On June 1st, 2023, I finally decided to become a solopreneur and start by building an audience on Twitter.
I’ve been a marketing manager for more than 7 years, so I should know this, right? That’s what I thought…Turns out it has been much harder than I expected.
I’m passionate about Marketing Psychology, so I set on to publish one tweet every day providing as much value as possible. I was engaging daily with other accounts, and I cleaned up my profile nicely ( yep, exactly what “the experts” recommend you to do).
After two months and 588 tweets later, I’m at 32 followers (Now, just to be clear, I’m happy with my progress, but I expected it would be much easier and much faster).
After careful analysis, I want to share with you the top 3 mistakes I’ve made thus far.
Mistake #1: Not showing my personality
I love to talk and learn about marketing psychology, marketing strategy, and consumer behavior. So I thought I had it all figured out. I’m going to publish once a day and interact with other accounts by adding value to the comments.
While I think this strategy is good, and continuing on this path will perhaps make my profile grow very soon, I was failing to remember the ‘raison d’etre’ of social media.
And that is, above all things, social media is social.
I was not showing my personality, not tweeting about my journey or my experience and I wasn’t making an effort to make any friends or connections on the platform.
In the past two months, I’ve learned that to attract a following, you must also show your personality, share your personal experience, and make an effort to connect with people.
I think that when someone makes the decision to follow you, they not only factor in the value you provide in your posts, but they also take into account if you’re trustable and friendly, and if they can relate with you in some way.
Showing your personality by sharing your likes/dislikes, opinions, experiences, and life stories helps in building that trust.
Mistake #2: Going too niche is not the best idea at first
When I started out publishing content regularly, I was solely talking about Marketing Psychology and I was aiming my content at Founders, CEOs, and Marketing Leaders.
Turns out that when you’re just starting out, you’re tweeting into the void, and going too niche will not make this any better — it will make it worse.
Reaching 30 people per tweet (on average), the chances that one of them is a Founder, a CEO, or a Marketing Leader AND is interested in Marketing Psychology is slim.
While having a defined target audience is great and necessary for the later stages of a brand, I think that when you’re just starting to build a following, the topics that you should be focusing on should be as broad as possible.
By measuring and analyzing engagement and seeing what resonates with your audience, you can see if the topic you’ve chosen to write about is something that people are interested in learning more about.
Mistake #3: Not using storytelling
When I started out tweeting, I posted marketing principles, tips, insights, etc. In the first two months, I failed to post a personal story or a story in general for that matter.
This was a mistake because as humans, we’re wired for stories. A good story hooks a reader, triggers their emotions, and makes them feel connected to you. All key ingredients for making someone, online or offline, get to want to know you better.
I think that posting stories as a content creator not only has to be about your expertise, but once in a while, it can be about something else that happened to you that day, for example.
Conclusion
In conclusion, when embarking on your journey as a first-time content creator, you should loosen up. Focus on making friends, telling stories, and figuring out what resonates with people.
After all, what’s worth it in life takes time to build.
Growing your audience on social media is a process and it requires daily commitment and patience. Just make sure you’re learning and improving every day.
*If you want to follow my journey, you can follow me on Twitter/X at @hectorlinare5
