My 30 Day Twitter Experiment
Feb

When I first started using Twitter back in November 2010, I had little idea of how powerful it was. Over the past 3 months, Twitter has become part of my daily routine and can now see how some bloggers are using it to dominate.
Over the last month or so, I have fallen into the habit of promoting my posts via scheduled Tweets and am engaging in conversations less and less. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen!
In my post, Use The Force Of Twitter, I talk about how Twitter is all about building relationships by getting involved and interacting. Yet I have come to a place where I haven’t been putting in the time necessary to build any of my own.
My Followers
I feel like I burst onto the scene when I started using Twitter and my follower count rose sharply. I was interacting, meeting new people, and making friends.
As you know, Twitter is extremely time consuming and I found myself slowly steering away from discussion and into promotion. Not a good move.
Over the past few weeks, I have noticed a drop off in the number of followers I am getting and have also seen more unfollows than usual.
My Experiment
Most people will agree that our follower count is basically a useless metric and that it’s not about quantity, but rather quality. It’s all about having people who want to hear what you have to say. I completely agree.
This experiement is not about just gaining followers but rather building relationships.
When someone unfollows us, it’s saying that our Tweets are boring, too egocentric, or irrelevant. I suppose I can’t blame those who have unfollowed me because to be honest, they have been all of these things.
Well, that stops now! We cannot become just another Tweep who gets lost in the Twitterverse. If we are ever going to build our brands and become known, we need to get involved in what’s going on with other people.
So, here is my strategy for the next 30 days:
- Begin at least meaningfulΒ 5 conversations each day
- Find content worthy of Retweeting and send out at least 5 each day
- Add value in my Tweets. Be useful and/or helpful
- Fewer self promoting Tweets
The benefits of this experiment will be:
- Building relationships, not just contacts
- Being accountable to myself. I have told myself a number of times that I was going to be more interactive, but it never seems to happen. This will force me to do it.
- Having more followers who are interested in what I am doing
- Meeting new like minded people
The Tools I Use
There a ton of Twitter programs, applications, and tools out there. Here are the ones I use:
- HootSuite. This is my preferred tool for managing my Tweets. There is a paid option to upgrade, but I just use the free features.Β Tweetdeck is also a very popular tool for this, but I have found that it loads very slowly and I just don’t have the patience for it.
- TwitterCounter. A basic tool that shows graphs and charts about the users followers, tweets, and people you are following.
- Tweepi. This is the free tool I have used to unfollow people. It makes the process pretty quick.
- Qwitter. This nifty little tool will send you an email when someone unfollows you. Although most people probably don’t care when they get unfollowed, I think we can learn something from it. Sure people will unfollow you for any little reason, but there are also good reasons for it as well.
Join Me?
I think this 30 day experiment is a great idea for anyone that is not using Twitter to its fullest. In my opinion, Twitter is THE most powerful marketing tool available online. If you are not using it effectively, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your brand.
If you are interested is joining me, please leave me a comment.
Leave your Twitter follower count and your goals and I will post the results in 30 days. This is a great exercise for you to build your community and hold yourself accountable, so let’s do this!

AdrienneMay
I have been trying this– more conversations, more replies, etc and less just posting random content and self promotions. It has been working well and I will definitely jump on board with your challenge for the next 30 days!
Steve
That’s great! Can you list out a few goals for us? I can include you in my follow up post if you’re willing to share them π
Danielle McGaw
Your post shows some excellent points Steve – that being that if you are not real and genuine, if you focus on promotions only, if you don’t share some content of actual value, Twitter is not going to give you what you want.
Over the past month or so I’ve been spending more time on Twitter and have made more of an effort to share others’ work as well as my own. I’ve been more of a person and I’ve responded to others. I’ve asked for help and gotten it. And I’ve made contact with people and gotten good responses.
Results? I’ve seen my following grow by about 80% in the past couple months without making a huge effort to follow others (I follow back if they are someone I am interested in but not if they are just trying to get people to follow them) – for the most part they are following me first!
And I’m getting a lot more comments and click throughs to the blog posts that I do promote.
Steve
Danielle,
It’s so true. I have seen a number of blogger just explode because of their personal interactions on Twitter. My struggle is with time. If I had more, I would gladly spend it conversing and meeting new people, so I’m not sure how I can make it work. But since I have posted this article, I am now accountable to do just that!
An 80% growth rate in several months is awesome (unless of course you had 3 followers to begin with).
Sounds like you are doing things the right way! I’ll be seeing you around.
Danielle McGaw
I had about 700 followers to start and I’m now at 1200. The last 300 or so came really quickly.
