Commenting on other large accounts on Twitter is possibly the fastest, easiest way to grow your own account, particularly when you still have relatively few followers (anything less than 5,000).

While creating engaging original content is important to build an audience, its impact is diminished when you're only preaching to a few dozens or hundreds of followers; it can often feel like you're talking to a wall.

(And for me to say that, it says a lot, since I'm the founder of a Twitter scheduling app.)

When you're small, you want as much visibility as possible.

Fortunately for all of us, Twitter is inherently built for networking, so by commenting on other large accounts, you're able to gain access to others' followers, appear before them, intrigue them enough to click on your profile, and convince them with your snazzy bio to follow you.

Classic leveraging on the following of others to build your own.

But how?

Everyone says to comment on other large accounts, but no one really says how to do it.

Get your basics right first 🙂
Now. Before you get all excited, we have to make sure you get a couple of things right first:

a. Profile optimization

First, your profile needs to be 100% FULLY-OPTIMIZED.

This means, when people click on your profile, you want to wow them so much that they have no choice but to click Follow.

Why should they follow you? What benefits can they get from staying in touch with you?

I can write an entire post on profile optimization (in fact, I probably will next week -- update: I did), but basically use a descriptive name with custom fonts and emojis for eye-catchiness, a profile picture with a face (even if it's a graphic, still have a FACE), include a persuasive value proposition (e.g. "I teach you how to monetize your Twitter following to build recurring income"), and always link to your offer in the URL section and never ever leave it blank.

Because when/if you go viral, you want your profile to be ready to collect revenue from day one.

The last point really irks me -- it's better to put a Patreon link to support you than nothing at all.

b. Follow 20-30 large accounts, add them to a private list called "Snipe"

This is where you live now. Leave 20-40 comments per day consistently for 6 months.

We're going to leverage their large, active, engaged following to build our own... Classic shameless parasitism!

Here are a list of ideal characteristics of accounts to follow:

Same niche as you
Account owner is actually actively engaging (so @realdonaldtrump doesn't count)
Account owner is trigger-happy with retweets (epic if you can grab this tiger by the tail)
Account owner is susceptible to flattery/provocation
Account has high engagement (likes, retweets, replies)
Not too large (hard to stand out among all the noise)
Low following-to-follower ratio (i.e. a respected authority, people who follow more than they're followed are weird 😕)
Select about 10 key ones and click "notify" on their profiles to be notified whenever they post a new tweet.

Some curation

Now, before you add any account to your private list, look into the large account's profile timeline.

Are they all exclusively original tweets?
Or are replies mixed in?
Do they interact with their followers?
Do they retweet/quote stuff by others?
If it's no-yes-yes-yes, go ahead and add it to your list. If not, keep looking.

Now. The 4 strategies proper.
Once you've got the basics down, let's look at the 4 smart strategies to use when commenting on other large accounts:

1. When commenting, add so much value that each comment can stand on its own merit as its own tweet.
This is the overarching mindset that you must have whenever you comment on other accounts.

You only have limited airtime and chance to speak, so make those opportunities count.

It's not only important because you want to entice people to click on your profile and ultimately follow you, but also because, if you comment something that resonates, the comment itself will get more likes and retweets, which will bump that comment way up in the whole thread of replies, giving you a lot more visibility than if you're languishing in the sea of comments below.

So make it count, never comment asinine bullshit like "Agreed!" or "Facts!" that doesn't add any value whatsoever and that only further cements you in the mind of others as a nobody follower instead of an influencer in your own right. Examples:

a. When Hipster Finance (@finance_hipster) talked about the supreme importance of mindset and becoming your own hero (which I absolutely agree with), the Ecompreneur (@theecompreneur) added value by sharing his insight that nobody listens or cares until you have success under your belt: