How to use Twitter like an actual human being

February 4, 2022

This is one of my favorite episodes. I lay out why I like Twitter, and my strategy for using it.
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Transcript

Matt
00:00:00 – 00:00:01
What's going on, Mark?
Mark
00:00:02 – 00:00:05
Hey, Matt. We got a really special up, so today.
Matt
00:00:07 – 00:00:24
Yeah. So, after our griping on Twitter last or our griping about Twitter last week, Aaron Francis of Hammerstone reached out to us and was like, man, Twitter's awesome. You guys suck. I'm coming on your podcast. I'm gonna defend Twitter.
Matt
00:00:25 – 00:00:32
And Mark was like, game on. Like and it turned out amazing. Aaron's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt
00:00:32 – 00:00:34
Incredible conversation.
Mark
00:00:35 – 00:00:41
I know. I was thinking of that meme, you know, like, change my mind. Yeah. And he actually did change my mind.
Matt
00:00:41 – 00:00:53
Same. So here's the interview with him. He dropped some serious knowledge bombs. We cover a lot of different things, and we hope you enjoy. Yeah.
Matt
00:00:53 – 00:01:08
So I think maybe a good place to start is, Aaron, why don't you introduce yourself? So I did a deep dive on you. So, like, I went through every corner of the Internet I could. And, aside from being prolific at Twitter, like, can you introduce yourself for
Aaron
00:01:08 – 00:01:18
Sure. Yeah. I'm nervous to hear what you found, but, yeah, I'll introduce myself first. So my name is Aaron Francis. I'm a software developer.
Aaron
00:01:18 – 00:01:35
I live in Dallas, Texas. I do a lot of Laravel stuff. That's my primary, it's primarily where I hang. I do have a full time job. I work as a CTO COO at a small property tax firm here in Texas.
Aaron
00:01:37 – 00:02:11
But most of the interesting stuff I do is outside of work. And that's a lot of I do some open source stuff, which is what I'm gonna be presenting on at Lyricon next week as an open source package. And then me and 2 of my partners have been working on, a paid package for Laravel and Rails for quite some time now. So that's kind of the high level. I'm here because I love Twitter, and last week, y'all were dogging Twitter, and I couldn't I'm a I I love the show.
Aaron
00:02:11 – 00:02:21
I listen to the show all the time. And so when I heard that, I didn't even finish the episode. I just got on Twitter and responded and was like, no. You have to have me on. We have to have this fight on the air.
Aaron
00:02:21 – 00:02:26
So that I don't know where we wanna go, but that that's who I am and that's why I'm here.
Matt
00:02:26 – 00:02:51
Cool. So, I mean, you're a prolific developer, first of all. Like, I really went through your timeline and the amount that you share and contribute to the community is really cool. So, like, I think one of the things that struck me about going through your timeline and everything that you've put out is I think it's something that Mark and I definitely struggle with a lot is that feeling of authenticity of coming across that, like, no. I have something to share and I think it's awesome and I wanna share it.
Matt
00:02:51 – 00:02:58
And I think, like, the level of awesome of authenticity that comes from you is, like, huge. I think it's so cool.
Aaron
00:02:58 – 00:03:02
I really do try to do that. So I'm glad to hear that that's what you saw.
Matt
00:03:02 – 00:03:05
Yeah. It absolutely comes through. So, like, kudos.
Aaron
00:03:05 – 00:03:05
Thanks.
Mark
00:03:06 – 00:03:06
So I
Matt
00:03:06 – 00:03:24
think you're so, yeah, again, like, we were kind of dogging on Twitter, for a host of reasons. You know, to to quote a few, I find Twitter draining. Does anyone like what I tweeted? I have to go check. And I never come across I never come across I never come back from Twitter thinking, wow, that was
Aaron
00:03:27 – 00:03:30
fun. Yep. That's exactly what I remember y'all saying.
Matt
00:03:32 – 00:03:42
So, one thing, a big question I have for you is actually what is your experience at Twitter? Like how do you use Twitter? How do you choose to engage with Twitter? You know?
