How I got 4.5k Twitter followers in 69 days

In 28 days I got over $607,824 of free advertising on Twitter.

All this costs me is effort and an effective marketing strategy.

Here’s the maths:

Twitter advertising cost per 1000 impressions: $6.48

My impressions in last 28 days: 93.8 Million

93,800,000 / 1000 = 93,800

93,800 x $6.48 = $607,824

This is the power of the twitter strategy I’m teaching you today.

Twitter is the best platform for creators growing their audience from 0.

Why?

Twitter makes growing and getting eyes on your content easy.

Easier than any other platform I’ve used.

For example:

Youtube:

I have 68.5k subscribers on YouTube. 

I’ve created over 3,000 videos.

I’ve been creating on YouTube for 12+ years.

Here’s what I’ve found:

• Video editing is time consuming (hours of work to create a 10 min video – and editing is boring af)
• Video editing is a skill you need to succeed on Youtube
• Video SEO works wonders for new creators
• Making a variety of content kills your reach

For example, this is how my video SEO strategy works for YouTube:

I upload a video, it gets a few views in the beginning.

Over time (3+ months) the video ranks on YouTube and google.

Then the video brings in more views forever.

E.g my “how to write a rap song” video got a few hundred views when released.

Few months later – 50k+ views

A year later 1.2M + views

Bad news is – sometimes the video doesn’t rank.

Sometimes your video gets 200 views after you spent hours editing it.

The cost to benefit ratio is random. 

Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s terrible.

The only way to find out is to spend the time and release the video.

Even when you do the research…

Even when you set up everything the right way…

 The video might flop.

It’s like all content creation on the internet – a crapshoot.

Luck + consistency + skill = success.

It gets worse:

If you don’t stick to ONE topic – your YouTube channel is penalised.

I’m speaking from experience:

I’ve been through bare niches on YouTube.

– music
– gaming
– marketing
– songwriting
– server coding
– online business
– music production

This ruins the reach of my channel because YouTube isn’t sure who to serve my new videos to.

A beginner with a fresh channel will have better results using the same strategies (I’ve personally coached channels and seen this).

But, having a variety of content hurts you on YouTube

• Subscribers don’t matter and aren’t shown your videos
• Only a small percentage of your subscribers are suggested your videos.
• Subscribers haven’t mattered on Youtube since 2013.

YouTube is time consuming cos of the video editing.

If you pay someone to edit your videos, it can get expensive ($150+ per video).

In 2015, I published:

• 260 videos
• 63 live streams

365/260 = 1 vid per 1.4 days

If you make videos – you know you can’t publish this many videos while touching grass.

Dungeon grind.

Result:

• 3.8k subscribers

In 69 days of focusing my marketing on twitter – these are my results:

• 4.5k followers
• 194 million impressions

I’ve also created content on Instagram – but my experience is limited so I won’t dive deep into how things work over there.

However, I’ve realised REELS are the key to growing on instagram.

Reels get more reach than the other media I’ve tried on Instagram.

Instagram gurus agree that reels are the key to growth.

And, Instagram encourages creators to use reels.

Short videos are easier to edit than long form videos – but video editing stays time consuming.

The internet streets say it’s easy to go viral on Tiktok but, I haven’t been that lucky.

I’m lucky to get 10k views on a video on instagram and Tiktok.

I get millions of views every single day on twitter – with a predictable and repeatable system.

But that’s not all:

Compared to video – writing is easier and faster.

Writing is the soul of ALL content.

Good videos start as a written outline or script.

Everything begins with writing the idea down.

Getting good at writing helps you on every platform.

But – writing well on twitter is like selling crack to kids.

If you come to twitter with good writing skills – it’s your playground.

Here’s why twitter is the best platform for growing your audience and business:

• It’s easy to write and get ideas out fast
• It’s easy to connect with other creators
• It’s easy to test an idea before committing to it
• It’s easy to build an audience of like-minded people
• It’s easy to leverage other people’s audiences and get eyes on your tweets
• You can post a variety of content and still grow (in fact posting a variety of content is better than posting about 1 thing all the time – makes you seem more human)

I’ll prove why all these points are true by the end of this newsletter.

