5 Simple Techniques I Used To Grow From Zero to 36m in <2 months (organically on Twitter)

I grew a "dead" account from 1,565 to 11,172 followers in under 2 months.

Since it hadn't been active for over 12 months (aka "dead), this was equivalent to starting from 0. In 2 months we got:

• 36,000,000 impressions.
• Big profile follows, like Jared Kushner, CEO of Perplexity, CMO of HubSpot, +++
• Big profile engagement, like Andrew Wilkinson, Tommy Hilfiger, and James Altucher (to name a few)

Here are 5 simple principles to create content that balances virality with conversion — but first...

Why should you listen to me?

I helped this account grow:

Before:

→ 1565 followers

→ no activity in over 1 year

→ no leads from the content

→ under 3000 monthly impressions (for 1+ year)

After 2 months with me:

→ 11,172 followers (614% growth)

→ 36,000,000 impressions

→ dozens of leads for high-ticket B2B offer

Done on a "dead" account — as in no activity for +1 year.

That's one specific example, but I've organically gotten 100s of millions of impressions on my content and 10s of thousands of followers over the past few years — Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn primarily.

5 simple tips to create great content (that goes viral AND converts) :

?? (1) K.I.S.S.

Keep It Super Simple.

You were rewarded for complexity and "sounding smart" in school. That's not the case for online writing. There's a time and place to show your authority by adding depth to your content, but doing so in simple terms remains the best way to do so (in most cases).

→ “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

→ "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

The hook *must* be easy to digest, but this should carry on all throughout the thread.

How most f*ck that up: making their sentences convoluted.

But note: easy to digest ≠ surface-level or not thought-provoking.

Sam Ovens' old YT and Alex Hormozi's content are perfect examples of this.

? incredibly value-packed, but straightforward to consume BECAUSE they did "spend the time to write the shorter letter".

?? (2) What's in it for me?

Everyone asks this one question subconsciously with anything — not just content.

→ what am I getting from this conversation?

→ what am I getting from this relationship?

etc. etc. etc.

You can say it's cynical to view it all as effectively transactional — but even on the altruistic extreme, they ask "what's in it for me?", which is → "I get to help people" / "It gives me a good feeling" / "It helps my reputation".

In other words, what value are you getting?

It's true that "people buy products with emotions and justify them with logic." — but what are they justifying?

The value they're getting.

In content, value comes in many forms, but boils down to entertainment, education and packaging.

→ make someone laugh = value

→ teach someone something new = value

→ speak to something within someone = value

Entertainment and education should be straightforward to grasp.

In terms of packaging, Mark Manson 's reflection on "The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F**k"'s success says it well: (paraphrasing):

"There's nothing new in self-help. What was self-help called before it was called self-help? Religion. Philosophy. There aren't any new ideas there, and there weren't any new ideas in my books. In fact, read about 3 self-help books and you'll have a hard time finding any new ideas from there onwards.

My books were successful because I simply packaged the ideas differently. Because our receptivity of ideas and advice largely has to do with the context in which we receive it."

The packaging alleviates the emotional/mental hurdle of internalizing ideas = the packaging provides value in itself.

Andrew Kirby's whole shtick is exactly this; synthesizing.

Repackaging ideas. Add your own twist on occasion, but start with existing ideas and build upon them.

Since value comes in different forms, you need to consider (3) ↓

?? (3) Retention

Consider retention for both: (1) throughout a post, and (2) as a follower within your audience.

With this in mind, you need to acknowledge that content has different objectives.

This post has already lost most people by this sentence — but that's no concern because the objective is to "show my authority". On socials, these posts get the least reach but are ultimately the posts that convert. In other words — going viral should *not* be the one all be all metric.

This type of long, in-depth post gets limited retention throughout the post, but helps with retention of someone in your audience by:

→ proving your value to strangers to convert them into followers

→ meeting (or exceeding) expectations from your followers to convert them into your "1000 true fans" (and into clients)

Even if someone doesn't read your authoritative posts, they still help with conversions.

How so?

Well, just like we all *love* specific numbers, frameworks and unique concepts when being explained something new — even if we don't understand it, or don't even care to understand it — we also *love* simply seeing that someone has in-depth content.

I.e., those numbers, frameworks, and concepts was enough to convince you to listen to my advice on [topic]. Same applies for authoritative content.

That was a few notes on retention in your audience.

Now, on the note of posts' retention:

On Twitter, significant drop-off from the first tweet to the 2nd of a thread is common.

A few rough ranges (for well-performing threads) :

The 2nd tweet's views compared to the 1st tweet's (in a thread):

• +8% is extremely good
• 5-8% is very good
• 3-5% is good
• 2-3% is adequate
• <1% is bad

• +3% on the last tweet of the thread is very good
• 1-2% on the last tweet of the thread is good
• <1% on the last tweet of the thread is the norm.