Aaron
00:03:42 – 00:04:12
Yeah. So I've been on Twitter, like, since the beginning, since, like, 2008. And I've been since then, I've been doing it all the same way up until about almost exactly 1 year ago. So around February, March of last year, I decided, okay. I'm gonna start I'm gonna start I don't know if I would say taking it seriously, but I had a shift in I had a mental shift on how I was gonna treat Twitter.
Aaron
00:04:12 – 00:04:38
And the biggest shift, like, I could boil it down to one single thing, and it was I'm not gonna be afraid to share things anymore. Because for that whole time, like, before I had that shift, that whole time I would be looking at other people sharing stuff and think, wow. That's really cool. I could do that. Like, I I could totally do that, and in some cases, I have done that.
Aaron
00:04:38 – 00:05:07
And the thing was I nobody knew because I wasn't sharing. I wasn't talking about things I had done, and the main reason was 100% fear. I was afraid people were gonna think I was dumb or were gonna make fun of me or look at me and say, you think that's cool? That's actually quite stupid. And, like, those were real and legitimate fears, and I was basically just embarrassed because I was too proud of myself, and I didn't want like, I didn't wanna get shot down.
Aaron
00:05:08 – 00:05:31
Yeah. Totally. I think so, like, February, March of last year, I had, I think, 1200 followers. And I decided, okay. I am tired of watching other people put stuff out there and not be afraid, and me just sitting inside my house bitter that I'm not you know, that my stuff isn't being shared.
Aaron
00:05:31 – 00:06:04
It's like, well, you're not sharing anything yourself. So now I have, like, 5,000, and the the way that that happened was I just started talking about what I was doing. Like, I legitimately just decided if you don't share stuff, you don't have a right to be frustrated when other people do, and you see them grow and you don't grow. And that I mean, that's some, like, heavy, deep emotional labor. It's not like use buffer and you'll grow your Twitter.
Aaron
00:06:04 – 00:06:25
It's like stop being terrified of what people think. It's like, oh, it's actually a little bit harder for me to do that. But I will say that the upside has been unlimited. So I think that the downside is you potentially embarrass yourself. Pretty small.
Aaron
00:06:26 – 00:06:38
The upside is unknown and I think unlimited Because the number of people, like you know, everybody's like, oh, build an audience. Build an audience. Like, yeah. Sure. Maybe.
Aaron
00:06:39 – 00:07:29
And I think, to some extent, I have done that, but to a more important extent, I've, like, made friends. And, like, it's more helpful for me to be able to talk to some of these people 1 on 1 and get, like, real good feedback from people in the community than it is to have say 10,000 people that are following me just because. And I never get to talk to them and they never talk to me and they're just like seeing my tweets. So that has kind of been my experience over the past year is I gave up being afraid, and in return, I got to make a lot of friends, and then a lot of people have started following me. And so that's that's kind of and I have more specific, like, tactics, but that's kinda like the that's the emotional theme of the past year on Twitter for me.
Matt
00:07:29 – 00:07:44
That definitely resonates from going through your timeline. Like I kind of I did a little bit of research and you're tweeting roughly, you know, in the last, call it month, 30 plus times a day. And a lot of those tweets are
Aaron
00:07:44 – 00:07:46
Oh, no. That's a lot.
Matt
00:07:46 – 00:08:04
We can bleep that app. That's nice. But what I'm noticing is that a lot of the tweet a lot of it is engaging with people who are engaging with you. It's like, oh, I think Aaron might find this interesting or I'm going to tag him because this is relevant to what he does. And what a positive place Twitter must be.
Matt
00:08:05 – 00:08:29
It's amazing. Yes. Yeah. Because I think this, you know, leaning into that kind of, you know, when we talk a lot of it last week about, the mental energy, Twitter sucks because it's such a negative place. It seems like you just have a very different view of it because you've cultivated this group of people who care about what you do and frankly, like, aren't assholes.
Aaron
00:08:29 – 00:08:36
Yes. Big time for sure. Yeah. And I've unfollowed I've unfollowed all the people that drive me crazy.
Matt
00:08:37 – 00:08:37
Reasonable.