You may have doubts because:

• You don’t understand how twitter works yet
• You don’t understand how to use twitter for business yet
• You don’t respect twitter as a content creation platform

I’m here to change that.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2009 – that’s 14 years.

I was 15 when I joined – I knew nothing.

Lack of knowledge led to huge mistakes that beat up my account like a 12 round fight with Mike Tyson.

First major mistake:

Doing Follow For Follow

Follow for follow is following someone for them to follow you back.

Not because you like each other’s content – you do this to get your follower numbers up.

I was stupid when I was younger. 

I didn’t realise that followers are a useless number.

If they’re not following you because they wanna see your content – what’s the point?

I was spending hours per day following people who followed artists I wanted to be like or I thought sounded similar.

After doing this for a while…

I made my second major twitter mistake:

I unfollowed everyone.

This was a common strategy at the time – but, looking back I can admit it’s ungentlemanly behavour.

The problem was:

When you follow loads of people (who also know little about marketing) you get loads of spam filling up your TL.

This makes Twitter basically useless. 

So I unfollowed like crazy. 

I didn’t know how badly this would hurt my account:

I started bleeding followers.

I expected that part. 

I had 28k followers, so losing a few wasn’t a big deal to me.

It wasn’t until I hit 23k followers that I knew I needed to do something different.

Bleeding followers wasn’t the biggest problem.

The biggest problem was I couldn’t tell when I gained followers.

My data (the most important resource for marketing) was corrupted.

I did the only thing I could do:

In 2018, I started studying Twitter.

There were a few rapidly growing accounts I was paying attention to:

• Nate Schmidt (@SCHM7DT)
• Ed Latimore (@EdLatimore) 
• Andrew Tate (@CobraTate before he blew up like crazy) 

These 3 accounts taught me a lot about twitter

Nate was tweeting about copywriting & dropshipping.

Dropshipping is a dogshit business model and I saw that from a mile away. 

But, copywriting is a superpower on the internet. 

I thought copywriting was the thing stopping people from stealing your music.

(that’s copyrighting) 

Truth is – copywriting is sales in writing.

Copywriting is how advertisers get people to buy stuff.

Copywriting is how sales pages get people to click the buy button.

Copywriting is how you persuade people to believe an idea.

Copywriting is persuasive writing.

Naturally, like the huge nerd I am , I started studying.

I read a bunch of copywriting books and started writing every day.

These are the books you should read to understand the basics of copywriting, marketing & online business.

I’m adding a “*” next to the essential books – read these ASAP.

[add links and names]

• Cashvertising (By Drew Eric Whitman) *
• Olgilvy on Olgilvy (By David Olgilvy)
• Adweek Copywriting Handbook (By Joeseph Sugarman) *
• How To Win Friends And Influence People (By Dale Carnegie) *
• Dotcom Secrets (By Russel Brunson) *
• Expert Secrets (By Russel Brunson)
• Scientific Advertising (By Claude Hopkins)
• 48 Laws Of Power (By Robert Greene)
• Influence – Psychology Of Persuasion (By Robert Cialdini) *
• The Boron Letters (Gary Halbert)
• Words That Sell (By Richard Bayan)
• Copywriting Made Simple (By Tom Albrighton)
• The Elements Of Style (By William Strunk & E.B. White)
• How To Write Better Copy (By Steve Harrison)

Reading books gave me a basic knowledge of copywriting.

I already learned a lot of the concepts while studying marketing for 12+ years…

But, my eyes were opened to a whole new world when studying copywriting.

Ed Latimore was tweeting about self-development, writing and sobriety.

I related to Ed the most. 

He’s black, fit and big on personal responsibility.

Sounds like I’m describing myself, right?

I bought Ed Latimore’s book “Engagement Is the New Cocaine” in 2019.

It broke down how Ed writes tweets and grows his account. 

I learned a lot, then tried putting the knowledge into practice…

Crickets.

No engagement from my 23k followers – big problem.

I’ll reveal how I fixed this shortly but, before that:

Andrew Tate was using outrage marketing to promote his courses

At the time, Tate was another guy in “Money Twitter” (people on twitter using the app to make money and build their business).

He grew his account by tweeting stuff he knew offends people.

It gave me great insight into how easily people promote things they hate without thinking about what they’re doing.

What is outrage marketing and how does it work?

