How I got 29,000 Impressions on a single tweet (with only 27 Followers)
The Secret Sauce Formula | P.S. This post might be too long for Gmail
Thursday, April 14th 10:12 PM
Greetings from Konstanz, Germany
Normally, I have zero notifications on Twitter:
But yesterday, when I logged in to Twitter, I saw an astronomical number next to my notification bell. (I thought it was a glitch.)
When I expanded my recent tweet, I saw this big number:
Look, for some people, that’s small potatoes. But for me, 29,000 is 29,000x my normal impressions (1-10), and it’s because of a unique strategy I like to call:
My Secret Sauce Formula
Today I will share with you my secret sauce formula that, if used correctly, can help you explode your social engagement.
Secondly, we’ll get into what made this specific tweet so damn persuasive.
If you are interested in reaching more people or learning how to craft your message with maximum persuasion, you are in the right place.
Here is the Secret Sauce Formula
You synthesize a thought leader’s work (who you respect)
You re-package their message (with a personal touch)
You offer it to them (without expectation of anything in return)
My More Successful Friends have also used the Secret Sauce Formula:
3 Reasons why this Formula Rocks
1. Reciprocity (Give and Take)
Reciprocity is a powerful principle from physics and evolutionary psychology.
We’ve talked about reciprocity many times at ZeitGeist.
For example, here:
The best explanation I have found for Reciprocity:
“You are more likely to receive [ ] help if you have offered assistance in the past.”
- The Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology
Why does the secret sauce formula trigger reciprocity?
Simply put:
You offer free press for the thought leader.
2. Social Proof
Social Proof is one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion (and, according to billion-dollar copywriter Craig Clemens the most powerful.)
A retweet from a thought leader is essentially a stamp of approval.
3. Audience Hacking
It goes without saying NYT best-selling author Scott Adams has a larger audience than I do.
Scott has 685,400 Followers:
I have 27 Followers:
If Scott retweets something, significantly more people will see it than when a random 22-year-old Tweets something into the void.
Even better, it’s showing your message to:
Members of the Same Tribe
The secret sauce formula doesn’t just put your work in front of more eyeballs.
It puts your work in front of people who have similar values and care about the same stuff as you (because you consume the same content).
For example:
Those are the three pillars of the Secret Sauce Formula:
Reciprocity
Social Proof
Audience Hacking
Lastly, even if the person doesn’t see your tweet, the Secret Sauce Formula remains a win-win because you are perfecting your craft.
Finally, here is the Tweet with 29,000 Views (in less than 24 hours):
The Tweet was successful because Scott retweeted it, but hundreds of people tweet at Scott every day.
It begs the question:
What made this tweet so damn persuasive that Scott chose to retweet it?
Here is a step-by-step explanation of how to craft a persuasive message.
Your Headline is (almost) everything
Firstly, I spent an extra-long time rewriting the headline and first line.
“Five times as many people read the headline as read the body [ ].
When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
- David Olgivy (the Father of modern advertising)
Your headline must grab attention immediately, or people are gone. (Don’t forget: you are fighting for eyeballs against political rage, internet porn, and TikTok)
If you’re concerned with creating clickbait, remember:
Back to the Monster Tweet.
The Headline reads:
Three Stupid Easy Ways to Make Yourself Luckier (According to Scott Adams, author of Dilbert)
It doesn’t say:
Luck is changeable
(although that is the point)
Let’s break the Headline down piece by piece
Three Stupid Easy Ways to Make Yourself Luckier (According to Scott Adams, author of Dilbert)
“Three”
Humans love numbered lists. For example,
Side note: Three seems to be a particularly compelling number.
For example:
Father
Son
Holy Spirit
“Stupid”
Shock value (out of the ordinary)
“Easy”
If you google “the greatest sales letters of all time” and hand copy them (as I have), you will notice one pattern comes up time and again:
Quick and easy results.
People want the greatest possible result with the least possible effort.
“Make yourself”
You + yourself are persuasive because humans are self-interested. Further, half of Lennon-McCartney's songs have You or Yours in the first line. (Wikipedia)
“According to Scott Adams, author of Dilbert”
This is pure social proof and the only reason anyone read this post.
Also, I included “Dilbert” because Scott Adams is a common name, and more people may be familiar with Dilbert than him.
If you carefully craft your headline, you've done the heavy lifting.
The second most important piece is your first sentence.
Your first sentence is a sales pitch for the rest of your writing.
I rewrote the first sentence many times before deciding on
“Are some people just born lucky?”
Other options I played with:
“Are you a lucky person?”
“Can you create luck?”
But I decided on the first option because I liked how it sounded when I said it aloud.
For creating the body, I followed this advice:
You can get the point of the essay by glancing at the page because the essay has three big subheadings. This gives readers a chance to taste the essay without fully committing to reading.
Lastly, the tease before the essay:
was a classic pattern interrupt.
You see this pattern interrupt all the time on Twitter:
People think X
But the truth is (your secret information)
That’s it for now.
There is still more I’d like to share with you, but it’s getting late here and I’m headed to Ulm at 5:00 am to see a friend.
Please let me know if you want to learn more about written persuasion and copywriting.
P.S. This post took a few hours for me to write today. If you found it valuable, I would appreciate it if you gave it a like on Substack and shared it with your best friend: