GRRowth Walkthrough: Paul and Deb do Abbott & Costello

Most people are not tech experts. They get used to a way of working. They don't realize that the human way to work is rarely the best way for a server to work.

Servers are fast but stupid.

Humans are brilliant but slow.

It was that very human brilliance that made myTweetPack.com possible. Its forefather app used too many server resources to be market-viable.

So where am I going with this?

Deb Helfrich saw I was online with the Live Chat on myTweetPack.com. She reached out. 

It's tough to write a Live Chat while you're chatting. It's designed for speed, not eloquence.

I didn't simply paste a transcript because I didn't want Deb and I to look like illiterate morons.

Live Chat is like that. So, I edited it to make us sound better. ;-)

Deb had a hard time figuring out what was going on. Deb is pretty techie. That was not a good omen.

Let's consider this a walkthrough of how to build a Following.

Here goes. . . 

• Deb: I don't get it.
• Me: Hi Deb. What don't you get?
• Deb: Everything.
• Me: Really?
• Deb: It's the whole setting up to follow people. The GRRowth thing. 
• Me: Give me a minute or so to look into it.

I took a look at the database. Deb already set her Growth Preferences. Good. She knew to go to the GRRowth portal from the Dashboard and set her preferences.

She set her grace period for new follows to nine days (Yikes!! Usually anywhere between 3 and 7 days is good. Optimal is 3 to 5.)

Deb set new follows at 100 a day. 

Okay. With that huge grace period, she'll have 900 before she even starts unfollowing people. The farther out you go with the grace period, the tighter you have to come in with your new follows. 

It's a double-whammy anti-growth thing. Still, it's her choice. She is the Queen of her own Pack.

Twitter allows you 1000 new follows a day. That's way too many. It doesn't tell the whole story anyway. Twitter math is only just a little bit related to regular math. Where else does 38+127+26 +45 = 140? Or, 1000=327? 

Ya gotta luv Twitter math (not). Good thing myTweetPack.com does all the heavy lifting.

I find Deb's grace period too long, but her small number of new followers makes it work, albeit slowly.

She would probably be better off shifting to a 5 day grace period with 200 - 250 new followers a day.

That isn't the problem.

• Me: Okay everything looks okay. What are you having trouble with?
• Deb: How do I get to my Follows List?
• Me: To Build it up or use it?
• Deb: Both, I have about 800. I need more. But when I "process Alphas" I don't get that many... only like 10 or 20.
• Me: OK, Alphas are like that. You don't get many possibles, but the ones you do get are very good. 
• Me: Let's build up your possibles you want to work on HR stuff or what?
• Deb: I'd rather sell dog books.
• Me: Ok, we'll go find doggie people.  FYI: With widely different targets, you're probably better off with two accounts. From Dashboard -> GRRowth Portal -> Growth Strategy
• Me: See where it says "inspect a Twitter handle"? 
• Deb: yeah
• Me: Cool, we'll build up. gimme a sec.

I jumped over to Twitter and started looking for doggie people. I'm more a cat person. I don't know much about dogs. I've had a couple over the years, but more because my kids like dogs, than me.

I started with #dogs. . . nothing much, but I did find  @tokenpet. Then I thought of the American Kennel Club. They're  @akcdoglovers. Humm, what about that guy who was (is?) on TV? He's  @CesarMillan. Then there's  @dogcelebration, I found them on CesarMillan. They could fit too.

The trick is to find popular accounts in your niche. You're looking for affinity. Do their people match what you want?

Okay, let's see if they can help.

• Me: You still on the Growth Strategy page? Paste dogcelebration in the second box, "enter a handle to inspect." They are on 379 lists. Keep them aside for now.  Just jot them down.
• Me: Do the same thing with akcdoglovers. . . 621 lists. Make a note of them too.
• Me: tokenpet is only on 144 lists. Why not?
• Me: CesarMillan is on 9494 lists! Definitely, make a note of him!
• Deb: Okay, And?
• Me: From Advanced Strategies, up on top, select Work with Lists. . . Click the first button, Collect/Update List Data.
• Deb: Ok
• Me: Step 1 - With your handle showing in the first box, and the other one blank, hit Collect Users/List Owners. It will take a little while.
• Deb: Done
• Me: Okay, so you collected everyone who ever added you to a list. Now, we'll do that with the others.
• Me: Put akcdoglovers in the second box. The text will be red. Hit Collect again. While you're at it, do this with all your Alphas.
• Deb: (after a while) Done
• Me: Put in CesarMillan and go take a walk with your dog. 10,000 users will take a long while.
• Deb: I don't know if I want to. I don't always agree with his advice.
• Me: That's not an issue. You're looking for affinity. Are people who engage with him possibly the type to buy your dog book?
• Deb: Probably
• Me: That's what you want, then. If you don't agree with his advice, don't use him as an Alpha. You can still mine him for potential follows.
• Deb: (After a very long while, Mr. Millan is on nearly 10,000 lists) Okay Done.

