How to Maximize Your Time on Twitter

In this video, I'm gonna tell you how to better use Twitter to get the most value you possibly can from this platform. Hey, I'm Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing and Community at Vitalize. I'm also the host of the Just Go Grind podcast, and it's fair to say I spend a lot of time on Twitter, and I've learned a few things about how to better use this platform and how to get the most out of it so you really don't waste your time. The first thing in terms of maximizing the benefit you get from this platform is optimizing your profile. So really optimizing your bio as well as that first tweet. So in your bio, you're communicating 2 main things. One, who are you? Like, who are you on this platform? The second thing being, why should people follow you? So for me, people know that I work in venture capital. People know that I host a podcast interviewing founders and venture capitalists. People also see that I tweet about startups and more broadly life. If they wanna follow people for startups, people that are interested in venture capital are definitely gonna follow me. That's a reason too. And next, we have that pinned tweet on your profile. Oh yes, that pinned tweet. This is an opportunity to go a little bit deeper. So one approach people take to this is having a link out to something that they care about. For us at Vitalize, oftentimes that is we'll have where founders can pitch us and also the criteria we're looking for at Vitalize. If you're a venture capitalist, that could be one thing you do. If you have a newsletter, for instance, you may share something about the newsletter and why people should subscribe. Subscribe and have a link to the newsletter. Or if you're just going for a different tune and being funny and having some type of humor on there, you may have your top tweet, your top meme, whatever it is that sets people up as you're creating, which I'll get to in a little bit. People come to your profile, they see some things that are about you, they decide they want to follow you or not. Then they decide, oh, look at this, this first tweet. I know I'm a startup founder. I see his profile. I'm going to pitch him. This is where I pitch him. Makes it very easy for people. So that's like the first part of Twitter is optimizing your profile. The next thing about Twitter and how to get the most out of this platform is that you need to curate who you follow. Now that may seem very simple, like of course you should follow great people, but the first thing I did when I joined Vitalyze and then looked at my Twitter was like, oh, there's a lot of people that I just don't care to follow and their content is not something that's serving me. So I was following a lot of news organizations, a lot of business accounts, and to be honest, a lot of those typically are just not giving you a lot of value in the platform. So I unfollowed a bunch of different accounts. I was probably following a couple thousand maybe or something before I went through this kind of curation process. But then I really curated in a few ways. So I curated by people who are putting out interesting ideas, people are putting out things that like, oh, I find that fascinating. If I went to someone's profile, and I saw like, okay, this is someone I want to follow, I would see then who are they following. And oftentimes, that gives you more ideas for people who to follow on the platform, which then makes your experience better as you're scrolling through Twitter. So curating your feed by whether it be smart people you want to, you want to follow that have put out interesting ideas, or a combination of like startups you're interested in, or you might invest in, you start following people who are in different arenas that give you different perspectives on life and business and careers. Be strategic about it. Curate your following on Twitter to make it a good experience for you. And As you start scrolling through your feed, you're late at night, you're in your bed, your phone overhead, hoping not to drop it. As you're scrolling through that, if someone doesn't make you happy, you're not enjoying their content, then unfollow them. Like, it doesn't matter. It's your platform to use how you want, and you have the ability to do that. So to get the most benefit out of Twitter, you have to curate who you follow. It's, it's so important. I have to hammer this point home. The next thing to do is use Twemex, T-W-E-M-E-X, could be called Twemex. I'm not sure how to actually say it because I've never said the word. I only know the spelling of it. But this is a Chrome extension, a browser plugin that you just install and then it's on the right side of your screen when you're on Twitter. So instead of seeing like the trending news topics, you have this thing which then shows you a few different things. One being when you're in the main Twitter feed, It shows you like random users and then you can see their top tweets or you can see their most recent tweets. And that can be random or it could be organized in a different way. But what I find from that is that I find interesting people that I've already followed. I can see like their top tweets, like the ones that are most popular. And it gives me, it may be from like a year ago or 2 years ago, but it gives me more context about them and I find more interesting things constantly as I'm going through the platform. And it just made it so much more enjoyable. And then as you're on other people's profiles, it's also on the right side, and you can see from there, okay, well, what are their top tweets as you're on there again, or recent tweets again, or other things from there. It just makes the experience of Twitter that much more enjoyable. And not that I want to spend all my time on Twitter, but when I am on Twitter, I want it to be great. Like, I want it to be something that's worthwhile. And I think that's something about social media, maybe we forget, it should be an enjoyable