A Quick & Easy Guide on Getting Started on X (Twitter)

A lot of people have been asking me how they can get started on X/Twitter.

The truth is though: I’m no “Twitter influencer” by any means.

• I have > 500 followers

• Most of my tweets never go viral

• I still don’t know exactly what content I want to post

But what I can give advice on is how I’ve used Twitter in the past year to get in rooms you otherwise couldn’t have gotten into.

Leveraged well, creating content on Twitter can easily become one of the best decisions of your entire life.

So how do you do it? Here’s my playbook:

Who is X/Twitter For?

For many reading this, you probably want to use Twitter to kickstart your career.

But you don’t just want to kickstart your career - you’re fed up with traditional gatekeepers. You want something different, something spicier.

However, it’s not as simple as a magic pill.

Just like how you learn the rules when you play the college admissions game, you have to learn how to play the Twitter game.

While a traditional path encourages people to play by the rules, Twitter rewards the opposite:

• High agency

• Permissionless work

• Out-of-the-box thinking

Playing the Twitter game is like being onboarded on a spaceship. Once you’re in it, it’s a “fast-track” to doing interesting work and meeting other high-agency individuals.

It’s not for everybody, but for those who Twitter is for, it’s a haven.

The Secret of X/Twitter

Here’s the secret about Twitter:

While having ~400 followers doesn’t seem like a lot (especially when you compare it to personal accounts on Instagram having 1k+), the “quality-per-follower” ratio is way higher than any other social media platform.

Growing trust on Twitter is primarily based on 3 criteria:

1. Do we have any mutuals?

2. Is this person posting interesting content?

3. Is this person working on interesting things?

It (usually) doesn’t matter if they have 100 followers or 50,000. Again, it’s the 3 criteria that matter more.

The hardest part about succeeding on Twitter is getting initial eyeballs to your profile and content.

When you’re starting out, you probably know zero people - and that’s completely normal. I started with 0 connections and 0 clue on what I want to talk about.

But how do you get from 0 to 1?

Going From 0 to 1

If I were to create my Twitter account all over again, I’d boil it down to several steps.

First, optimize your profile + bio.

Include what you’re working on, what content you produce, or some form of credential (e.g: “19 y/o building @[project], 100k+ users”).

Make sure your bio has your face on it. You’re here to build genuine human connection - you have to put yourself out there.

Second, curate content you find interesting.

When you’re trying to discover what you want to create content about, there’s no better way to take what you’re already consuming and publicly document it.

This can be as simple as compiling notes you’ve taken from watching an educational video on YouTube.

There are already many people doing this. Check out Jay Alto or Aadit Sheth for inspo.

Why is it valuable? There’s a deluge of information out there. Curators will always be needed to filter out the noise and present high-quality, bite-sized knowledge.

Third, send genuine cold DMs to people you find interesting.

To succeed on Twitter, you need a squadron of early supporters. And the only way to do that is to reach out and form initial friendships.

Just like a startup needs to do unscalable things when they’re acquiring early customers, you have to do a similar thing, too.

Here’s a hack: reach out to people who are also on a similar stage of the journey as you are. Not only will they be more likely to respond, they’ll also be more likely to engage with your content as they’re starting out as well.

Bonus points if you start a podcast, but more on that in a future post.

Not sure how to craft a well-written cold DM? Don’t worry, I gotcha.

I created a whole Notion dashboard taking you from 0 to 1 on crafting and sending your first cold DM.

Zero gatekeeping, zero fluff. Check it out here or below for a demo vid:

Want help getting started on Twitter? DM me, but only if you’re serious about starting out.

If you just created an account, also reach out - I’ll give you a shout-out.

Happy tweeting!

Jeston Lu

Thanks for reading! If you have anything you want me to cover, fill out this form here. What did you think of today’s edition? Would love to hear back from you: just hit “reply” or reach out to me on X/Twitter.