Getting started: your first week

Connect your X account, fix your profile, start following at a low daily number, and turn on a greeting for people who follow back. That is the whole first week — everything else can wait.

1. 1

   Fix your profile first

   Everything below sends people to your profile, where they decide in about two seconds. If your bio does not say what you write about and who for, and your last post is from months ago, stop here and fix that. It takes ten minutes and it decides whether any of the rest works.

2. 2

   Connect your X account

   Authorisation goes through X and takes about thirty seconds. You are never asked for your password, and you can revoke access from your X settings at any time.

3. 3

   Pick three or four target accounts

   Choose accounts in your exact niche with audiences roughly between five and eighty thousand followers. Their followers have already shown interest in your subject. Avoid the largest accounts in your space — their audiences are general and convert poorly.

4. 4

   Start low

   Set 20 to 30 follows a day if your account is under three months old, 50 or so if it is established. You can raise it after a fortnight of clean activity. Starting high on a young account is the most common first mistake.

5. 5

   Write a two-sentence greeting

   Thank them, then ask one easy question. No link in the first message. Set a delay of fifteen to sixty minutes so it does not arrive the instant somebody follows you.

6. 6

   Leave it a week, then look at one number

   Check the follow-back rate per source account. Drop the sources below about 15 per cent and add more like the ones above it. That single habit does more than any other setting.

Still stuck? Email info@tweeksocial.com.