Aaron
00:08:38 – 00:09:05
And there are, like, well, let's get spicy. So there are some there are some people that you can tell are on the warpath to Twitter growth. Right? You can tell that they're trying to get followers at all costs, and they'll do stuff like they'll they'll tweet hot takes that aren't really hot takes just to get people to engage. Right?
Aaron
00:09:05 – 00:09:13
Sure. They're like, oh, wow. You know, is being a front end developer, are you really a developer? Discuss below. And you're like, no.
Aaron
00:09:13 – 00:09:25
Like, the only reason you're doing that is so that people will reply, and Twitter will look at that tweet and say, wow. Lots of people are replying. I should share that to more out you know, more feeds. Mhmm. And that kind of stuff just drives me crazy.
Aaron
00:09:26 – 00:10:01
And instead of I think, so, like, instead of internalizing that negativity and then turning around and putting it back out on my timeline in the form of complaining about how people use Twitter, I just unfollow them. And so I'm not, like, absorbing all of this negativity and then feeling like I need to put it back out and try to change Twitter. Like, I'm not I'm not trying to change Twitter. I'm not trying to get other people to tweet in a way that I find valuable. I just don't follow them.
Aaron
00:10:01 – 00:10:32
And so if there are if there are people that are tweeting memes all day every day, I don't wanna see that. Like, I don't wanna see the same meme about how indie hackers need to be better at marketing. Like, that is a very popular format where you tweet something that's kind of SaaS related, but you make it a meme, and you just tweet that over and over and over and over again. And I've watched these accounts grow to 5, 10, 15, 20000 followers.
Matt
00:10:33 – 00:10:33
Mhmm.
Aaron
00:10:34 – 00:10:51
And that's great for them. I don't know what their goal is. That's not my goal. My goal is not to get 20,000 people following me because I'm funny, because that, like, that's not interesting to me. I don't want people to follow me for memes because I'm not in the business of making memes.
Matt
00:10:51 – 00:10:52
Sure.
Aaron
00:10:52 – 00:11:25
And so I just I just unfollow those people, and sometimes I have to mute them because a lot of people interact with it, and Twitter thinks it's still valuable for me to see, and I have to say, no. I really don't wanna see this, and so I mute it. So my timeline is a positive place. So when I'm hearing y'all on the show talk about how frustrating and draining it is, I'm thinking, man, what a, like, what a different experience. So, like, what are you when you when you come to Twitter, either of you, when you come to Twitter, what are you seeing that's, like, such a beat down?
Mark
00:11:26 – 00:11:47
I mean, I'm I'm seeing exactly what you were describing, where you you know they're playing they're playing the game. Like, they're just asking a question, but you but you know that they use buffer to ask the question. So they're probably not even at their keyboard right now. Or the yeah. These philosophical, like, insights, you know, all of this wisdom.
Mark
00:11:47 – 00:11:59
Like and you're like, but who who are you to? Like, I I also read this exact same quote in a book. So, like, why are you tweeting it? Like, I read this quote from the author.
Aaron
00:12:00 – 00:12:06
It's like, I just skimmed Wikipedia. Here are 15 takeaways that might be helpful for you. I don't care.
Mark
00:12:07 – 00:12:13
Exactly. So so you do still consume, the feed. Right? Yeah. Exactly.
Mark
00:12:13 – 00:12:19
If you're muting people and not following people, it's because you actually want to see you actually do consume it.
Aaron
00:12:19 – 00:12:33
Yeah. I am extremely basic. I do all of my tweeting and consuming from Twitter web app or Twitter for iPhone. So I'm like I'm as basic as they come in terms of how I consume Twitter.
Mark
00:12:34 – 00:12:38
So it's really like you you tweet it when you have the idea, or do you
Aaron
00:12:38 – 00:12:50
I use 0 scheduling tools, 0 engagement tools. My my my trick or my hack is I'm always on Twitter. I mean
Mark
00:12:50 – 00:12:50
Okay.
Aaron
00:12:50 – 00:13:18
So yeah. And I will like, I don't really I don't look at the analytics, and I don't look at, you know, what's the best time of day to tweet or whatever. I just like, one of my things is I just tweet whenever I'm thinking about it, and I just am trying to tweet more and more and more. Anytime I, like, come across something interesting or anytime I've I'm working and I'm like, oh, this is kind of an interesting pattern. Let me, like, clean it up a little bit, throw it out, and then get back to work.
