NFT Artists: You Are Probably Using Twitter Wrong
Twitter likes to keep the exact details of its algorithm a secret, but users have been testing it out and finding what works best. The Twitter feed does not show everything you post and retweet to all of your followers. The algorithm decides what is worthy of being seen and who should see it. The algorithm also decides when a tweet or retweet shows up on someone else’s feed. The Twitter feed is not chronological, so a tweet can get popular and start appear on more people’s Twitter feeds for a long time after it was posted.
You can access information about how many views all your tweets are getting at Twitter analytics. For each individual tweet tap on “View Tweet activity” to see a quick overview of likes, retweets, comments, and views. You can see exactly how many people saw this tweet come across their Twitter feed. If you go to analytics.twitter.com you can see a lot more information and really dig into the data for your account.
Tagging people is something that a lot of new artists do in the hopes of catching the attention of collectors. The Twitter algorithm has also decided that tagging a lot of people is spam. If you tag more than two or three people in your tweet Twitter will mark it as spam and show it to fewer people. Twitter will also decide that the people you tagged are spammers and their entire account will get fewer views. Tagging people in your tweets does not help you or them, and they will lose status in the algorithm. When you tag more than two or three people in your tweets you are actively harming their ability to communicate to their own followers because you are causing them to be marked as spammers by the algorithm. You are also being marked as a spammer by the algorithm. I beg you to please stop tagging a long list of people if your tweets.
Hashtags are another popular method to try and promote NFTs to the community and grow your audience. This can help but it can also hurt if you don’t do it correctly. Using two or three hashtags in a tweet seems to be ok to the algorithm. If you use more than that Twitter will mark your tweet as spam and show it to fewer people. If you use any hashtags in your tweets you also need to be active in those hashtags. This is the key to making hashtags work for you. If you follow the hashtag and comment on other people’s tweets using that hashtag the algorithm will show your tweet to more people searching that hashtag.
Liking and retweeting is not enough. In fact in might be the least useful thing you can do to help an artist. Bots can like and retweet. If all you do is like and retweet the algorithm will not know if you are a bot or an actual person. Your account will look like spam to the algorithm and nobody will see your tweets. There are also a lot of people that mute retweets. They will never see your retweets at all. Quote tweets seems to get seen a little more often, but in general the less you retweet the more likely any of your retweets will be seen.
The algorithm likes comments. Comments make you look like a real live person behind the Twitter account. The best way to help yourself and your fellow artists is to comment on their tweets. When people comment on tweets and you reply the algorithm thinks that the tweet must have valuable information so it will automatically show your tweet to more people. Giving a comment will help a tweet get seen more than retweeting. We’ve tested this out live as a group in Twitter Spaces, checking out tweet views before and after everyone commented on the tweets. Comments on a tweet increase views as soon as the commenting starts. This is the best way to get your tweets seen, improve your status in the algorithm and to help your fellow artists.
The algorithm also likes tweets without links. Twitter wants to keep people on Twitter so it can show more ads and make more ad revenue. We want to sell our NFTs so we need to find a good balance of posting tweets without links and giving the information that collectors need to find our work. People have come up with many different strategies. A lot of people like to post a tweet with an image and description of the NFT and then post a comment with the link. I personally like to do threaded tweets and then make sure I post enough tweets about other things with no links to balance it out. Try different things and decide what works best for you.
The algorithm also likes video. Try making short videos of yourself, your art, your process, work in progress, your dog, your mom, the traffic you got stuck in, anything. Twitter will never be Tik Tok, but the algorithm likes videos and collectors like getting a glimpse of the artist behind the art. Share some teaser promo clips or works in progress to promote your art, and share personal clips to promote yourself.
Also consider what collectors see when they look at your Twitter account. If a new collector goes to your Twitter page to look at your profile and your tweets, what do they see? Do they see a bunch of retweets of other people’s art and nothing about you and your art? Tweet about yourself, your life, what inspires you, what tools you use to make art, what you’re working on, what you ate for dinner, what cute thing your cat did, anything else to give collectors an idea about who you are as a person. This will make you more interesting to collectors and your art will be more collectible.
Try these tips and tricks and see how your Twitter experience changes. You will see different people on your twitter feed, you will get more followers without trying, people that don’t follow you will like your tweets. Hopefully all of these things will lead to more NFTs sales, success in the NFT industry, and a happy life as an artist. Please let me know how you do!