I know that it can be a real time sucker. I try to spend about 10-15 minutes a day with Twitter and 10-15 minutes a day with Facebook (for business; you don’t want to know how much time I spend on Facebook on a personal level! LOL). Those 10-15 minutes are dedicated to RT’ing, answering questions, commenting. I use Hootsuit to tweet out my own blog posts sporadically, but with a preference to the 3-7 pm time period.
Steve
that’s awesome!
Only 15 minutes on Twitter each day? How is that possible?? It seems like one conversation takes that long…
I also use HootSuite to schedule my tweets although I have abused it recently ( a little too much self promo)
Danielle McGaw
LOL – I did say “try” – and that is because some days it inevitably goes longer. Mostly though, my conversations take place over a period of a couple days. And there isn’t a conversation every day – sometimes only a couple times a week.
Patrick
Hi Steve, I owe you a reply to your question about the blog I’m currently planning, but in the meantime I have 37 followers and I would like to get a mention in some way by a pro-cyclist in the next 30 days.
Steve
Patrick,
Why do want a mention from a cyclist? What’s the purpose?
Patrick
Yeah, that was a pretty vague goal, I’m going to amend that to get a pro-cyclist to give me a hint on my cycle training and weight-loss programme.
Just off topic, when I clicked on the comments link for this page it took me to the comments on the “crush it” page.
Steve
Patrick,
Have you runa search on Twitter with the keywords cycle, bicycle, or bike? I’m sure there are plenty of enthusiasts that would be happy to share some knowledge with you.
I know Robb Sutton is a hardcore mountain biker and also a great blogger. Find him on Twitter @Robbsutton and @MTB198. His mountain bike site can be found at mountain.bike198.com. Check him out, he’s a good dude.
Patrick
Thanks Steve, have a great weekend!
Patrick
Hi Steve, hope all is good with you, just to let you know, I got a great tweet from a pro-cyclist with a hint towards my training (consistency) and a recommendation for another tweeter regarding training. While I’m pleased to have achieved my goal, it seems a little conservative now!
Steve
Patrick,
Glad to hear you are making connections on Twitter. Keep it up. Did you ever contact Robb Sutton?
Steven
Steve, a lot of the unfollows is probably because they were people trying to get you to auto-follow them and when you didn’t, they decided to unfollow you. Bad for numbers, good for your true goal of meaningful conversations. I unfortunately turned my autofollow on at one point and now I have to clean up the list of all the “bots” out there.
I like your idea of the 30 day challenge. I try to converse and ask about leadership traits with my followers, but notice it is difficult to get anyone to actually answer me back! I also try to make sure I am not only self promoting and to send good tweets with no links a couple times a day as well.
To your success,
Steve Young
The Leadership Dr.
Steve
Steven,
I didn’t really think of all the people simply looking to be followed back, but you’re probably right. And it does weed out the people that I will never talk to anyway.
When I send out tweets, I usually only get 1 or 2 responses but I think that will change when I become more involved. Imagine the power of having 10 or 15 people answer your question or respond every time. I see it every day and is what I’m srtiving for. Of course, I have to give it too…
Debbie Beardsley
Steve,
I started my blog in January and have been struggling with Twitter. I am really just learning what it is all about and am definitely up for your 30 day challenge!
Steve
Debbie,
Good for you for starting a blog! I would say try to find as many like minded people as you can on Twitter and start interacting with them. You can also choose to follow a bunch of people who seem interesting to you. This usually results in a fair number of them following you back.
Keep me posted!
Murlu
I’ve been really sort of iffy lately with Twitter simply because I haven’t had the time to use it; what I’ve found is how fragile relationships can be on there (and sometimes how flakey they can be).
In a lot of ways, I want to alienate people. I know this sounds kind of bad but go with me for a second: I think, til this point, I’ve really just been using Twitter the way everyone says to.
I want to take a raw approach to my use of the service. Sort of that love it or hate it. I rather alienate others to build strong connections with people that want to interact than only being half way in both groups.
Interesting experiment overall Steve. Really glad you’re taking its use to the fullest and not just turning it into an RSS feed π
Steve
Hey Murray,
I’ve actually noticed the same thing about people being overly sensitive to conversations. There are a few bloggers that I follow that have a real edgy, bad ass kind of persona but when I start joking around with them on Twitter, they don’t respond well or at all. It can be hard for people to read sarcasm online, I know, but I know I have pissed off more than a few people on there.
I like the idea of being brash and basically havinga love/hate relationship with your readers or followers. That’s not the approach I take, but I can see how effective it is with people like Ashley from The Middle Finger Project or Johnny B Truant. Your blog doesn’t srtike me as raw or edgy though. You share really great ideas and offer very useful information, but I don’t see how you would alienate readers. Maybe I’m missing something or are you planning on changing up your style?