Aaron
00:13:18 – 00:13:21
So, yeah, it's very of the moment.
Mark
00:13:22 – 00:13:24
So how much time does that take you?
Aaron
00:13:28 – 00:13:48
You know, it takes a lot it takes a lot of time, frankly. I'm not on any other kinds of social media, so I don't I don't use Facebook. I don't have Instagram. I don't use Snapchat or TikTok or anything. And so the sum total of my social time is probably similar to other people's.
Aaron
00:13:48 – 00:14:15
Mine just happens to be Twitter all the time, every time. And so if I'm waiting for something to deploy, boom, I'm on Twitter. If I'm waiting for, you know, if I'm waiting in line at Chick Fil A on my phone, I'm I'm on Twitter. Okay. And so, you know, you have to decide, you know, for yourself if that's healthy or not, but it kinda depends on, like, kinda depends on what you want.
Aaron
00:14:15 – 00:14:30
Like, for me, I want to be on Twitter interacting with other people. And so for me, that's a that's a fair trade off, because it, like, gives me energy. It gives me ideas. Like, I see something, and I'm like, oh, wow. That's a great idea.
Aaron
00:14:30 – 00:14:40
I wonder if that would apply differently in this case if I were to do that. And so for me, it's an energy like, it gives me energy. If it, like, beats y'all down, I can see why you would never wanna be on it.
Mark
00:14:41 – 00:14:49
Well, because I I also that's why I haven't deleted my account. I still get value from it. I've I've met friends. I've I've I've made friends through it. Right?
Mark
00:14:49 – 00:15:06
And and we're having this conversation now because of Twitter. Like, it it's definitely, it's it's definitely, it's definitely positive. But the negative for me is the is my feed. So so now I know I just need to clean it up.
Aaron
00:15:06 – 00:15:07
Just get rid of them. Yeah.
Mark
00:15:07 – 00:15:19
Yeah. Exactly. Mute them or unfollow. And the other thing is to I guess this is just personal, but, like, it's it's always wanting to know did someone like what I just posted. And
Aaron
00:15:20 – 00:15:26
Yeah. You said that last week. So go, like, tell me tell me more about that. So what's the deal with that one?
Mark
00:15:27 – 00:15:41
I catch I tried to not care about it. It's like, no. Who cares if no one sees it? But then sometimes I get lots of likes on one of them, and then that makes me want that makes me care about it. So then when the next one doesn't get it, then I feel devastated.
Mark
00:15:41 – 00:15:43
Oh my god. The That's
Matt
00:15:43 – 00:15:43
how they
Mark
00:15:43 – 00:15:44
get you.
Aaron
00:15:44 – 00:15:46
Yeah. That is that's how Twitter gets you, by the way.
Mark
00:15:46 – 00:15:51
That's it. I suspect that often that the algorithm is punishing me for not having tweeted in a few
Aaron
00:15:53 – 00:16:25
days. Mhmm. Yeah. So just, like, I think for me, I don't I care less and less and less about numbers because, I'm tweeting more and more. And so it really like, it 100%, not a 100%, a big percentage of it is it's just a random it's just a random algorithm, and you're not in control of who sees it.
Aaron
00:16:25 – 00:16:54
And so to tweet something and it not get a lot of likes, who who knows why that happened? And frankly, like, it doesn't I think the the disconnect is it doesn't say anything about the content, and it doesn't say anything about you is the real thing. Like, if you tweet something and nobody likes it, maybe Twitter didn't show it to anyone, or maybe everyone saw it and didn't understand what it meant. But who cares? Like, that doesn't mean you're an idiot.
Aaron
00:16:54 – 00:17:12
That was the disconnect. That was, like, the thing that I had to break is nobody else cares 1 one hundredth about myself as much as I care about myself. And so they'll see something on Twitter for me that's stupid, and they'll just scroll by it. It's like, oh, wow. I'm not, I'm still alive.
