What’s the best way to grow an audience on Twitter?

“Post interesting stuff, build relationships with peers, engage a lot…”
Andrea Bosoni, 55K followers on Twitter.

Most people stop at “post interesting stuff” and neglect building relationships and engaging with others.

Creating content is not easy. I’ve been there. I’ve been there—trying to come up with post ideas, finding things to say that are relevant to my audience, hopping on trends, and repurposing long posts into tweets.

But here’s the truth: It’s not enough.

There’s a myth popularized by gurus out there who say that scheduling a bunch of well-written posts is the secret sauce to growing on Twitter. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.

I hate to break it to you, but the reason Twitter is called a social app because you’re meant to socialize. You need to interact with your audience. And just liking other people’s stuff won’t cut it. You need to—brace yourself—talk to them.

I know that this might feel intimidating, especially when trying to add value to the comment section of big accounts.

Today, I’ll show successful entrepreneurs with great reply game and how you can learn from them.

Why does replying work?

Because Twitter is a social app!

Many big Twitter players have mentioned that replying was one of the main ways they grew, especially when their follower count was low. But growing on Twitter shouldn’t be the only reason you start replying more.

A strong reply game will:

• Help you build an inner circle of peers and a support network.
• Attract more clients by proving your know what you’re talking about with helpful observations.
• Keep you top of mind with the people you engage with.
• Get more exposure as your replies appear in the timelines of your followers.
• Make spending time on Twitter fun!

The main benefit? You’ll start having a good time on the platform. Getting on the app won’t feel like a chore. You’ll look forward to engaging with others and seeing what they’re up to.

“But I don’t know what to add to other people’s posts!”

If you keep asking yourself this question but can’t come up with anything, learning what’s worked for others can be incredibly helpful.

Below are some examples of good reply game that shows how to engage with others on X.

1. Answering a question

Yannick Veys co-founder of Hypefury (a Twitter automation platform), has 29.5K followers on X. Yannick uses the simple technique of answering someone’s question. This is one of the easiest ways to interact with a post.

2. Congratulating someone’s achievement

Csaba Kissi is a serial maker and creator of Invoice Generator, SQL Zap, and Folllio. He has 225K followers on X. Csaba is skilled at congratulating people on their achievements.

3. Asking a question

Xavier Coiffard is the creator of UserBooster and founder of the cold email agency LeadLeadBangBang. He has 14K followers on X. Xavier grew his following by over 10K in just over a year by replying to others. One of his tactics is simply asking questions out of curiosity.

4. Supporting and agreeing with what someone said

Arvid Kahl owns The Bootstrapped Founder media company and is building Podscan.fm in public. He has 148K followers on X. Arvid excels at replying with supportive comments that agree with the original post.

5. Making an observation or adding to what someone posted

Louie Bacaj, entrepreneur and writer of The M&Ms Newsletter, has 28K followers on X. Louie stands out by making personal observations that add value to the original post.

6. Replying with something funny

Dagobert Renouf is the creator of the “How to Dominate Twitter” course and has 93K followers on X. This self-proclaimed “memelord” always has something funny to reply with.

7. Promoting your stuff

Andrea Bosoni, writer of the Zero to Marketing newsletter, has 55.1K followers on X. Andrea demonstrates that you can promote your content if you do it the right way.

8. Disagreeing

Goutham Jay, creator of Famewall.io, has 11K followers on X. Goutham doesn’t always agree with others but offers his point of view respectfully.

Want to see more examples? Use this query in Twitter’s search bar: ‘(from:username) filter:replies‘ (Replace “username” with the @ of the person you want to study).

Tips to improve your reply game

What to do:

• Comment quickly (but don’t stress about it).
• Use the notification bell to get notified each time someone posts.
• Create Twitter lists.
• Be playful and curious.
• Be genuine and authentic.
• Be kind and respectful.
• Engage positively.

What to avoid:

• Being negative, disrespectful or a hater. Just don’t be a troll.
• Replying with generic answers that add no value.
• Promoting your stuff shamelessly and too often.
• Commenting on EVERY post from that big account you follow.
• Forcing interactions and posting inauthentic replies.
• Being shy. People put tweets out in public for a reason.
• Not replying at all.

I like to think I put my money where my mouth is. I did a small test to see if this “Reply game” works. Over the last few days, I’ve increased the number of replies I post, and I gained almost 20 new followers in the past four days. That’s more than I gained in the last month just by posting.

While I try to reply to the most recent posts first, I try to keep it chill. I usually reply while having my first coffee or when I’m in potato mode at night.

The goal is to have a meaningful conversation, like you would in real life, with real humans.

Having a good reply game is about choosing to be curious and getting to know other people’s worlds by empathizing. This is how you make it fun to be on Twitter and in life.