Patricia@lavender-oil
Hi Steve
I love Twitter and interact with people there every day. In fact I do more messages there with my friends than email these days lol
My numbers have grown organically. I don’t automatically follow people bakk and I only follow those whose blogs I visit and want to learn from. Don’t want to just follow for the sake of it! And I unfollow spammers immediately.
Like you I notice at times a whole heap of unfollows. They will be those who only follow to get a follow back. Not the people I need in my Twitter stream.
I’ve noticed you interacting more Steve and that’s great. You will get the numbers and the followers in time. Far better to have quality over quantity imo.
Patricia Perth Australia
Steve
Patricia,
I can tell you love Twitter π and I think it’s awesome how you approach it. Where do you find the time to leave all your comments AND use Twitter so extensively?
The good (or bad) thing about Twitter is that anyone can see your Tweet stream and can tell if you are just sending out self promos all day. I am trying to interact more, but I find it’s so hard to keep conversations going due to how busy my days are.
Thanks for keeping an eye on me π
Patricia@lavender-oil
I’m actually not commenting so much these days. I am being very selective where I visit due to some new projects in the pipeline I need to be working on daily!
But I do spend time each day on Twitter and visiting some blogs to comment and also learn from.
Just keep learning and interacting as time permits. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else Steve as we each have different committments. Do what works for you and you will find it all falling into place.
Patricia Perth Australia
Steve
Patricia,
Yea, I haven’t seen you around as much. If you are working on projects, then that’s awesome! I’m sure you’ve made some great connections in your online travels and I hope you see all the success you deserve π
I do have a problem comparing myself to those who have what I want. I also know this is a bad idea. I need to get over that and focus on doing my own thing and being unique in my own way.
Thanks
Kathy
Hey Steve:
I’m excited and I’m “in.”
I started on Twitter a few weeks after you, and at the beginning had a very set schedule for morning, afternoon and evening tweets. Each batch consisted of great content from others and one link to my blog posts.
This schedule brought great results (really great! I’m over 5,800 followers), but I burned out! It simply took too much time. And worse, I don’t blog frequently enough to have a post of my own to include each day. So I slowed down to a crawl. As did my followers. I think this is partly a reflection of the quality of followers I have. I may have a great number for a short period of time, but they might not be targeted enough. So my goal addresses that:
–I want to increase my Retweet percentages
–Imporve my mentions(not including the TeamFollowBack whatevers!)
–Hit 7,000 followers in the next 30 days.
Can’t wait to see how we all do!
Steve
Kathy,
Glad to have you on board! Your strategy seems to have worked from a numbers perspective but maybe not so much from a quality one.
How are you going to determine your RT percentages? Adding 1,100 followers is a lofty goal in 30 days, but I’m rooting for you.
Also, have you seen the post about quality versus quantity followers? It’s really a great series.
Diane
Hi there –
I just came across your blog and wanted to let you know that I’ve been enjoying it. I have a question: when you retweet something, is there a way to do it so that you can add your own comments? (maybe I’m missing the obvious but I was wondering if I’m the only one that can’t figure this out!?)
Thanks for sharing Steve,
Diane
Steve
Hi Diane,
Glad you are enjoying my blog π
As far as the RT, it depends on the Twitter button as to whether you can leave your message. Honestly, I haven’t figured out which buttons work and which don’t. If I try to RT from Twitter.com, I can’t add my own message. However, most Tweet buttons on blog posts will allow you to add your 2 cents.
So, no, you are definitely not alone. It’s actually frustrating, because each Twitter app has its own functionality issues..
Diane
Thanks Steve – appreciate your reply! Now I don’t feel quite so challenged!
Diane
AJ Clarke
Count me in. I just started blogging and the whole twitter thing is new to me. I thought it would be super easy to get followers, but it’s actually really hard and time consuming.
Twitter is fun, but dam it takes a lot out of my time. I like your idea of setting specific daily goals. I am going to test this out and see how it works.
I’ll start by following you π
Thanks for sharing Steve.
PS: I love your site design. It’s very nice!
Janet @ The Natural Networker
Steve, aloha. Saw a tweet from Ingrid about your twitter experiment. A little while ago Michele from newbizblogger put one together.
To me, it was a very worthwhile endeavor. One of the relationships that developed for me as a result was getting to know Brankica–definitely a treasure.