Aaron
00:17:12 – 00:17:24
I'm not, I'm not devastated. Like they just scrolled by it, who cares? So I think that was part of it for me. Matt, what about what about you?
Matt
00:17:24 – 00:17:31
I fall squarely into the fear camp. I'm going to post this and people are going to think it's stupid. And therefore, they're going to think I'm stupid.
Aaron
00:17:31 – 00:17:32
Mhmm.
Matt
00:17:32 – 00:17:53
And nothing I share has any value whatsoever. So I should just keep my mouth shut. And yeah. And it's it's very funny, actually. Like, when you talk about unfollowing people and muting people, what I'm realizing is I'm, I'm earning the experience that Twitter has given me.
Matt
00:17:53 – 00:18:12
I'm not investing in changing what I'm getting because I can change it by muting, blocking. If there's something you don't like and you mute it, you're telling Twitter like, I'm sure, hopefully, Twitter is listening to the things I tell it. But you're giving it a clear signal, I don't like that. Am I go or I don't like this person or I don't like content like that.
Aaron
00:18:12 – 00:18:12
Mhmm.
Matt
00:18:13 – 00:18:24
That's a that's I never it never really occurred to me that like outside of like insults or whatever you see that you block, you can craft an experience for yourself by doing stuff that you don't like.
Aaron
00:18:24 – 00:18:37
Yeah. Big time. I mute a lot of words, that I have no interest in, except I leave it on for people I follow. So that that comes back to, like, following people that you actually want to be hearing from. Yeah.
Aaron
00:18:38 – 00:18:57
But I'll mute all kinds of words about topics that I don't care about so that Twitter doesn't like surface them into my feed unless someone that I actually follow tweeted about it. And in that case, usually it's like a counter take on the thing that I don't like. And so I wanted to see your tweet in the
Matt
00:18:57 – 00:18:58
first place, you know.
Aaron
00:18:59 – 00:19:17
So I think crafting your, like, crafting your feed is a little bit of, it's like cultivating almost. Like, you have to kind of constantly reassess. Is this the kind of experience that I want? And if not, why am I doing this? Because I can just change it.
Aaron
00:19:18 – 00:19:19
I think that's pretty important.
Matt
00:19:20 – 00:19:36
Yeah. Right away, I'm realizing that I I have a belief that well, you know, there's 2 problems. 1, I'm I'm still afraid to share myself on the Internet, and that's actually something I've picked up on and I'm trying to break. I'm trying to just even if it's, hey. Good job, like, thumbs up emoji.
Matt
00:19:36 – 00:19:49
I'm just trying to share something every day to start breaking that habit. But at the same time, I think if I can create a more positive experience on Twitter in general, I think I'll, fingers crossed, I'll have a, an easier time putting myself out there.
Aaron
00:19:51 – 00:20:22
Have you guys heard of, the concept of LUX surface area? So it was originally on texting this podcast. It's like a 1000 years old that they're still going. It's literally like a 10 year podcast, and it's basically like like surface area is this made up concept that the more things you do and, like, the more people you tell, like, your surface area kind of expands and the more opportunities you have to get lucky. Right?
Aaron
00:20:22 – 00:20:49
And so that's kinda how I view like, that's kinda how I view Twitter is I don't really know. And that's what I said earlier about the unbounded upside. I don't really know what's going on. Like, I don't know what's going to come my way because I'm on Twitter. But the more that I am sharing what I'm up to, the more opportunities I have to get lucky.
Aaron
00:20:49 – 00:21:16
Right? So if we wanna trace if we wanna trace Laracon backwards, we can go from Laracon back I'm so I'm speaking at Laracon. That's what I'm talking about. I'm speaking at Laracon on a open source project called Sidecar that I wrote. Before that, I spoke at it, an event called Laravel Worldwide, which was just like a online meetup about that same package.
Aaron
00:21:18 – 00:21:56
The person that hosts Laravel Worldwide only found out about me backing up even further because of something that I had put out on Twitter. Right? And so we got connected because I had shared a couple things on Twitter, and somebody had put me in touch with him. And then he saw this package and saw that, like, I had been tweeting about it and was like, why don't you come on Laravel Worldwide and give a demo? I went on and then I applied to Laracon and was able to reference Laracon worldwide or Laravel Worldwide and was like, look at this basically, look at this body of work that I have.
