Part 3 - X Engagement

In the previous Part we got our content machine up and running.

If it’s a brand new account, you won’t have anyone actually seeing that content! How annoying.

We still need content though so that when someone comes to your profile to check you out they don’t see an empty account - no one is going to follow you if that’s the case!

Once we have our content flowing (even if no-one sees it initially) we can begin to engage other accounts in order to build our following.

In this Part we’re looking at two forms of engagement - with other accounts and with your followers. Think of these as external engagement and internal engagement. Both will be critical moving forward and we’ll cover them both now.

1. Your Dream 100

I want to introduce the concept of the Dream 100. I read about it in Russell Brunson’s Traffic Secrets and he got it from Chet Holmes’ Ultimate Sales Machine.

I recommend you learn more about the strategy from these books but for now I’ll give a quick summary and some action steps.

The Dream 100 is a list of people who talk to your customers. They are the movers and shakers who your customers follow, engage with and purchase from.

You’ve already started to identify these people in Part 1 where we researched top X accounts, followed them and added them to Lists.

We want to become known to our Dream 100. Doing so opens up doors for us with the person directly and also with their followers.

The basic idea (which we’ll go into in depth) is that for each of these 100 people we are going to:

• Follow their account

• Like and make valuable comment on their posts

• Secure a follow from the Dream 100 target

• Open up a dialogue via DM or email

We’re going to work in this order - starting with small actions and building the relationship.

Not only does this make us known to the account owner themselves: it also makes us known to their followers, which in turn will bring them to our profile and make them our followers.

The first step here is simply identifying your Dream 100. You’ve already done this in Part 1. Feel free to add more people. And 100 is rather arbitrary here - it could be more, it could be less.

In terms of tracking your relationship with them you can use a spreadsheet with the columns:

• Target

• Followed

• They responded to a comment

• They follow me

• They shared my content

• DM conversation

Put all 100 account handles in the starter Target column to start and then as you progress your relationship move them from column to column. You can also use Trello for this as a more tactile alternative.

2. Basic engagement with the Dream 100

First goal is simply to comment on your Dream 100’s posts.

You want to comment ASAP on their new posts so I’d recommend having notifications turned on. This helps you be on their first, get likes and replies and stay at the top of their comments. This is particularly important if it’s a large account.

What to comment? Something valuable. Do not just say “great post!”. That means nothing. Instead read their post and comment as an expert would.

Here’s a prompt

Act as a Twitter expert.

Write an insightful and humorous comment in response to this post. 

No hashtags. 
No emojis.

Post begins:

Here’s an example post I could respond to

I simply copy and paste the post below my prompt and hit go.

Prompt Output

Not bad! I’d manually adjust to better fit my style but the core metaphor of silent suffering is great.

I trimmed it to “we might be expert swimmers in the sea of silent suffering, but chuck us in a puddle of difficult dialogue and suddenly we're drowning”

The results

This is 1 hour after posting - there are 805 views, 6 profile visits and 3 new followers. This will increase over time as this is a top comment on the post and will continue to be shown at the top.

Maybe by the end it’ll have picked up ~10 followers. Great! Small but it’s something.

You need to do this on as many posts as possible. It takes time but this primes you for growth.

By commenting on the accounts of the Dream 100 you will start to become visible to their followers. These followers will start to recognise your name and profile icon. They’ll begin to check out your profile. And, if you’ve optimised the profile correctly and have solid content, they’ll follow you.

Your next goals are to

• Get the Dream 100 target to reply to your comment.

• Get the Dream 100 target to follow you back

• Get the Dream 100 to give you a shout out or share your content

For small accounts you’ll be able to move through these very fast. They’ll also be looking to make connections and friends on the platform.

For larger accounts though it’s a matter of repetition - put in your reps!

This means continuing to comment and interact with their content until you become un-ignorable.

This doesn’t mean spamming them. This means consistently showing up and making valuable comments that their audience finds valuable. Don’t sell, don’t even mention your account. Just give value.

Remember that you are dealing with people here. If you were at a party you wouldn’t go up to someone and try to sell them. Just be cool like the Fonz and play the longer game until you are noticed.

3. Shoutout content

A supplemental method that can be used to speed up progress is preparing content that specifically highlights members of your Dream 100.

Have you ever seen lists of “top fitness instructors you need to be following” or similar content? These aren’t just lists but are aimed to get the attention of the people mentioned in the lists!

By creating a piece of content highlighting the best people you are basically giving them a massive compliment. People love having their egos stroked!

And guess what happens if I do a piece about the top AI influencers?

The top AI influencers share that content with their fans! Of course they do: these posts make them look great and they want to share that social proof with their followers.

Again this works particularly well with small and medium accounts. The big boys and girls get featured all the time so it’s not as special for them.

Here’s a basic prompt to create a thread

Act as a Twitter expert

Create a "best of" thread about the influencers I provide you with

Begin with a strong hook tweet with a strong declarative sentence + controversial opinion opener followed by details of what's in the thread and why they should read

For each influencer give
The handle , name, follower count 
brief description of their topics
why they should be followed

No emojis
No hashtags

Format as a thread with each tweet declared.

#Influencer details begin#

Paste this prompt into ChatGPT then head back to Twitter.

For each person you want to add to your list copy this part of their profile, everything visible in this screenshot:

Copy and paste each profile summary below the prompt and hit go when you have them all.

Prompt Output

This will spit out a thread of posts, each with a basic summary. Importantly each also includes the handle of the account - this ensures that the Dream 100 target will be tagged and notified about the post.

To make a post like this more visually appealing I’d grab a screenshot of their profile or potentially just their X profile photo.

Using these sort of lists will help accelerate your growth as it’ll hopefully get re-shared by the target accounts to their followers.

4. Engagement on own content

As you start to pick up traction you’ll get more and more people commenting on your own posts.

This will be slow going initially - only a very small % of followers will ever comment so when you have 100 or so followers the chance of anyone commenting is low!

Don’t worry though as the techniques above, done consistently, should start to bring in followers which will in turn begin engagement on your posts.

When people do comment on your posts make sure to reply. To everything!

This tells the X algorithm that the post has high engagement. And when it knows a post has good engagement it’s more likely to show it to people. This creates a snowball effect.

Here’s a prompt for quick replies

Act as a Twitter expert.  

Write a personal, warm reply to this comment on my post. 
Respond with an insightful or humorous observation
Keep it light and short.

No emojis
No hashtags

#Initial post#

#Comment to respond to#

For this example I used this initial post

and this comment

Prompt Output

Again, edit to preference.

I would personally remove the “Thanks for your insightful comment. Keep ‘em coming!” as it’s a bit much. But the central Robinson Crusoe / AI Friday simile is strong.

Pulling it together

In this Part we’ve looked at how to layer engagement on top of our content creation.

This will start getting our content actually seen and help us begin to build relationships on X.

Content and engagement are the core pillars of our strategy and alone these will allow us to grow our following.

In the next Part however we’ll be discussing some methods to refine our processes and accelerate growth.