I took 731 days to hit 20k followers. Here’s how I’d do it again in half the time.
Everyone tells you the same generic advice on how to grow an audience on CT.
“Reply more, be consistent, tag ‘chads’ to get noticed.”
But I realised I was focusing on the wrong things that killed my growth.
So to help you avoid wasting precious time on the mistakes I made, here’s my unconventional playbook to win the content game on CT:
Choose a mission, not a topic
Everyone’s focused on being an expert in a certain topic, but I realised there’s a huge risk:
If that topic dies and no one is interested in it, then my account loses relevance.
I’ve had this fear in 2024 when everyone said that the golden age of airdrops is over.
But after reading Dan Koe’s piece on a mission-based niche:
I’ve slowly made the rebrand from a topic (airdrops) to this mission:
Helping burnt-out airdrop hunters turn into algo-resistant Signal Creators with a strong social and onchain reputation.
A mission is broader in focus, and I’m able to talk about a wider range of topics than just airdrops alone.
Some have commented that my posts are no longer ‘good’ because they’re no longer talking only about airdrops, and that’s fine:
Airdrops could eventually die, but I still remain relevant with my mission.
So I’d advise you to find all the topics you enjoy talking about and fit them into a single mission.
I’ve helped others to find their mission too during the 30-Day Signal Creator Challenge:
@0xbeiu: I help low capital users maximise their exposure through onchain efficiency
@cryptoalchemy29: I empower people to think for themselves and act confidently in crypto without depending on anyone
But anyone can copy your mission, so here’s how you truly stand out:
Find your unique edge
There’s no point in writing the same airdrop guide that anyone else can copy as theirs.
AI has made it so easy to generate commodity content, but we’ll become irrelevant if we write the exact same content as them.
If AI can pump out a higher volume of content than a human account, why would anyone choose to follow us?
That’s where the human touch gives us our unfair advantage:
No one can copy our experiences and background.
So instead of shying away from what makes you you:
Lean into your authentic self.
I was so scared of judgment that I failed to share my background and experiences.
But when I finally chose to do so, I received a lot of encouraging tweets from my audience.
This taught me that being human helps us build trust more than anything else.
So don’t be afraid to share your background.
One of my members in the 30-Day Signal Creator Challenge asked me if they should share that they’re British.
I recommended him to start incorporating it into all of his content wherever applicable:
This makes him more relatable to others by sharing a human side of himself.
Find and display your unique edge in your content to stand out.
And once you start creating more, you’ll develop this too:
You need a perspective
The reason why creators fail to stand out is that they are too busy creating informational content.
Others will find it useful, but it gives no ROI to the creator because anyone can copy it.
Apart from just the unique edge, we will have opinions on the topics we talk about.
Some of them will be contrarian or the unpopular take.
But these help you to stand out because no one else has the same perspectives.
And it’s not just for the sake of being different:
Our experiences help shape our opinions, and we need to lean more into that.
My cheat code (especially when replying) is to say what’s on my mind immediately.
There’s no point trying to sound perfect, because others can tell when we’re faking.
Sharing our authentic thoughts is a superpower and those who do this build cult-like audiences.
But as a byproduct, we get some undesirable outcomes too:
You will have haters
If everyone loves your content, then you’re doing something wrong.
I made the mistake of trying to please everyone.
And once others posted negative comments on my posts, I started panicking and getting anxious.
But I soon realised it’s pointless to convince those who disagree with me:
They have their opinions, and so do I.
We can only do so much to convince them that our opinion is right.
Building a real audience involves sharing an opinion and there will be those who follow us because we’re speaking their thoughts out loud.
While 50% of CT will hate us for our opinion.
And I’ve learnt to be fine with that (we can just mute them anyway).
Focus on those who agree with you and build a cult-like audience through them.
But before sharing all of our opinions, we need to give others a reason to trust us:
Build authority first before growth
When you’re starting out as a new account, no one knows who you are.
So there’s no point sharing quotes or your opinions first because no one cares.
We have to give them a reason why they should listen to us:
We show that we have results to prove we know what we’re saying.
At the start, I would start documenting whatever I did.
If there are any results (both successes and failures):
I will share them as a reflection.
In particular, failures help to build trust with our audience because it shows that we’re human, just like them.
While only just showing our wins makes our profile too sanitised.
And don’t do this either with your account:
No one wants another Kaito yapper
If you’re just here to shill whatever that has a yapper leaderboard, don’t.
No one wants another AI summary of the documentation.
No one wants to see ads on their feed.
No one wants to see the same project over and over again on the timeline.
Unless you truly believe in the project and have interacted with it:
There’s no point in talking about a project for the sake of ranking on the leaderboard.
Yes, it will give you short-term wins, but it’s not worth it if you want to build wealth:
Play the long-term game
Delayed gratification is the key to winning this game.
Everyone wants the latest algo hack to get views and followers, but that’s beside the point.
If all we care about is vanity metrics, we will burn out because it’s just so unpredictable.
Instead of focusing on factors we can’t control:
I choose to build a daily habit of writing every day.
I had to post consistently for 2 years before finally hitting the 20k milestone.
Choose to be consistent first to become unstoppable.
And soon, we won’t even need to rely on the algo anymore:
Don’t be a slave to the algo
The algo wants us to continuously post content so we stay relevant.
We stress over our follower count and metrics when those are beyond our control.
But this doesn’t matter to us if we’re algo-resistant:
Our audience actively searches for our posts because they’re just that good.
That is the ultimate aim for any creator:
Direct access to their audience.
The algo is great for discoverability, but we can’t rely on it alone to maintain our relationship with our followers.
Followers no longer mean anything because some won’t even see our content.
So that’s why I’m using Substack to deplatform my audience, and I suggest you do the same too.
Even if you don’t want to write long-form on Substack, I would recommend at least using Telegram.
And if you want to fast-track your success in implementing these tips, I share my exact system for building a trusted brand below:
The 30-day challenge to go from zero to Signal Creator
Want to capture the next wave of airdrops? You need both onchain and social reputation.
Stop wasting hours on low-value tasks and start building habits and systems that projects will reward with bigger airdrops.
Build the foundations for a reputable brand in just 30 days with one actionable tip you can implement each day.
It’s time to stop burning out on low-value tasks:
appreciate this sir, you will remain one creator I will always look up to, the first time I read you content I haven't left since hehehe