Aaron
00:21:57 – 00:22:11
I would like to speak at Lyricon. They're like, great. You can speak at Lyricon. And so starting last year, I wouldn't have known, you know, sharing and tweeting a bunch. Eventually, you're gonna be a Lyricon speaker, which is a big deal for me personally.
Aaron
00:22:11 – 00:22:31
Like, that's a huge Hell yeah. Like, I'm super excited about that. Yeah. And I just that's not something I could've I could've envisioned back then looking forward. But now looking back, it's easy to see, okay, working you know, this working in public, whatever that means, has led to a lot of good things that I couldn't have envisioned in the 1st place.
Aaron
00:22:31 – 00:22:41
And so that's kinda like the the luck surface area just expands. And the more that you're putting yourself in the way of luck, the more likely you are to get lucky.
Mark
00:22:48 – 00:22:59
So really you you're not like you said, you don't look at the analytics. You don't look at the numbers. So you just do it and hope that it rewards you. Like
Aaron
00:23:00 – 00:23:03
Yep. Basically. Yeah. So you wanna talk strategies? Let's talk strategies.
Matt
00:23:03 – 00:23:06
Yeah. I was I was I was just about to ask.
Aaron
00:23:06 – 00:23:21
Okay. So strategy number 1 is you have to get over emotional hang ups. Great. Strategy number 2. So it depends like like I said, I'm not trying to make other people tweet things that I want to tweet.
Aaron
00:23:21 – 00:23:48
So for y'all and anyone listening, do whatever you want to do and go ye with God. Like I do what do what you want to do. Here are things that, like, have worked for me and things that I generally think are, good ideas, but you don't have to do them. So I have, like, a set of loose I have a set of, like, loose guidelines and loose rules that I follow for Twitter. There there are 3 of them.
Aaron
00:23:49 – 00:24:49
One of them is, share what you're working on because everyone I think everyone wants to be the person that is, like, doing cool stuff in public. But as we've discussed, it's very hard to do. And so anyone that is sharing what they're working on and doing a bunch of cool stuff in public, other people are going to look at that, and kind of live vicariously through them. Right? So when you see, let's say Caleb Porzio, who's a guy in the Laravel ecosystem, when you see Caleb Porzio putting out all these cool libraries and doing these cool videos on LiveWire, you kind of are like that's that's why these ride along podcasts, like the one that y'all do, that's why they're so interesting because people want to be doing stuff, but it's scary, And so they watch other people do it and they get a little bit of a hit.
Aaron
00:24:49 – 00:25:09
Right? So that's why we listen to 50 bootstrapper podcasts, because it's fun to listen to other people be in motion. Right? And you kinda get, like, a little bit of secondhand, motion by, like, feeling like, oh, I'm listening to Ben and Derek talk about art of product and building their business. I'm kinda doing that too.
Aaron
00:25:09 – 00:25:20
And it's like, well, you're not, but you're like you're part of the story. Right? Yeah. So you're in motion already. Just start talking about it more, and people are gonna be like, oh, wow.
Aaron
00:25:20 – 00:25:52
That's really great. I wanna follow along. So number 1, share, like, share the stuff that you're working on because people are gonna glom onto it. Number 2 is and this is this is where it gets a little bit more controversial is I don't share hardly my my feed is very focused. My feed is very focused on Laravel, things that Laravel developers might find interesting, and let's say indie maker, bootstrapper, that kind of thing.
Aaron
00:25:52 – 00:26:21
So, like, if you were to take a distribution of my tweets, the big fat normal part right there in the middle is Laravel, Laravel adjacent, indie makers, etcetera. Things I don't tweet about is when somebody spells my name wrong at Starbucks. Like, that's fine. If you want, like, if that if you want to share that content, that's great. I don't share that content because the people that I wanna connect with don't care about that content.
