I Experimented with the New Twitter Algorithm. My Growth Exploded

Being a content creator + having a Web 2 job + trying to build a business is an incredibly difficult and stressful position to be in. I assume if my content resonates with you, you’re in a similar position of trying to build something out of your passions while maintaining your career.

It’s not easy. It’s something I’ve been doing for 14 months now since I’ve built 1% Better and NFT God. Unless you’re born with a ton of money, building the side hustle while maintaining your full time gig is the only way you’re going to get closer to your dreams.

As NFT God and this newsletter scales to something I’m really proud of, I’m reminded daily how much that struggle has been worth it.

The only way your side hustle is going to turn into your main hustle is if you make big sacrifices and work like a crazy person after hours. I’ve focused deeply the last year on time efficiency and scheduling. Every night I block out time for tweet composition/reading/brainstorming/creativity exercises/community building.

Prioritize, schedule, and know when to take rests. Critical for keeping clear minded and getting tasks done even with a packed calendar and other responsibilities.

I’ve had about fifteen 1 on 1 calls the last few days with 1% Better readers, and the biggest theme I pulled out is the challenges with everything I just described. I really look forward to leaning into this type of content way more moving forward. If you are taking a similar journey or have the same struggles let me know in the comment section.

Anyway, onto the alpha…

Contents:

1. Latest Twitter Thread

2. I Experimented with the New Twitter Algorithm. My Growth Exploded

3. Replies of the Week

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Latest Thread

I Experimented with the Algorithm. My Growth Exploded.

Over the past 7 days I’ve been running a few experiments on the new Twitter algorithm. Growth for me has slightly slowed since the implementation of the new algo (as it has for most). Elon seems to think less engagement is better for the platform. Not sure I get it, but hey, he’s the playboy billionaire. The results I have discovered have been dramatic and have boosted my growth across all platforms. First the results:

1751 followers gained (836 previous 7 days)

775 new subscribers (255 previous 7 days)

Pretty amazing. A clear success. Over doubled the acceleration of my growth. 7 of the best days of newsletter subscriber growth I’ve ever had.

So what did I experiment with over the past week?

1. Multimedia

2. More replies

3. Removal of outside links

4. Simplification of threads

Let’s dive deeper into each experiment:

Multimedia

Over the past week I started including way more visuals in my tweets. I’ve been using Figma to create images like the one you see here:

I’ve never done GM tweets before. Not even once. The reason is I want every single one of my tweets to provide value. I don’t believe GM provides value. But I figured if I could design visuals that provide value, I could include them in a GM tweet and still stay on brand.

I used Figma to create these visuals. Figma is an incredibly powerful, free visual design tool. I basically took the background of my PFP then added shapes and text onto it. Simple.

Result: every tweet I wrote that included high quality, valuable visuals had significantly higher engagement.

More Replies

Over the past 7 days I averaged 89 replies per day. The previous 7 days I averaged 45. I ramped up my responses to people replying to my tweets as well as replies to other people’s tweets. I built a Twitter List of accounts that engage with me regularly and carved out abut 20 minutes a day of just straight replying.

Result: tweets of mine where I responded to replies quickly seemed to have performed better. While I’ll never know the direct result of these replies, I think it’s no coincidence all of my engagement increased dramatically.

Removal of Outside Links

Over the past few weeks, any tweets I put out that included links to my newsletter performed really poorly. I tried a new strategy. I wouldn’t include the link on any of my threads or tweets, but after a tweet performed well, I’d add on a reply about an hour later with the call-to-action for my newsletter.

Result: tweet performance remained high and click through rate to my newsletter improved dramatically, accelerating my newsletter growth.

Simplification of Threads

The last change I made was how my threads were structured. I simplified them down and used more visuals. I tried to contain every idea I had for a thread into a single tweet, rather than describing single ideas over multiple tweets. Example:

These thread described 8 lies in Web 3. Each lie was contained in one tweet rather than multiple. Simplifying the entire piece of content. I also added visuals to almost every tweet.

Result: my best performing thread since the new algorithm was implemented.

Conclusion

The experiment was a big time success. My metrics were up across the board in every conceivable way. Unless you isolate the variables it’ll be really difficult to determine how much each factor contributed to the growth, but either way I suspect each played a part.

Here’s the best part though: trying these methods out are a win win. Even if you don’t get huge results right away, you’ll still improve your content/networking.

With an ever-changing algorithm, it’s important to experiment and figure out the new rules. There is a ton of game theory involved in growing on social media. The rules are constantly changing. It’s critical you evolve with the ever changing landscape.

Have experiments of your own you’ve ran? Any success trying out my new methods?Let me know in the comments below.

I’ve been running these experiments live in the 1% Club Discord every day for the past week. We have an awesome crew in there that hangs out in the work-with-me voice chat throughout the day (I’m in there daily). If you’re looking for a group of the smartest minds in the space to build and network with I’d highly encourage you to join us! (screenshot of one of our pomodoro sessions below). So far numerous Spaces, newsletters, and content accounts have been incubated and launched. We also have Club Calls coming up this next week that include a newsletter growth masterclass and Youtube Shorts masterclass. Join over 630 of us here:

Replies of the Week

Thank you so much to everyone who’s replied to my tweets or emailed me this week! Look forward to hearing from more of you soon! Take care and have an excellent weekend!