‘Crypto Twitter’ (or ‘Crypto X’, as it is now known following Elon’s rebrand) is a huge part of the blockchain ecosystem. It’s the social media platform of choice for the Web3 community to find, and publish, just about everything: breaking news, analysis, opinion, rants, memes, and almost anything else you can think of. The crypto world flocks to X to be informed and entertained, ideally at the same time.

There’s a huge amount of content there, and it’s the gateway to more content on websites and other social media platforms around the web. In short, anything that is important in the crypto world will be on X. The biggest stories start there, and it’s so popular and influential that sometimes, users don’t need to put their content anywhere else.

TL;DR: If you’re involved in crypto, you HAVE to be on X. And if you want to build a crypto brand, you HAVE to be active – and as productive as possible – on X.

That won’t happen by accident. Building your presence on X is a process you’ll need to work at steadily over time. Get it right, and you’ll have created a powerful platform for communicating your ideas and brand to the crypto world.

Building Your Profile As A Content Creator

There are two aspects of establishing your X account as an authority in the social media space: Quality and Consistency. You’ll need to put out good content – that is, material that people want to consume – on a regular basis.

It can be tempting to replace quality with quantity, on the grounds that if you don’t have the time to come up with great material, then surely you can compensate by putting out low-quality content more frequently. A few moment’s reflection should tell you that’s not true. You’ll have seen spam accounts (whether run by humans or bots) that constantly post junk content, or that reply or repost everything they can, with zero meaningful engagement. They typically have a handful of followers at best, and no one goes to them for insights into what’s going on in the blockchain world.

The good news is that content comes in many forms, so no matter what your chosen subject or your strengths, you have plenty of ways to promote yourself:

• Single, short posts
• Reposts, ideally with your own message that adds something or unpacks the original post in some way
• Replies, again adding something of value
• Longer posts, past the standard 280-character limit, and up to 4,000 characters, for those who pay the $8-11 monthly Premium fee
• Threads consisting of multiple short posts
• Blogs, linked from a summary post
• Reports and analysis
• Images, from technical analysis and charts of on-chain data to memes
• Videos
• Podcasts

In an ideal world, you will vary the content you post, regularly switching it up. You’ll post more or less continuously, or at least consistently, especially at the beginning when you need to work harder to gain traction. But even accounts that are well known can’t afford to rest on their laurels. Twitter is a fast-moving medium, and narratives in the crypto space are constantly evolving. It’s easy to become irrelevant if you let the grass grow under your feet.

While it’s great to have a mixture, some of the most successful accounts focus on one or other type of content. For example, analysts like Adam Cochran have carved out a niche as thread writers – though Cochran includes plenty of single posts, too. It’s just that when he has a topic that merits longer treatment, he’s good at doing it that way, and his audience loves it.

So once you know what you’re going to do, and how you’re going to do it, how do you go about building a following and getting noticed on X? Here are some simple strategies.

Be A ‘Reply Guy’ (But The Right Kind)

The term ‘reply guy’ on X is used to describe accounts that are known for constantly replying to other people’s posts – often major accounts, but also almost any account on their radar that has a few followers. Their replies are typically low-value: they offer opinions that aren’t wanted; they post the same, formulaic responses over and over; they interrupt the flow of other replies with irrelevant content. They may reply to a wide range of posts on different topics. In short, they’re annoying attention-seekers.

Obviously, that’s not the kind of ‘reply guy’ you want to be.

The worst kind of reply guys are tone deaf and decrease the value of a thread rather than add to it. Fortunately, you can display the same enthusiasm and levels of activity without being so annoying. With just a little more thought, you can add informed commentary, humour, and new facts to posts – and gain attention for your account in the right way. If you add something useful, you’ll achieve what the other reply guys fail at so spectacularly, and successfully grow your own following.

As an aside, if and when you do make it and your own account is popular, you will attract your own fair share of reply guys. When people reply to you and actually provide value, don’t forget to pay it forward by acknowledging them. You were once in their position, after all.

Memes

Memes are a huge part of the crypto space. While some are just silly or occasionally unpleasant, many communicate an important message in a pithy and humorous format. There’s something about a well-crafted meme that resonates with people, tapping into their own mindset in a way that a text-based post cannot achieve.

If you want to make it on X, it helps if your meme game is on point. A good meme is highly repostable. Of course, you can repost memes from other accounts, but it’s better to create your own original memes and have people circulate them.

