4 ms·

The hacker's guide to acquiring the first 1,000 users: Twitter

44 points by austenallred 13y ago

alecsmart1 13y ago
Any cached links? The site's down due to HN effect.
mikeevans 13y ago
Seems down. Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.austenallred.com%2Fthe-hackers-guide-to-the-first-1000-users-twitter%2F&oq=cache%3Awww.austenallred.com%2Fthe-hackers-guide-to-the-first-1000-users-twitter%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.538j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.a...
ronaldx 13y ago
The title purports to be about how Twitter acquired 1000 users. The article is more about how to spam-favourite your way to 1000 followers on Twitter.
- patmcguire 13y ago
  Man, that's disappointing. There was an article I saw a very long time ago that described how Twitter had about 5000 users at six months, but I've never been able to find it again.
- jahansafd 13y ago
  agreed
- austenallred 13y ago
  As stated in the article, your Twitter profile serves as a sort of pre-landing page to get people to click through. You should be able to watch the interaction from Twitter flow through to your landing page in real-time. (The title is supposed to be about how to acquire the first 1,000 users for your startup via Twitter. Sorry about the confusion.)
- tonystubblebine 13y ago
  This article is way more interesting than how Twitter acquired the first 1000 users. Twitter was launched by a company of 16, most with big networks. The biggest network was Evan Williams because he'd founded Blogger. I was there. All we did was invite our friends.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
danso 13y ago
Twitter is still a somewhat divisive tool among those in the profession you'd think would automatically love it: journalists. It's almost a badge of honor, like still reading the Sunday paper, in print, to eschew Twitter. However, I think it's more of an existential judgment than one of actual merit...I think many/most reporters, when the Internet was new, were used to thinking that everyone in town read or watched or listened to them. Pre-Internet media was very one way, so the only knowledge you had about your audience was through personal letters (which could be surprisingly frequent) and through circulation/Nielsen ratings (having a circulation of 300,000 does not mean 300K people actually read your story). Even as a non-senior reporter, random people would recognize my byline when I worked in Sacramento (a medium sized paper) and if you were on TV news, everyone in town knew you. But it's much different on Twitter. Unless you're already a celebrity, you're going to find in the first day, first week, first months of tweeting, very, very few people will seem to acknowledge you. And even if you get to a respectable sum of followers...between 1,000 to 10,000, you'll always be magnitudes less popular, via Twitter's follower metric, than the latest teen pop star or reality TV freak. That's pretty crushing to the ego, and that's the vibe I get from many friends (journalists or not) who've poo-poohed Twitter. And it's not because they despise the triviality of online interaction...they are on Facebook and update it frequently, but on FB, your network more closely mimics your real life friendships/following, and there's less "follower envy"...in that it's respectable to weed out your Facebook network. But there's not much benefit to having a small Twitter network.
- hvs 13y ago
  Talking and listening to some journalists, I get the sense that they don't so much as "like" Twitter, as simply recognize that since it is part of the modern 24-hour news cycle, they have no choice but to be a part of it. If anything, it seems like a love-hate relationship because now they have no choice but to be constantly "on". Anyway, I'm not a journalist and I find Twitter to be an interesting distraction where I follow interesting people to see what they are interested in. Oh, and comedians.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
fjabre 13y ago
I despise how twitter and facebook have become the de facto gatekeepers for marketing an app. The web is littered with millions upon millions of "Share this on/Log in with Twitter / Facebook" and for a lot of apps that are successful at this marketing approach they are little more than a house of cards and uninspired vaporware. How about this, send a link to your site to all of your friends. Ask them if they'll share it with their friends - via email or text -> novel idea right? If people really like what you've made then you won't have to go around doing shameless self promotion and being a slave to Twitter and Facebook status updates on every little detail about your app, your company, or your team. When did marketing an app become so ego-centric? I don't give a shit what you look like. I don't care how many people are on your team. I don't care whether you have 50,000 twitter bot followers. Does your app make me want to use it more? Does it fulfill a real need I have or invent a need I never knew I had? If it's reliable and I like it or need it then guess what: I'll use it. Source: Google, Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc... Astronomical successes that didn't have the 'benefit' of a glitzy social platform to share their special sauce with the masses.
- austenallred 13y ago
  While there's no marketing tactic that can make up for having a crappy product, the notion that you can just email a couple of friends and a product will take off works in maybe 1% of cases, even for good products.
  - pstuart 13y ago
    It helps if you have something good....
    - austenallred 13y ago
      Even if you have something good, the chances you'll be successful without marketing are way worse than the chances you'll be successful as a startup in general (which already suck).
      - 13y ago
drtse4 13y ago
The #SEO tweet trick didn't work, now i'm depressed.
- mikeevans 13y ago
  Worked for me, I got two favorites almost immediately: https://twitter.com/m_evans10/status/385418950861156352 https://twitter.com/m_evans10/status/385418950861156352
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
  Worked for me https://twitter.com/ColinHugh/status/385419512356413440 https://twitter.com/ColinHugh/status/385419512356413440 Got 4 so far...

