweets or most used words like “NFT” or “Web3” or “AI” or “Marketing”.
Let’s say we only want to target users with at least 100 tweets.
If you want to really put in the extra time (less automated), you can go through each target account’s last five Tweets. Who liked, retweeted, and replied? Click on their profiles. Look for active accounts we created at least a year ago with some original thoughts as tweets (or lots of recent retweets). Add them to your list.
Use your instinct. Is this a real person? Do they pass the human sniff test? Add these users to your list.
Drippi also helps you filter accounts you’ve previously contacted.
Days 10-20
Now we’re loaded with ammo, time to shoot.
Schedule 2 weeks’ worth of high-quality Twitter content. The best you got. Mix in promotional, educational, interactive, and action-oriented content. At least 1-2 posts/day.
Need help creating compelling Twitter content? email us at gm@gosupernova.xyz to talk content.
Click on each profile you added. You have two options to prompt a response from your targets:
Craft an original reply to a recent tweet — be creative without spending too much time. Use funny GIFs (faster than text), compliment their viewpoints, and respond directly to their Tweet to show that you really read it, are taking your time, and aren’t just copy-pasting. Avoid generic language. Provoke a reply. It will get easier as you get into a groove.
Example: “I need a break from crypto twitter so many toxic people here”
Reply: always good to take breaks and focus on what really brought you to web3 in the first place 🧡
Retweet something they retweeted that’s relevant to your vertical (and shows why they’re on your list of target followers in the first place). Get your name on their notification alerts without committing anything.
This strategy has gotten us 10-20% success rate — you should now have at least 200-400 new followers familiar with you. If you want a more streamlined / automated approach, try Drippi — it’s faster but you will yield lower conversions.
Days 20-30
Time to turn those 200 audience members into forever ambassadors. Twitter growth is not linear. It is exponential. 200 loyalists can easily → 5000 soldiers.
NOW we can be more direct. Target those wonderful 200 humans-behind-a-Twitter-account-that-we-already-audited and DM them like the shilling shillsters we really were all along. Only this time, it’s not unsolicited. They know who we are and will likely respond and interact with us.
WAIT AT LEAST A DAY TO DM OR REPLY TWEET. This is not one of those “take ‘em while you got ‘em” situations. You don’t want to come off as desperate or spammy.
“Hey [profile name], appreciate the follow — we’re working on xyz and excited to bring you on our journey. As a thank you, here’s a(n) [resource, discount, free nft, product] you might find useful ;)”
Need help coming up with your thank-you gift? Email us at gm@layer15.io to schedule a call.
If you want to reply tweet, make sure to include something specific to what they posted. Make it interesting. Don’t just respond, “Nice insight!” Provide color to something they shared. Reply strategies only work on accounts that have content. Alternatively, you can like one of their old tweets or retweet something they retweeted already to get to the top of their notification feed.
RINSE AND REPEAT TWO MORE TIMES.
Optional
Launch a Twitter campaign encouraging users to engage with your tweet in exchange for the same freebie. You can also use an app like Premint (web3 native, costs more) or Gleam (web2 native, costs less), or work with a Supernova KOL to launch a giveaway that maximizes social engagement.
If you don’t have at least 5000 real followers after 90 days…
Reevaluate your product-market fit: does web3 need you? why does no one care?
Reconsider your branding: is it clear what we offer? do we look credible? is our copy compelling?
If you think you pass the first two bullets, let us know. coffee’s on us. ☕
An Epic Showcase at Miami Art Week 🎨
We’re throwing our largest event yet for Miami Art Week — live at the SLS and Sagamore on Dec 6th and 7th, respectively.
Brand sponsorship opportunities for our Official Disco Afterparty will conclude on November 7th, 2023. See our Official Art Basel page for a sneak preview of what we’re planning for Miami Art Week 🎨 🌴
A Preview of What To Expect:
Drone Deliveries from Zing
A Live Art Auction from Bari-Lynn
Life-Sized Disco Balls by Kolodny
Branded pool-side cabanas at the SLS Hyde Pool and Sagamore Hotel.
Visual Experiences by LVCIDIA
Nu-Disco Afterparty with special guests + performances
Supernova Alpha Center 📈
Another Wildxyz Drop ‼️
After a one-minute Boys of Summer sell-out, our friends at Wildxyz are back again with an epic three-artist collection dropping today at 12 PM EST!!!
One more thing…
Have an idea of where we should throw our first 2024 event? Message us here.
+ Thanks for keeping our open rate above 50% :)
– Alec & Jared
Disclaimer: Supernova works directly with Wild, Garbage, and Stability on paid marketing services :)
I wonder if the strategy of targeting specific profiles and expecting exponential growth might oversimplify the complexity of audience engagement. Social media dynamics are more unpredictable than ever, and focusing solely on numbers might risk missing the essence of building a genuine community.
It's a thought-provoking approach, but perhaps the real challenge lies in sustaining engagement beyond the initial 30 days, turning followers into a true community. Keep the posts coming!
Also, have a cool AI tool that we’ve built that automates newsletters w/ a direct integration to Substack (so you can directly copy/paste) - would love your feedback on it (free to trial) - https://neuralnewsletters.com/