experience. It's something that we've created for our benefit. And a lot of times it just ends up being a time suck and a waste. But curating those people you follow using Twemex— Twemex— using that plugin also helps make the experience better. The next thing to do in terms of optimizing your time on Twitter is to create content that then helps you Which then is a benefit to you as you're using this platform. And there's a few different ways to grow on Twitter, one being to join a venture firm. Join a venture firm, say you're a partner, and I guarantee your followers will explode. Kidding, but only partially, because it definitely works. But really, Twitter threads are one of the ways that people definitely grow on Twitter. You'll see Twitter threads all the time and how people have gained thousands and thousands of followers by basically storytelling in the feed, using multiple tweets linked together in a thread. And it does help you grow. You've seen like Sahil Bloom grow to, I think, 100,000 plus. Uh, you've got like Sweaty Startup. It's another one I've seen grow. Elizabeth Yin, she has amazing Twitter threads. Like, I love them. And she's grown to maybe 30 or 40,000 followers on Twitter. And yes, it does take time to put those together. Think about making those as beneficial for people as possible. Tell stories within those. Have each of the first lines in every tweet essentially be a headline. And those definitely work. It takes time, but it works in terms of growing your following, which can be a benefit to you as you're using the platform anyways. The second thing being is really just consistency. As you're consistent on the platform, you're using it again and again, you're posting on this interesting things, people come and find you and it maximizes the benefit you have from the platform. And you may have people then DM you and interesting opportunities come about because of that. But creating consistently on the platform is definitely worth it and can help you in terms of maximizing your value from Twitter. The next way to grow on Twitter, which is a way to kind of maximize this value you get from it, is to engage with accounts that are larger than yours. So when you're engaging with accounts that have tens of thousands or millions of followers, those tweets can get a ton of views, a ton of traction. Inevitably, a percent of those people that view your tweet will come back to that profile which we optimized earlier and gave you that benefit of then people seeing, oh yeah, Justin tweets about startups, he's in venture capital, I want to connect with him. They DM you, all things well in the world. But you don't get that unless you start doing things like commenting on other people's threads or commenting on other people's tweets. Now that was something Anthony Pompliano, or Pomp as many people know, that's how he grew. Just one of the tactics he mentioned in another interview, I think, around he was engaging, I think it was like Donald Trump's Twitter at the time. And he was just tweeting or commenting and replying to things that he said. And those tweets were getting tons of views. So then he got tons of views. And people are like, who is this Pomp guy always replying to these tweets? And you can set notifications. So you'll get notifications when those people tweet. That's definitely a hack you can use if you want. I found that like just replying and actually engaging in an authentic way with people that you admire, people that you want to get in touch with, it only helps your reach. So I remember a recent tweet of mine when I replied to Balaji, who I think he— I forgot what the tweet was exactly, but I asked him a question around it and he ended up retweeting the question and then answering the question in a quote tweet. And that one retweeted quote tweet of mine, I think it got like 100-something thousand views, like exploded over time. And that's way more than I get in a typical tweet. And so That's something you can do to kind of hack the system and grow on Twitter, again, giving you more value on the platform. And finally, the last thing to do to maximize Twitter and get the most possible value you can from Twitter is to utilize the DM. Utilize this thing like no other. Go in there and start reaching out to people. It's literally magical that you can DM someone as long as they have their DMs open, you can DM like millions of people on Twitter and ask for their time. Maybe you're asking to give them something or for a meeting that's beneficial for both of you, or to collaborate, or to just connect. Like, there's so many ways you can go about it. But the DM in Twitter and using that to your advantage is the number one way to maximize the benefits and the value you're really getting from Twitter. And once you understand that, where like your profile is optimized, you you're creating interesting things, you've kind of created a flywheel of growth by commenting on other people's things and maybe writing some Twitter threads, and then you start DMing people— recipe for success on Twitter. Social media like Twitter, Instagram, etc., these platforms can suck. Let's just be honest, you can waste a ton of time, it can seem like everyone's living a better life than you. But if you set it up appropriately, if you're in a position to maximize the value you're getting from the platforms, it makes it useful for you and it can be a tool that can really help advance your life, your career. It just can make everything better. I've gotten a lot of value from social media over the last 8 or 9 years I've been creating, and I think other people need to understand that if you use it strategically, it can be great for you. Get started by very, very easy methods. Start tweeting once a day like Taylor Niemann does. That's it. Start tweeting once a day. Set up your profile like I mentioned, and DM people that you want to connect with. That's it. Easy. Done. That's all I have for you. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video.