One of our viral threads had:

• +21M views on first tweet
• 1.2M views on 2nd tweet (5.7%)
• 848k on last tweet (3.6%)

A lot of numbers, I know — but they tell a lot about the content.

Each tweet clearly had a balance of opening curiosity loops, closing them, opening new ones, and tying them together. I.e., it was clearly engaging.

Just like reviewing churn anywhere in a business, you should do the same for your content.

Where are people falling off? Why did they fall off there?

One simple framework to tell an engaging story is The South Park creators' "but, so" framework.

"I want to [desire] so I [action to achieve desire]. But [obstacle for achieving desire], so I [action to overcome obstacle to still achieve desire]."

Simply keep this going all throughout the story.

A simple example: "I want to build a great Skool community — but I have no idea how to build a community, so I joined the Skool Games. But that made it clear I just needed to get started, so I decided to create the community right away. But I didn't know [problem], so I [attempted solution], etc. etc. etc."

On the topic of retention, this carries over to:

?? (4) Is going viral good?

Go viral once, and it's a fluke. Might've boosted your sales, but didn't leave a lasting effect.

So how do you retain those whose eye you caught from this viral post?

Brand.

Alex Hormozi said it so well in his recent video:

"Advertising = how you make it known

Branding = what you make known (what associations)

This means you can do excellent advertising and terrible branding at the same time."

Apple's recent "Crushing it" ad is a perfect example.

It went viral — but went 1000% against the brand.

A one-off occurrence like this isn't the end of your brand — particularly at Apple's scale, it won't leave any lasting effect.

Make it happen multiple times and that *will* become the association people now have with you.

I.e., that *will* become your brand.

Now, Apple's example could be considered an *accident*, for lack of a better word.

But this scenario applies to your content too.

Since we know authority posts generally won't go viral, you'll need to figure out how to get some eyes on your content. So to get those eyes on your content, you wanna go viral.

But viral content is usually either:

? (1) incredibly high-quality content that's optimized for the platform, think MrBeast and Ryan Trahan. Requires at least one of: unique skill, unique brand or unique audience. Not beginner-friendly.

? (2) surface-level content without nuance, like some bullsh*t list of "10 psychology tricks" generated by ChatGPT. Beginner-friendly.

So most go with (2) as it easy. But remember Hormozi's quote from above:

"Advertising = how you make it known

Branding = what you make known (what associations)

This means you can do excellent advertising and terrible branding at the same time."

Soooo...if you make yourself known through surface-level content (which isn't aligned with the brand you want) — well, you're acting against where you want to go.

And that's the exact pitfall most fall into. Even if they acknowledge that virality shouldn't be the main metric, they still optimize for virality. And in turn, do excellent advertising, but terrible branding.

And that's short-term thinking. That's focusing on vanity metrics.

In other words, your viral content should rarely, if ever, be a means to an end.

It shouldn't be a means to get eyes on your content — it should *be the end*.

Incredibly difficult to do. Resource intensive. Not beginner-friendly.

But those aren't excuses — because someone will have the skill and the resources to do it — and that's who you're competing against.

Once again, Hormozi is a perfect example of this. 35,000 pieces of content in a few years.

Been through the trial and error of growing from zero — then trying to optimize for virality — then. trying to make viral authoritative content — and then back to making pure value-packed, no BS, authoritative content.

There's a time and place for making content for the sake of virality, but consider when (and why).

So to wrap this up — how do you carry this over to your personal brand's content?

?? (5) Holistic Strategy

"Likes ain't cash" — David Molina

Not understanding this is what ruins most people's success on socials.

They focus on the vanity metrics. They zero-in on single metrics rather than neither (1) evaluating performance holistically, nor (2) approaching content creation with a holistic strategy.

Soooo...does this mean you need some big, fancy and elaborate strategy?

No, not at all.

Dakota Robertson has a dead simple (but effective) approach with three types of content:

(1) Growth = maximize reach. Get new eyeballs on your content & brand.

(2) Authority = prove your expertise. Gets low engagement, but converts the best.

(3) Personality = show who you are. "Let your freak flag fly". Share your opinions, humor, vulnerabilities.

All of these types provide value, but in different forms, and are suited for different phases of the process of converting a stranger into a loyal fan.

The strategy is the easy part. That's not what's holding people back.

Creating great content is the challenge.

——

If you found this valuable:

(1) I made a swipe file of hooks to use. Grab it for free here.

(2) Want to see the exact blueprint I've used to grow? Comment below and I'll send it to you (for free)

(3) Want me to review your content? Comment below and I'll share my feedback.