There are lots of places you can look for inspiration, but remember that memes generally do best when they’re not only funny but relatable. Current events, news and development in the crypto space is a good place to start – check out trending topics on Crypto X for anything that you can comment on or parody with a good meme. As well as referencing events that everyone is already talking about, you can tap into feelings that will be familiar to everyone in the crypto space by using personal experiences – for example, waiting for a delayed exchange withdrawal, having the profitability of a stellar trade eroded by killer gas fees, and so on.

In terms of meme templates, there are plenty of well-known ones that are used over and over. It’s even better to mix things up and create something unexpected, a twist on the tried and tested examples. There are lots of sites where you can find template images or upload your own, and then superimpose text on them, like imgflip. AI is also being used more and more to create some truly memorable (and bizarre) memes – you’ve probably seen the ones of Willem Dafoe’s face superimposed onto popular meme characters... Don’t be afraid to experiment. Weird and unconventional ideas often stand out the best.

Long-Form Content

X posts have a built-in limit of 280 characters, but it’s possible to post long-form content in various ways. If you pay for Premium, you can write up to 4,000 characters (around 700 words). Threads are another way of presenting a longer idea, breaking it down into short segments. You can also post an image of a block of text, or a screenshot. And, of course, you can simply link to an external blog or website, though this will force users to navigate away from X.

You can use AI to help you craft any of these. For example, try composing a blog post (with or without AI) and then asking ChatGPT to turn it into a thread. However, you should absolutely not rely on ChatGPT (or any other AI platform) to create your posts from start to finish. ‘Your’ content will instantly be recognisable as being AI-generated. If you saw a low-effort account that primarily posted recycled AI-generated content, never offering anything new or distinctive, would you follow it?

Instead, use AI to give you a starting point. It’s an amazing tool to help come up with ideas, create a first draft, and repackage your material quickly. But you should always edit what it produces, rewriting it to give it a more human tone that is on-brand for you.

Spaces

X Spaces are a good source of content and inspiration. Aim to jump on as many Spaces as you can to gather material, and try to speak to get your name better known. As with being a reply guy, though, always try to add value.

Video Content

Video content is also something that’s easy to produce, with little more than a smartphone – though if you have better equipment and some basic video-editing software, that’s better. You can record shorts and post to TikTok or YouTube, embedding them in posts on X. Again, you can use AI to enhance your offering, creating graphics to go with your voiceover or to-camera commentary, and using it to subtitle them in different languages.

Check Out Successful X Accounts

For more inspiration, spend some time understanding how popular accounts build their following. For example, take a look at Alex Finn, aka NFT_GOD. He picks up on new software releases and key posts, and runs with them. One recent example leverages the release of Grok, Elon Musk’s new AI platform, which is intended to rival more established platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Alex got early access (at a time when most people weren’t eligible or couldn’t be bothered) and used the opportunity to create some content that played into people’s curiosity about a new AI product that reflects Musk’s quirky sense of humour.

I'm 4 hours into using Grok and I'm already blown away.

Having this built into X will make it a 10x better experience

Really cool use case: telling Grok all your interests and getting recs for the best accounts to follow in that niche

Will make X onboarding so much smoother

This is the kind of thing potentially anyone could do. Some of his other posts are much more complicated – such as ploughing through 13,000 lines of Twitter code and recommending how the algo could be improved, in response to a post from Elon asking for suggestions. Needless to say, even if Musk doesn’t see that, it got a lot of views.

Also have a look at Alex is Building, an account dedicated to Web3 jobs. He provides great information and advice, keeping it to short snippets that are simple, straightforward and effective – like this post on building your Web3 presence.

If you're struggling to get momentum with creating Web3 content,

Start small.

Set yourself a goal to write 1x Long-Form post each week for a month.

Once that feels easy, do 2x.

Keep building until you find a rhythm that works for you.

Next Steps

If you keep at it, you’ll build your following, while meeting other influencers and hopefully gaining currency with them. The more followers you acquire, the more influence and validity you’ll have in the space, so it’s a virtuous cycle.

Growing a following on X proves your ability to market your own brand, which brings its own opportunities. If you carve out a niche in a given space, you’ll become an influencer and sought-after account for work opportunities, partnerships and marketing deals. You’ll also be able to market your own material more effectively, whether that’s courses, newsletters, premium subscriptions to an alpha service, or anything else.

Good luck – and make sure you let us know on X how you’re getting on!