Mark
00:26:21 – 00:26:22
And you
Aaron
00:26:22 – 00:26:47
know what I super don't share is when somebody in in, like, at American Airlines loses my bags. Like, I don't go on Twitter to complain about petty customer service interactions. You know, I come home and complain to my wife about that kind of stuff. I don't I don't share it on Twitter just because I don't think other people will find it interesting. And I want to share stuff that other people will find interesting and or valuable.
Aaron
00:26:48 – 00:27:14
And so that is a rule for me is don't be negative because if I'm the guy on Twitter, that's always tweeting about how Intercom's pricing is too expensive and how this, you know, this customer service person, let me down. It's like, wow, that Aaron guy, he's a real bummer to be around. And that kinda, I don't, I just don't want to be that. And I, I personally don't follow those kind of people, and so I'm kind of applying that rule in reverse. I don't wanna be a bummer.
Matt
00:27:14 – 00:27:24
Was that something that you realized and made the effort to do? Or is that something now in hindsight you realize that you are being the change that you want to see in your feed?
Aaron
00:27:24 – 00:27:44
That was, a proactive decision. So I would look one of those things about, like, looking at what other people do and being super annoyed by it. That was one of the things. It was like, bro, I don't care that your bag didn't show up. Stop, like, stop trying to get the Delta CEO to call you.
Aaron
00:27:44 – 00:28:01
Like, go to the baggage counter and find your bag. Like, I get it. People get frustrated and I get it. I don't want my Twitter feed to be that way. So that was that was definitely a proactive prospective decision.
Aaron
00:28:02 – 00:28:41
And then the last rule is I just like to highlight when other people do cool stuff. So, you know, I think that's a great way. I think that's a great way to make friends is when somebody does something cool, you tell them that the thing they did is very cool. Like, I'm never advocating being disingenuous or anything like that, but there are so many people doing so many cool things that and I guarantee you, every one of them feels like the 3 of us where they're scared to share things. Right?
Aaron
00:28:42 – 00:28:57
And so when they share something and somebody comes along and quote tweets it and says, wow. Matthew made this really cool thing. Y'all should go check it out. That you feel like a $1,000,000 when somebody goes out of their way. Like, a reply is great.
Aaron
00:28:57 – 00:29:17
A retweet is great. A quote tweet saying, like, Matthew made this really cool thing. I mean, you're walking on cloud 9 because you're like, oh, cool. Like that feels really good. And so I, I go out of my way to try to encourage other people in their building, especially it's so easy.
Aaron
00:29:17 – 00:29:43
Like, especially when somebody in the Laravel community makes something cool. It's like, hey, my you know, the people that follow me will like this. I think it's very cool. I'm really, like, don't wanna sound paternalistic, but, like, I'm really proud of you. Like, I know it's hard to do stuff like it's, it is legitimately hard to put stuff out there and then have the trolls and the idiots be like, oh, I forgot a semicolon.
Aaron
00:29:43 – 00:30:08
It's like, and so if I can come along and say, this is dope way to go. Like, that's a great that is a good thing to add to the, you know, the Twitter community. And so the so my three rules are, share what you're working on, don't be negative, and encourage other people. And that's kinda like those are kinda my guidelines that kinda keep me in the middle of where I wanna be. So tactics, what do we think?
Mark
00:30:10 – 00:30:14
You've inspired me. I'm ready to go tweet now.
Matt
00:30:15 – 00:30:27
No. It's so true. Like, I the you're you're about the idea of, like, the it doesn't take much energy to be like, no. This legitimately is cool. It's like when you tell somebody, like, I really like your hair today.
Matt
00:30:27 – 00:30:34
And they're just like, oh my god. This is amazing. And it took zero effort. And it's just, hey, I highlighted this thing that I liked. It's it's the same thing.
Matt
00:30:34 – 00:30:42
And you're right. Like, I'm imagining what it feels like to have somebody do that for me. And I'm like, I need to be telling everybody their hair is great. Like, this is Yeah. It feels so good.
Aaron
00:30:43 – 00:30:57
Yeah. It makes Twitter a lot more fun to, like you actually are engaging with individuals instead of shouting into the void and hoping that people like your tweet. You're just, like, hanging out with your buds. You know?