Outrage marketing is when you purposely make people angry to promote your brand

E.g.

When Tate dissed Star Wars knowing it has a huge, passionate fanbase who would react negatively:

He did this around the release of a new Star wars trailer, so it got a LOT of attention. 

He also posted other tweets that basically said:

 “if you watch star wars – you’re a virgin.

 I don’t watch star wars, that’s why I have beautiful girlfriends” 

I’m paraphrasing but, that was the gist of it.

You likely remember these tweets – even if you forgot who tweeted them.

Here’s why outrage marketing works

All social media platforms have one goal:

Keep you on the platform as long as possible.

The way social media platforms do this is by pushing and promoting content that gets a lot of engagement.

Replies, Retweets & Likes are all engagement that twitter looks at to see if your tweet is worth boosting to more people.

When people are outraged their emotions take over.

A reasonable person like me scrolls past shit I don’t like.

The outraged person needs everyone to know how angry they are.

They need to let their emotions out.

They reply. 

They quote tweet.

They engage.

What happens next?

That’s right – Twitter sees the engagement and boosts the tweet to more people.

That’s the tip of the iceberg.

Replying to a tweet exposes it to all their followers – promoting the thing they hate.

Of course – quote tweets promote the tweet to their followers too.

If enough people get outraged at a tweet – it snowballs and rolls across twitter.

This leads to people who agree with the tweet or people who see it as a joke following the tweeter.

This leads to loads of people viewing the tweeter’s profile – whether they hate the tweet or not.

Giving the tweeter a bunch of traffic to persuade and turn into customers/followers.

Outrage marketing works well.

But – it’s not worth it.

Look at how many people despise Andrew Tate.

Both his fans and haters are passionate af.

Having that many people wishing for your downfall doesn’t lead to good things.

But here’s the interesting thing:

You can use the effectiveness of outrage marketing in your tweets while being a reasonable, likeable person.

How?

• By tweeting your honest opinions.

• By being polarizing

• By removing all nuance

I’ll discuss exactly how to apply these tactics later in this newsletter.

Back to my story:

In 2021, I bought a course on twitter writing from Ed Latimore and JK Molina.

The course came with thousands of well-performing tweet examples for me to model.

The course also broke down why the tweets worked.

I studied the course hard and I began writing like my life depended on it.

Spending over $200 on a course gives you the motivation you need to use the information lmao.

Thing is:

Couple months after I bought the course…

JK Molina cofounded Tweethunter –  the tool I use for twitter marketing.

Tweethunter comes with thousands of tweet templates…

Tweethunter comes with search features to find thousands more well-performing tweets for any keyword of topic.

Tweethunter comes with a guide teaching beginners how to grow on twitter.

Tweethunter comes with tools to keep your twitter profile working while you’re sleeping.

Worst part?

Tweethunter only costs $49 a month

Great for you, terrible for me.

Get tweethunter here (it’s worth it – I use it everyday): https://bit.ly/TweethunterJay 

Anyways, spending all that money got me fired up and ready to work.

That’s when I did something crazy…

I did something most people would fight to avoid.

I cleared out 11,528+ of my twitter followers on purpose.

I used a website that blocks & unblocks inactive followers who haven’t tweeted for months or years.

I blocked them 50 at a time using the free plan.

A few days work to get rid of more followers than most twitter accounts ever get.

This left me with 8.9k followers.

After getting rid of 11k+ inactive followers – I still had a problem:

My tweets were getting no engagement.

Having 8.9k followers with 0 engagement looks better than 28k followers with 0 engagement.

But, I’m getting the same result of 0 engagement either way.

There’s good news…

At the time of writing this, I have:

• 13,392 Twitter followers
• 2.4% engagement rate (average twitter engagement rate is 0.5%)
• Been gaining hundreds of followers every day (50 minimum)

What’s my repeatable Twitter marketing strategy?

I’m giving you everything you need to know to get your first 1000 followers.

I wanna dive even deeper – cos I’ve got so much data and knowledge to give you.

But that’d make this newsletter too long and too complicated.

So here’s what I’m doing:

I’m writing a full-on book breaking down all my data and systems for twitter growth & creating a creative business.

This newsletter will break down the basics and give you everything you need to start growing today – for free, no strings attached.

