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I've advocated for people to join twitter for only forever. I see literally no downside to being on the platform, apart from maybe if you decide you're the kind of person that wants to engage with political opinions on it. Here's what I'll give away in this one though. If you've had an account for a while, and dont know how to get kickstarted OR If you dont have an account, and just dont see the value in it yet - I'll tell how to get started, and what you gotta do to get started.

Ready for them tips? Yes? Cool, let's go. 🦅

1. Don't engage with politics. 🦺

I know politics has the tendency to really rile us up, but more than being either an echo chamber, or a place to garner hate, I dont think Social Media changes anything much. Unless you're someone aiding people in some way at the time of a political crisis, dont bother. I get it, we all "talk about" all of our political stances, but in Chet Faker's most famous words, "Talk is Cheap my darling"

2. Make friends. 👯‍♀️

After having been confined to our homes for the last three years, there's reasons why the "Creator Economy" has boomed right at this very moment, but that's something to ponder about in a different article. Focus on wanting to find people you connect with - whether it's someone who wrote about the background they come from, or how they grew a mailing list - and that's your pain point, go looking for those people. At the WORST you know what'll happen - they won't engage with you. Imagine that. It's not even half as bad as irl, where you can be ridiculed for saying or believing something, you can LITERALLY hide behind your screen. And as someone who has a small following - you have absolutely nothing to lose.

3. There's never enough content. 🗺

In business and in content creation, there is LITERALLY never enough content. No matter what you say, nothing is ever SO ORIGINAL that it has never been thought before. So stop it with your stupid imposter syndrome, and get to it - just start sharing, if nothing else, you'll find some friends you really, really vibe with. If you're feeling shy about creating your own content - here's a thing none of you think, even your favourite creators, aren't making NOVEL content, it's just packaged differently.

4. Package differently.

Things aren't new - but guess what, you can do them differently! I'm no Harry Dry, so I won't be able to give you a product by product comparison, but I think I know at least 10 examples in the back of my mind, if I think hard enough - of products that have changed our landscape, simply because they were different. Think about it - ClubPenguin & Polly Pocket paved the way for today's Gather Town & RPGs probably(gamers dont come @ me, I a noob). Hi5 paved the way for Facebook & Orkut, Myspace paved the way for literally all of streaming & the creator economy. But with things diversifying so much, there is literally no end to differenciation - so maybe you're good at illustrations, maybe you're good at writing, maybe you're great at treating people like they're people - there's a nook for everyone.

5. Finding your nook, corner, niche, tribe.

In simple words - do things YOU like to do. Don't stress so much about needing to find an "audience" that you forget to have fun, that's purely the magic of not having to run a business off of your own personal twitter. Whether this means sharing the music you love, or writing about what your favourite musicians love, or diving down the rabbithole of people who write about psychological triggers in marketing, the niches are endless - but go looking for them. If you cant find them, I'll drop a list of some of my favourite creators at the end of this, and maybe that'll help

6. Help/Aid someone.

That's human speak for what we call "Adding Value" in twitter speak, but essentially you want to be saying something that people might derive some kind of value from - there are more than ENOUGH creators who do this on the platform. Sometimes even different aspects of the same topic, other times adding to someone else's content. Maybe you noticed something or a connection only a small subset might've, but what's stopping you from sharing that There is absolutely 0 reason for something like your own opinion to limit you this way.

In the last year or so,  I’ve tried at least 3 different styles of Accountability.  Almost all have failed, until this time.  So let’s see how my fourth go turns out.  Most of us probably know the best way to draw results out of something, that two people share a goal about, is to find an “Accountabuddy”, but what makes a great Accountabuddy?  Hmmm, glad you asked, let me break it down. 

1. You both ought to share the same goal.

Sometimes this even involves motivating the other person to want to achieve this goal. 

2. Agreeing on how to get there. 

Accountabuddies and all are great, but if both of you dont agree on how you’re going to reach your goals, you can expect to fall flat on your face. 

3. Hyping them up. 

A key feature of someone being your Accountabuddy is them simply being able to affect your emotions in a positive vein - this doesnt mean that you have to have known them for a decade, but it does help to feel validated by someone else. 

4. Common ground

In my extremely limited experience & opinion, I'd like to wager that you kinda gotta need to have common ground with the person whose your accountabuddy.  Even if not for all things, but you have to have something that excites you both & gets you talking.  Combine all these four together and the TL;DR version is simply: 

Find a friend that has the same goals as you, and then set a path to achieve them. 

In walks Pravgya.  Last week I was talking to her for my usual almost 200 minutes of a day, to write an interview piece on her, and I told her to document her experiences travelling, cause the girl has some VERY interesting stories to tell - and it would be a pity for people to never hear those. 

Definitely helped that it was an easy sell for me to tell her to do it, especially since she wanted to grow her Twitter too. 

But the caveat here was: me pitching myself as a way for her to remain accountable.  And hence was born #wip001  ------------------------------- I mean, not gonna lie, Twitter definitely left a mark on me with the whole: “omg you should be creating 2x of what you consume”  So obviously I've been giving MYSELF the plague.  Decided to live a little though, and not stress out so much, but host this on Tumblr, WHO knows who’ll find these posts, and what they’ll have to say, but it’ll 100% be interesting to leave this as a link in my future resumes.