Michele and I are now in a blogging group together and some of the other participants I knew prior to the challenge, were please with their results.for
Here is a link to the initial info for her challenge.
http://www.newbizblogger.com/business-challenges/twitter-challenge
Here is a link to her wrap up post:
http://www.newbizblogger.com/online-business-tips/online-business-tips-picks-resources-2-11-11
We ran a #hashtag to keep in touch with each other and I feel that added to the spirit of the challenge.
Have fun and good luck. Aloha. Janet
Michele Welch
Hi Steve,
I’m with you 100% on Twitter! It’s about engaging and building relationships. Nothing wrong with promoting your stuff, there just has to be a fine balance.
When I did my challenge, I found that building relationships not only increased my follower numbers, but it was SO much enjoyable for me to use.
And guess what? I haven’t stopped! It’s amazing how easily you can create a habit after doing something for 30 days. π
Best of luck with your challenge. I have no doubt you are going to kick some Twitter butt. π
P.S. Beautiful site!
Steve
Thanks Michele,
I am finding it much more interesting now that I am interacting more. I’ve already connected with a number of people I wouldn’t have otherwise. I still send out link to promote my posts, but not as often. My focus is on engaging.
I’m hoping that this will turn into a habit for me as well. I have always struggled with time when it comes to Twitter, so I still need to address this issue.
Michele Welch
By the way, just realized that I’ve been following you on Twitter for some time. First time on your site. Better late than never right? π
Steve
π
I look forward to chatting with you on the T!
Ryah Albatros
I took part in Michele’s challenge to – sort of. I have to admit I was not very good at it.
You might be interested in a new tool I found only yesterday: http://bufferapp.com/ It’s a much easier way to schedule tweets; you set up your times once, then just fill your buffer with tweets. The free plan gives you 3 times and 10 tweets in the buffer.
I’m test-driving it this week. It certainly makes it easier for me, lots less mouse-clicking and stuff, and no trying to remember what time I’d scheduled something!
Steve
Ryah,
That’s quite a domain name you’ve got there π
I checked out Buffer and so far, I like it. I use Chrome at home so the add on works well. Thanks for the tips!
Ryah Albatros
What’s life if you can’t have a good domain name? Ha ha! Glad you like Buffer, I think it’s a great little tool, which is why I recommended it.
Steve
It’s definitely a mouthful!
Chris
Great point about quality Vs quantity.
I’ve seen way too many people following tens of thousands of people. At some point, the law of diminishing returns has to set in. Messages, then, start getting lost. Unless you’re a real celebrity, I’ve never seen the point.
Like most other social networking/media sites, people treat Twitter like a popularity contest.
Steve
Chris,
There are definitely two sides to the quantity vs quality argument. Personally, I can’t see how not interacting can help you. No matter how many tweets you send promoting your stuff, people want to hear from a real person.
For a great read about this, see Ana’s post which debates the two sides.
Mark
I find it so hard to keep track of all the goings on in twitter. I follow about 100 people at present, and so much is happening – it feels like they’re all online at the same time. Any tips or suggestions on how to manage your twitter buddies better?
Steve
Mark,
I had the same issue when I first started on Twitter. I actually held off for a while before I even got on Twitter. It is overwhelming and can be confusing, but it get easier.
You will never be able to keep up with 100 different conversations, much less 1,000 or 10,000, when they come. My advice si to find a fwe people who you really want to connect with. Read their blogs, follow their tweets, and start interacting with them. You will find a few people that you really click with and you can start building your network that way.
I would also try to spend some time adding valuable insight to the conversations of your stream. Help people out if you can. Also, start following all your favorite bloggers and start talking with them. Twitter is incredibly powerful as a marketing tool, so get in there and start chatting it up.
Take your time with it, learn as much as you can about all the lingo, and have fun. Your followers WILL come. Keep in mind that having 20 great people you interact with is much better than having 1,000 followers that don’t care what you have to say.
Good luck and let me know if you need anything.
Suzanne @ Mind Tree
Thanks a lot for sharing it. Great post. I learnt a lot. Very informative. Thanks.
Steve
Your welcome. Thanks. Good. Your welcome. π
Nicole - Woman Seeks World
Great idea – Ive found it hard to keep up with conversational tweeting simply because of time, but I think you highlight just how important it is, so this has motivated me to try harder! Thanks!
Steve
Nicole,
It’s VERY time consuming trying to build/upkeep relationships on Twitter. However, if we can make the time for it, the rewards will be well worth the effort.
Lan Othmann
Hey, this is exactly what I wanted to do and think about my twitterholic, and you put it best in writing. Good stuff! Will join..
Steve
Lan,
Although I ran this experiment a few months ago, I may do another soon. It worked very well and I have built a number of relationships because of it.
Debbie
Just the push I needed, thanks! I take the challenge and will let you know how it goes! Thanks!!!