When you’re ready to get deeper and take your twitter account and business further – buy my book.

Sound good?

Click the link below if you’re interested in my twitter marketing book.

When you sign up – I’ll tell you when the book’s ready and keep you updated.

Plus, you’ll get my future newsletters sent to your email inbox – saving you time and energy finding it here.

It’s free to sign up – the more people sign up, the faster I’ll write the book.

Here’s the link:

This is the key to growing on Twitter:

1. Reply to tweets getting views 

Replying is the new twitter meta.

All other engagement is in the gutter

Twitter doesn’t like your account if you’re not replying.

Twitter loves when tweets are getting replies.

This is why big Twitter accounts are getting lower engagement in 2023:

– They’re not replying enough

Replies are the most valuable metric on Twitter

– Twitter boosts tweets getting replies

– Twitter boost accounts replying regularly

Twitter’s engagement ranking:

1. Replies

2. Retweets

3. Likes

If you’re a small account – what hope do you have to get your tweets seen without replying?

None bro. 

Zero hope to get your tweets seen by more than a few thousand people.

But it’s not as easy as seeing a viral tweet and replying – it takes work (really).

The first step is picking the right tweets to reply to.

You can spend all day replying to tweets and get 3,000 views on your tweets.

While I spend a few hours and get millions of views on my tweets.

Why?

Because I reply to tweets that get more views.

The good news is – twitter makes it easy for you to reply to tweets getting views.

The “for you” section is filled with tweets that’s getting engagement on Twitter.

All you need to do is make a few good bets to get in front of a huge audience.

For example:

If I see a tweet has 1.2M views – it’s prob gonna keep getting more views.

If a tweet has 12k views – you won’t get many views if you reply.

Some accounts regularly post tweets that go viral – follow these accounts.

Reply to their tweets as soon as you see them – even if they have low views at the moment.

This is how I’m spreading my name across twitter efficiently.

This is how I’m making people think I have employees tweeting for me.

Adding views turned twitter into a video game.

You decide:

• when you play to grow (reply)
• when you continue in the same place (retweet)
• when you give up (like)

Before you reply – look at the views and decide if it’s worth it.

Is it worth arguing with this dude if it gets 87 views? 

No.

However – don’t neglect replying to your followers and people you like.

It’s worth replying to lower view tweets to interact and engage with people – twitter isn’t about growing all the time.

2. Share your honest thoughts

Making people angry is great for marketing.

Thing is:

– Purposely making people angry is dumb (Andrew Tate used outrage marketing – it put a target on his back)

– Purposely avoiding making people angry is dumb (bland without personality)

What should you do?

Say what you think.

It’s that easy.

Honesty makes people angry af.

Honestly and reasonable opinions are so rare these days – it’s a breath of fresh air when people see you being honest and reasonable.

Some people will hate your guts – they’ll promote you by getting outraged.

Some people will love what you say – they’ll promote you by engaging, follow you, buy your stuff

Speak your mind and thousands of people will think “he/she’s saying what I think!”.

It doesn’t matter what you say – as long as you’re not a hateful bastard.

I’m a chill, reasonable & loving person.

It’s rare to find people like me on the internet – chill, reasonable & loving people are drawn to me.

If you’re a hateful, negative troll – you’ll attract similar people (and risk getting banned – not worth it)

Be nice. 

Be honest.

Be transparent.

Be yourself and nobody can copy you.

3. Learn basic copywriting

Copywriting knowledge gives you the tools you need to write better tweets.

The stuff they taught you in school? 

Trash.

Nobody wants to read the stuff you write in essays.

Nobody wants to read boring writing.

The internet wants the writing to be simple, easy to read and conversational.

Writing how you speak will change your writing life for good.

Stop writing like a robot – start writing like a person.

Read Cashvertising, Influence and How To Win Friends and Influence People ASAP.

These 3 books will get you writing better tweets fast.

Keep studying tweets that perform well.

Study & learn twitter to succeed on Twitter.

4. Learn tweet formatting

When we see big blocks of text – our mind’s say “ew – not reading that”.

Twitter formatting is simple.

Twitter is an art.

Look at this entire newsletter:

• I write things in lists
• I don’t write blocks of text
• I don’t write long sentences
• I don’t use complicated words

This makes my writing easier to read.