44 points by austenallred 13y ago

Any cached links? The site's down due to HN effect.

Seems down. Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.austenallred.com%2Fthe-hackers-guide-to-the-first-1000-users-twitter%2F&oq=cache%3Awww.austenallred.com%2Fthe-hackers-guide-to-the-first-1000-users-twitter%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.538j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.a...

ronaldx 13y ago

The title purports to be about how Twitter acquired 1000 users. The article is more about how to spam-favourite your way to 1000 followers on Twitter.

patmcguire 13y ago
Man, that's disappointing. There was an article I saw a very long time ago that described how Twitter had about 5000 users at six months, but I've never been able to find it again.
jahansafd 13y ago
agreed
austenallred 13y ago
As stated in the article, your Twitter profile serves as a sort of pre-landing page to get people to click through. You should be able to watch the interaction from Twitter flow through to your landing page in real-time. (The title is supposed to be about how to acquire the first 1,000 users for your startup via Twitter. Sorry about the confusion.)
tonystubblebine 13y ago
This article is way more interesting than how Twitter acquired the first 1000 users. Twitter was launched by a company of 16, most with big networks. The biggest network was Evan Williams because he'd founded Blogger. I was there. All we did was invite our friends.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

danso 13y ago

Twitter is still a somewhat divisive tool among those in the profession you'd think would automatically love it: journalists. It's almost a badge of honor, like still reading the Sunday paper, in print, to eschew Twitter. However, I think it's more of an existential judgment than one of actual merit...I think many/most reporters, when the Internet was new, were used to thinking that everyone in town read or watched or listened to them. Pre-Internet media was very one way, so the only knowledge you had about your audience was through personal letters (which could be surprisingly frequent) and through circulation/Nielsen ratings (having a circulation of 300,000 does not mean 300K people actually read your story). Even as a non-senior reporter, random people would recognize my byline when I worked in Sacramento (a medium sized paper) and if you were on TV news, everyone in town knew you. But it's much different on Twitter. Unless you're already a celebrity, you're going to find in the first day, first week, first months of tweeting, very, very few people will seem to acknowledge you. And even if you get to a respectable sum of followers...between 1,000 to 10,000, you'll always be magnitudes less popular, via Twitter's follower metric, than the latest teen pop star or reality TV freak. That's pretty crushing to the ego, and that's the vibe I get from many friends (journalists or not) who've poo-poohed Twitter. And it's not because they despise the triviality of online interaction...they are on Facebook and update it frequently, but on FB, your network more closely mimics your real life friendships/following, and there's less "follower envy"...in that it's respectable to weed out your Facebook network. But there's not much benefit to having a small Twitter network.

hvs 13y ago
Talking and listening to some journalists, I get the sense that they don't so much as "like" Twitter, as simply recognize that since it is part of the modern 24-hour news cycle, they have no choice but to be a part of it. If anything, it seems like a love-hate relationship because now they have no choice but to be constantly "on". Anyway, I'm not a journalist and I find Twitter to be an interesting distraction where I follow interesting people to see what they are interested in. Oh, and comedians.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

fjabre 13y ago

I despise how twitter and facebook have become the de facto gatekeepers for marketing an app. The web is littered with millions upon millions of "Share this on/Log in with Twitter / Facebook" and for a lot of apps that are successful at this marketing approach they are little more than a house of cards and uninspired vaporware. How about this, send a link to your site to all of your friends. Ask them if they'll share it with their friends - via email or text -> novel idea right? If people really like what you've made then you won't have to go around doing shameless self promotion and being a slave to Twitter and Facebook status updates on every little detail about your app, your company, or your team. When did marketing an app become so ego-centric? I don't give a shit what you look like. I don't care how many people are on your team. I don't care whether you have 50,000 twitter bot followers. Does your app make me want to use it more? Does it fulfill a real need I have or invent a need I never knew I had? If it's reliable and I like it or need it then guess what: I'll use it. Source: Google, Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc... Astronomical successes that didn't have the 'benefit' of a glitzy social platform to share their special sauce with the masses.

austenallred 13y ago
While there's no marketing tactic that can make up for having a crappy product, the notion that you can just email a couple of friends and a product will take off works in maybe 1% of cases, even for good products.
- pstuart 13y ago
  It helps if you have something good....
  - austenallred 13y ago
    Even if you have something good, the chances you'll be successful without marketing are way worse than the chances you'll be successful as a startup in general (which already suck).
    - 13y ago

drtse4 13y ago

The #SEO tweet trick didn't work, now i'm depressed.

mikeevans 13y ago
Worked for me, I got two favorites almost immediately: https://twitter.com/m_evans10/status/385418950861156352 https://twitter.com/m_evans10/status/385418950861156352
GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
Worked for me https://twitter.com/ColinHugh/status/385419512356413440 https://twitter.com/ColinHugh/status/385419512356413440 Got 4 so far...