This is where it starts sounding like the old Abbott & Costello "Who's on First" routine.

• Deb: So, where do I see it.
• Me: See what?
• Deb: The list
• Me: What list?
• Deb: The one we just built! Our Potential Follows list.
• Me: Why would you want to see it? 
  • Me: I don't get it.
• Deb: To choose who to follow.
• Deb: We built this list to follow, right? So how do I follow?
• Me: Oh, Okay, Click on the green Schedule Follows. You'll get to The filter page. There you can filter it any way you want. You can filter to ignore, or to use. Ex: I don't follow anyone with less than 350 or so followers. So I filter that way then hit Set to Ignore.
• Me:   When you're happy with it hit Schedule your follows.
• Deb: okay, more than 350 makes sense to me too.
• Deb: Done, where's the list?
• Me: What list?
• Deb: Not this again! How do I choose who to follow?
• Me: You just did. You hit Schedule Follows. You're done.
• Deb: I didn't choose anybody!
• Me: Yes, you did.
• Deb: Where's the list? Are you telling me this thing doesn't produce anything, no output?
• Me: What would be the point? We're trying to get away from a ton of manual labor, not add to it.
• Me: Deb, you just scheduled out 7 days worth of follows targeted the way you want. They will dribble out slowly so that you don't get wild swings in your counts. It's not a time-sensitive thing. Follow-backs are time sensitive. They get done right away. Why do you need to see the list?
• Deb: So that I know who I follow.
• Me: You started with a bunch of people who already engaged with your subject matter. Step 1 = done. 
• Me: You filtered then to the parameters that are important to you, Step 2 = done.
• Me: Now you follow them. 
• Me: If they follow back in time, they are active enough, Step 3 = done, 
• Me: If they engage, Step 4 = done.
• Me: That's as close as you can target a following. Those four steps are the definition of a targeted following.
• Deb: Ooookaaaay (sounding unconvinced) Maybe we could see the list anyway?
• Me: Why? The follow list is not human-recognizable. It's a massive list of Twitter Ids, and account stats. That, and the idea of where they came from is all that you need to build a targeted following. 

We ended the chat with Deb scheduling her follows but remaining unconvinced. The job is done, but she feels like she's missing out, somehow.

It works, Deb, it works.

You'll see for yourself, as soon as you see your account moving. Follows dribble out slowly, as do unfollows. You may not notice anything right away. You scheduled follows. You didn't actually follow. . . yet.

Follow Schedules build right after each other. You don't need to worry about finishing one before starting another. I would suggest you don't move too far out.

Spend some time building a big Potential Follows list. You'll add to it automatically every time you process your Alphas. If you run low, add some more.

Here's the whole Regular To-Do List in a nutshell 

(assumes you set up your Growth Preferences)

• Daily (or twice daily) Hit GRRowth Portal -> Refresh all Relationships
• 3 to 7 times a week: Hit GRRowth Portal -> Process Alphas RTs and Mentions
• 2 to 3 times a week:  Hit GRRowth Portal -> Growth Strategies -> Advanced Strategies (Work from Mentions)-> RTs and Mentions of all
• Use Twitter to find possible people to mine for lists etc. Put them in the collect from lists. If you see they own lists, put them in  Hit GRRowth Portal -> Growth Strategies -> Advanced Strategies (Work with Lists)-> Collect Members & Subscribers. 
• Mashable, USAToday, HuffPost, GoodMenProject, and niume_official have great lists. If they fit your target, use them. If not, find some that do.

Build a really big Potential Follows List. Filter it down to what suits you. 

Follow those, unfollow whoever doesn't engage.

Works like a charm