My writing naturally takes you down the page – this is the goal.

Do this:

Start creating space in your tweets.

One sentence per line (2 max).

Have a list of things? 

Don’t use commas – use a list.

Lists perform well on twitter because they’re easier to read.

Start writing more lists and your engagement will rise overnight – guaranteed.

5. Keep building a stash of relevant memes

I have folders filled with memes on my phone.

Folders organised by category – so I quickly find the right meme for the situation.

When I started this twitter marketing experiment – I had years of memes stored in my phone.

I created a folder called “replies” and I searched through that folder for every reply.

After realising searching for memes was taking too long, I organised each folder by themes.

E.g: 

• Cap replies
• Horny replies
• Shocked replies
• Disgusted replies

Do this:

Create your own folders – organise your memes.

Keep collecting new memes.

Create your own memes.

Even when I’m chilling watching a TV show – I’m analysing clips for turning into replies or tweets.

I’m always working – even when I’m not working.

6. Add value to every tweet you reply to

Big companies, Only Fans girls and “reply guys” are replying to the same tweets I’m replying to – but getting less results.

Why?

Cos I write good content and they don’t.

This isn’t me being arrogant or boasting – this is fact.

Good content does these 3 things:

• Entertain
• Educate
• Inspire

If your tweet isn’t doing at least one of these things – it’s not good content.

I’m not blindly posting replies to get as many views as possible.

I’m creating good content that takes the context of the original tweet into account.

Here’s an example of a bad reply from a company:

Doritos has: 31.9k followers

TeamRazer has: 583.1k followers

Here’s me writing better content:

The difference in engagement is insane:

I got the same amount of views as TeamRazer (more than 41x more followers than me)

My tweet got more engagement than both of these companies combined together and multiplied by 10.

(Numbers are accurate at the time of writing but may change: 

14 + 62 = 76 x100 = 760 – I’m getting over 1k likes)

Why?

• Cos the person they hired for twitter marketing is bad at writing.

• They’re posting low effort tweets – getting low effort results.

Why did my tweet work?

• Because I provided an insightful description of the “flying car” in the original tweet.

• I added dry humor.

Entertaining & showing a unique perspective – good content.

This is proof that followers don’t matter – good content does.

Here’s an example of a bad reply from an OF model:

This beautiful woman has: 80.9k followers

This tweet has 16.5k views.

Here’s me writing better content:

My tweet has 361.1k views.

Why did I get 22x+ more views than this woman?

Bad content vs good content.

Her tweet is selfish.

The main goal of her tweet is to promote her OnlyFans.

She didn’t come to entertain, inspire or educate.

There’s a mild attempt at a joke – but it’s a mid joke.

No effort.

What about my tweet?

As soon as I saw the OG tweet, I heard the Halo announcer’s voice saying “Double Kill” in my mind.

I googled to find the right pic, and I added a classic “bro said”.

The joke was hilarious, dark and edgy.

Entertaining – good content.

Boobs beat me on any visual platform – but I can win on Twitter.

Why?

Twitter’s about writing.

If my tweets get more views:

• I get more profile views
• I get more followers
• I get more leads
• I get more sales

Therefore: 

It’s always better to create good content instead of spamming promo in the replies of tweets.

Here’s an example of a bad reply from a reply guy:

This tweet has 217.5k views – great amount.

But – 28 likes is very low for 217.5k views.

An average amount of likes is 10 likes per 1,000 views.

When saying something controversial – likes go down and comments go up.

But you’d still expect at least 100 likes on a tweet with 217.5k views.

This guy replies to most of the tweets I do – probably more.

But he gets worse results.

Why?

Cos he’s mid at writing for twitter.

He uses long sentences and paragraphs.

He never uses lists.

He’s very negative.

Misery loves company…

Everyone else wants misery to get away from em.

There are other reply dudes that are:

• Trolling
• Writing without skill
• Spamming their links

They’re getting worse results than me – and they’ll keep getting worse results.

Until they read this newsletter and my future book.

7. Have a clear bio communicating why people should follow you

To get more followers – your bio needs to clearly communicate the value you’re giving.

If I can’t skim your bio in 5 secs and know what’s in it for me – your bio is trash.

