Original source: Ish Verduzco
Compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily Wenser
Editor's note: For a long time, the operation of social media accounts of investment institutions has been a "black box" one after another. We don't know a lot of information about the operating mechanism, planning focus, methods and methods of fan growth behind each authoritative or entertainment institutional account. And for the sake of internal confidentiality or institutional management, few heads of relevant institutions share or disclose this. Today, Odaily Planet Daily will share with you the operation experience of Ish Verduzco, head of social media at a16zcrypto, from 0 to 100,000 followers for your reference.
Operational philosophy: Useful content speaks volumes
Overall, my social media philosophy is very simple: Be Helpful.
I believe that if you can help others in a specific area, people will see you as their first choice for a long time. This will make people more willing to pay attention to, participate in, and share your content (which can allow your content to enter more layers of the dissemination network). You can also use content to entertain or inspire people, but it should be based on helping people solve specific problems. As for strategy, the specific details are as follows (on X/Twitter):
7 social media operation strategies
1. High-quality content that is easy to share
Make sure your content is easy for your target audience to repost, bookmark, and share with their friends.
This is the best way to grow your following. Producing quality content that people are willing to share on their social media networks attracts new audiences and works like a conversion funnel:
Produce quality content > Followers share it with their fans > New users discover your account > Some click on your profile > Some of them follow you back (if the rest of the profile is good) > You have a larger initial audience > Repeat.
Sample tweet:
Tweet screenshot
2. Community issues
Engage your target audience by asking sincere questions.
I see a lot of people get this wrong because they use it as a gimmick to drive short-term engagement. To do this right, you want every reply to your tweet to add value to the content for people who subsequently view your post or reply, so try to avoid short-term gains and respond to high-quality comments - this helps drive the "engagement flywheel" on your posts:
You ask a question > someone gives a response > you respond again > some of their followers see the post in their feed > some of them comment on your post > you respond to them > repeat the process.
Sample tweet:
Tweet screenshot
3. Never slack off in community management
When it comes to growing an account's followers (in addition to high-quality content), community management is an inconspicuous but crucial part.
There should be a limit to how many posts you can post per day, otherwise you’ll end up being annoying and people will be less likely to interact with you (or, worse, unfollow you). But you can reply and engage with other posts. For the past year and a half, I’ve spent at least a few hours a day liking, replying, handling private messages, and generally trying to build deep 1v1 relationships with people in the crypto space.
Keep doing this and the effort will have a compounding effect on you.
You can check out the likes and replies of our account @a16zcrypto. We can clearly see that this account has thousands or even tens of thousands of interactions.
My goal in community management is to “cultivate loyal fans” one by one. It is indeed time-consuming and hard to do this every day, but in the long run, it is very, very valuable.
4. Off-platform marketing efforts
We typically use newsletters, podcasts, and other social channels to lead early followers on Twitter/X.
A simple “Hey, follow us to get useful content every day” message can go a long way. You can also include links to your social media accounts on your website, in your email signature, and anywhere else people might be tempted to click on them.
If you really want to be creative, you could also start creating a series of content that people can only find on Twitter/X. You can then promote it on LinkedIn, Instagram, Newsletter, or other distribution channels you have established.
This should work better because it gives people a reason to leave the app they’re currently on and follow your social media account.
5. Leverage existing communication networks
This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many teams forget this.
This is simple. If your company staff (even friends, advisors, investors, etc.) have their own social media accounts and a certain number of followers, mobilize them to drive more traffic to your brand account.
We usually use methods such as retweets, @/tags, and collaborative tweets to attract internal employees to become fans of our account.
It really helps a lot when personal accounts recommend others to follow our official accounts.
Sample tweet:
Tweet screenshot
6. Use Memes
In the early days of your account, use as many emojis from the official account as possible.
Over time, I started encouraging our team members to share the memes from their personal accounts and then retweet them through the official account — this seemed to resonate with more followers.
Overall, I think memes can be very valuable if they are done well and align with your target demographic.
If not, don't force yourself.
For more meme advice, follow this guy @iamjasonlevin.
Sample tweet:
Tweet screenshot
7. Framework Reproducibility
It is worth mentioning that all the above content is based on the framework I use to operate Twitter/X platform accounts and attract fans, and many of the principles can also be used on other social platforms. There is also a tweet about Twitter account operation strategy, which you can refer to:
Tweet screenshot
The specific strategies are summarized as follows (for the convenience of those who are too lazy to click to view):
Become a relatable person
Increase the value of your content
Don't be too serious
Have fun on the platform
Keep your content frequent, but don’t make it boring
Participate in interactive exchanges of information flow every day
Share your stories and insights
Always remember your fans
Pay 5 times more than you want
Summary: Social media operation is the art of seeking consensus
Finally, although I am only a "1-person social media operations team", I would not be able to grow the account quickly without the other members of the official account operations team. Many people provided us with help, and their content was eventually integrated into my social media operations strategy (including editing, communication, engineering, research, etc.). I think of the social media operations leader as a coordinator. Our job is to get everyone on the same page in the end, help them use their accounts to maximize their value, and align the content with the interests of their fans.
Also attached are some high-quality articles related to a16z for readers to learn and refer to:
"a16z crypto: Criticizing Meme coins"
"a16z: A Hollywood-style victory"
"a16z: NFT Ladder, the Evolution of Brands"
"a16z: 8 Challenges in Exploring Blockchain Mechanism Design"
"a16z: Detailed explanation of the FIT 21 bill, what is its impact on the crypto industry?"
"a16z: Porter's Five Forces Framework and Competitive Strategy in the Context of Web3"
