Dissecting My Most Successful Tweet: Aspirational Content Works 🔬 - Issue #25

Hey y'all 👋

Today I'll try something new: analyzing something that has surprisingly worked out 👇

Inching Closer to the Finishing Line ✍️

After a summer break I'm back at it: writing the email-based course.

All-day. Every day.

I'm approaching 5.000 written and edited words.

10.000 - 15.000 more to go.

If there's one thing I learned with my previous course launch then it's this: Content is not the problem. Distribution is.

"If you make it they will come" just isn't true anymore.

We have an oversupply of information and value. It's difficult to reach audiences and make them stop and go: "oh wow, I will actually read this."

A couple of months ago I tested and confirmed that posting frequency on Twitter and LinkedIn actually boosts your visibility in everyone else's feed.

That's a good start.

But it ain't enough.

I don't want to spam audiences, hence I looked into my Twitter analytics and found a tweet that performed better than all the others.

Let's dive into it 👇

Analyzing My Most Successful Tweet: The Data

First, let's look at the data for the month of June 2021.

Roughly 150.000 impressions for the entire month of June.

More than a third coming from a single tweet 👀

Reading through the numbers I take the following takeaways:

• Detail Expands: The visual was interesting enough that 701 people clicked into the image to magnify
• Retweets: The content was valuable enough that 15 people

To me, it indicates one thing: value to the audience

...

Here is the tweet 👇

Dissecting My Most Successful Tweet: Why It Works

I would love to replicate these types of tweets more frequently. It's a win-win.

• I get more eyeballs on content (i.e. fill my top-of-funnel for the course)
• Readers get something remarkable (as per Seth Godin's idea of ' how to be remarkable')

"Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then you’re average, and average is for losers."

Time to get tactical.

These are the reasons why I think the tweet worked (+ attached are retweets or comments on the original tweet):

#1: Visual = Easy to Digest

Adding an image, infographic, gif to the mix just works much faster.

Humans process visual information extremely fast.

Twitter is a fast medium, where you need to grab attention quickly.

My screenshot of a notion database has colors and is neatly formatted.

#2 Value = Packs a Lot of Information

The content packs a lot of value in one image:

• Tool: Which tools am I using
• How: What's the application
• Price: How much does it cost

More importantly, to someone who is in a similar position (i.e. solo founder) this can be a shortcut to understanding how to compose their own tool stack.

Question = Prompting Interaction

The addition of Curious what y'all are using 🤔 invites readers to chime in and share their own knowledge.

More interaction on the tweet leads to more amplification of the content -->leads to more eyeballs on the content.

Insight = Look Behind the Scenes

Ok, this one is a far stretch but I'll share my hypothesis:

People are drawn to aspirational content

It is fun to peek behind the curtains at something that is not in one's ballpark.

I remember how in 2004 and 2008 I was glued to the TV screen watching all sorts of documentaries and segments of 100m sprinters preparing for the Olympic Games.

• What they eat.
• How they train.
• How they feel.

Meanwhile, I probably had a bag of chips on my lap and was enjoying the shit out of the experience.

I was living their lives vicariously.

I'm not an Olympic athlete.

I'm just a dude who doesn't have a 9-10-5 job and is trying to make the new gig work.

To some, this might be aspirational.

Epilogue: What Do You Think?

Obviously, the analysis is conducted on a sample of one (n=1).

I don't think it is the ultimate truth but it was fun to try and break  down some previous content.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Does that make sense?

...

Stay happy, stay healthy 🙌

Art