Here’s my bio:

Fitness Coach | Marketing | Music Producer | Helping creatives build their body, audience and mind. Reasonable & curious person on the crazy internet.

1. First, I’m telling you what I do
2. Then, I’m telling you who I’m helping and what I’m helping them with
3. Last, I’m giving you insight into my personality

This is everything you need for making a decision whether to scroll down my page and see if I have anything worth saying.

Fix your bio now.

Bad bio = less followers.

8. Have an engaging pinned tweet

Your pinned tweet is what people see after your bio.

This is your advertisement convincing people you’re worth following.

Your pinned tweet should do one or both of these things:

• Tell your story
• Showcase your expertise

My pinned tweet tells the story of my fitness transformation.

And, my pinned tweet showcases my fitness expertise.

Check my pinned tweet here to dive deeper:

9. Be polarizing (no nuance)

Nuance is great for life but terrible for growing your twitter account.

If you’re like me – a reasonable, nuanced person – then the thought of getting rid of nuance is making you feel sick in your stomach right now.

The thought of having 0 nuance is shocking to your core.

You wouldn’t dream of stooping to such lows.

But the truth is:

Nuance is boring.

Certainty makes people choose a side.

Certainty gets replies, retweets, likes.

Certainty makes people agree or disagree with your tweet.

Certainty is polarizing.

Be nuanced in the replies.

But – the head honcho tweet must be certain.

The easiest and best thing to do is:

Write stuff you’re certain about.

You know facts.

You have opinions that are certainly yours.

If you need an example of how to write with certainty:

Look at this whole newsletter – everything I write is written with certainty.

Because I’m certain. 

I’ve done everything I’m teaching you.

Everything I say is true.

(or – I think it is at the time cos I’m forever learning)

See? 

Snuck a bit of nuance in there.

When you start writing with certainty – you’ll unlock a secret power:

You’ll be able to write nuanced tweets with certainty.

Like this:

(This tweet has 19.1k views)

This tweet is certainly saying the woman is lying but…with nuance.

I don’t know – she could be 100% correct in what she’s saying.

It sounds ridiculous to me – but I’m open to being wrong.

And, that’s how I genuinely feel.

Nuanced.

But with enough certainty to make people comment.

This really tickled some people’s emotions and got them to pick a side.

Many misunderstandings all around – but that’s twitter.

The good news is:

Misunderstandings drive more engagement.

I could bore you with the background of the tweet and the context – but who cares?

Twitter moves fast, it’ll be gone tomorrow and new tweets will rise up to take it’s place.

People follow people who speak with certainty.

People reply to certainty for or against their feelings and opinions.

People hit the like button on tweets they’re certain aligns with their feelings and opinions.

Be certain.

But, also – have fun. Don’t take it too seriously.

Having a personality and being funny goes a long way.

If you can…

If you’re unfortunate enough to not have developed a personality yet…

If you’re not that funny (even though you think you are)…

At least be certain.

Post those unfunny tweets with certainty that you’re as funny as you think you are – somebody, somewhere will agree.

There are 340 million people on twitter – it’s not hard to find people who think like you.

Bonus – Twitter Business Model

People keep asking me about making money on twitter.

I’m giving you the blueprint.

I’ll explain the business deeper in future newsletter if there’s enough interest (dm me on twitter or send me an email so I know you want it)

How to make money on Twitter 101

1. Solve problem
2. Systemise problem solving – turn system into product or service
3. Content marketing attracts audience
4. Give free info for email address
5. Send deeper free info to email address
6. People who love free info buy system in product or service
7. Repeat

Here’s what to do next:

1. Use the information above – fix up your profile and start replying to tweets
2. Get tweethunter and study well-performing tweets

Want more?

Buy my book “Getting Lean” to make the whole fat loss process faster and easier – by gaining a deeper understanding of how it all works and having structured guidelines through your journey.

Buying my book is a great way to support me writing more content and change your health for the better.

Here’s the link:

​https://jaycartere.com/gettinglean​

Click the link below if you’re interested in my twitter marketing book.

When you sign up – I’ll tell you when the book’s ready and keep you updated.

Plus, you’ll get my future newsletters sent to your email inbox – saving you time and energy finding it here.

It’s free to sign up – the more people sign up, the faster I’ll write the book.

Here’s the link: