Twitter Growth Template: No Cringe Required

By now, we all know that Twitter is a top platform for community development. But what’s the best strategy? Threads? Shitposting? Aphorisms? Here are some quicks thoughts on why you should use all three.

When it comes to social media, people have three general use cases:

Education

Entertainment

Support

On twitter, people turn to threads for education. It’s hard to cram detailed information into 280 characters. You need something longer. That’s where threads come in. To the careful curator, threads are great way to publish long-from content in easily digestible chunks. You can walk somebody through an idea step by step, in a cadence that keeps their attention without overstimulating their attention span.

But you can’t be all serious all the time. You don’t want to put people to sleep. You have to entertain your audience too. Enter: Shitposting.

Shitposting is a great way to keep things lighthearted and funny. Humor also happens to be an excellent method for collecting psychographic information.

Crack a joke. Post a meme. See how people respond.

Laughter?  

Backlash?

Crickets?

The results of your jokes provide valuable information on how your audience perceives their world. What people laugh about provides insights on what they think is good, bad, and ugly about the world.

Keep in mind though, you’re building a community, not putting testing a stand-up routine. The problem with always providing entertainment is that it’s hard to be taken seriously when needed. If you’re always joking, people are going to assume whatever you say is a joke.  Enter our third use case: support. You don’t have to send fruit baskets or Christmas cards to everyone, just provide your audience with something easy and fluffy. Something that makes them feel good. This can be done with a steady diet of aphorisms.

An aphorism is a concise statement containing a general truth. Some notable aphorisms include:

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“Actions speak louder than words.”

Aphorisms are often too vague to be actionable. The secrets of life can’t be captured in a sentence. Their true power lies in the inspiration they provide people. The frame of reference. Big ideas are best introduced in small packages.

While this outline is good for knowing what kind of content to post, it doesn’t speak to the cadence that should be used for posting. Remember:

Too much education = boring

Too many jokes = not serious

Too much support = cliché non-starters

Curating a successful social profile is like baking a cake. It’s not enough to throw some ingredients together. You also need the correct conditions in order to yield the desired results.