Matt
00:30:59 – 00:31:20
I think maybe that's something that I can really take away from this. In that, like, I'm not making Twitter much of a personal experience in that in how I'm treating it and in manicuring my feed, but also just how I engage with others. It's like treat I need to be treating it more like individuals and friends that I can interact with and want to interact with.
Aaron
00:31:22 – 00:31:45
Yeah. I think so. I've got probably, you know, there there's I I imagine concentric circles. Like, there are there's this very, very small inner circle of people that I talk to, like, 1 on 1, you know, kinda in Telegram and, like, DMS and stuff. And then beyond that, there are people that I interact with publicly and we're very friendly and we're always like replying to each other's tweets and we're buds.
Aaron
00:31:45 – 00:32:12
And then beyond that, there's this whole circle of people that I never interact with, never interact with me, but still follow me. And I think the circles work their way out. Like, I would start by, like, making some buds and start replying to some people and, you know, start encouraging some people and the outer circle will grow. But as the inner circle grows more and more people will be like, oh, that guy Mark. Yeah.
Aaron
00:32:12 – 00:32:28
I've seen him tweet some nice things to some people, and he's always in the comments of these these kinds of threads and, like, yeah. He seems to be smart enough. I'll follow him. And but I think a lot of people try to work their way from outward in, and they're like, I need to get a ton of followers. I was like, no.
Aaron
00:32:28 – 00:32:32
Just kind of focus on your people and making some buds.
Mark
00:32:34 – 00:32:51
Yeah. That makes that makes so much sense. I mean, we record this this podcast every week. And, yeah, for, like, an hour, we just ramble on about what we did all week and what we're thinking about doing next week. That though everything could be a tweet in that conversation.
Aaron
00:32:51 – 00:33:05
Yeah. Yeah. So I think in terms of, like, I I think you kinda have to train your brain to start seeing some of the stuff that you're doing as tweetable.
Mark
00:33:06 – 00:33:06
Right.
Aaron
00:33:06 – 00:33:08
Right, Matt? You agree with that one?
Matt
00:33:08 – 00:33:17
I've just preach. No. Like, I I was just thinking, that's a tweet. No. Because I like, in my mind, nothing I do is interesting.
Matt
00:33:17 – 00:33:22
So I'm just like, I'm nothing is worth tweeting. But it Exactly. Clearly, that's not true.
Aaron
00:33:22 – 00:33:36
Clearly It's not true. Exactly. So there's an article that was written, I don't know, 10 years ago, article is a blog post. There was a post that was written like 10 years ago. It was called do things, tell people, and it was, couldn't have been more than 300 words.
Aaron
00:33:38 – 00:34:01
Totally life changing. So it's called do things, tell people, don't remember who wrote it, came up on Hacker News, like, 10 years ago. And the postulation there was the key to the keys to success are to do things and to tell people. Because if if you're not doing things, but you're you're telling people that you're doing things, you're you're a fraud. Right?
Aaron
00:34:01 – 00:34:36
If you're doing things, but you're not telling anyone, nobody knows. And I think in the, I think in the indie maker, software developer, programmer world, most people fall under do things and never tell anyone. Right? And so it's I don't know if it's easy, but it's simple because we're already doing things. Now there's the whole very real emotional side of, like, people are gonna think I'm an idiot, which is like something to to interrogate.
Aaron
00:34:37 – 00:34:51
But imagine if you're not doing anything cool. And then you have to like start doing things and telling people we've got the first one done. Like, we're doing things. We're in motion. We're, like, trying to make things happen.
Aaron
00:34:51 – 00:35:27
And who cares if, like, who cares if everything is working? So there's a there's like a fear or a false belief that you can only start tweeting once you've made it or, like, once the thing that you're working on reaches a certain MRR because otherwise, like, everyone's gonna make fun of you. People want to be along for the journey. And like you said, Matt, the things, like, you are doing interesting things are just not interesting to you because you're doing them. And why do you get to, like, why do you get to be the judge on if it's interesting or not?
Aaron
00:35:27 – 00:35:35
Why can't you just say, hey. Here's what I was working on. Here's how I solved it. I thought you might you guys might like this. And maybe they do, and maybe they don't.
Aaron
00:35:35 – 00:35:59
Who cares? You're gonna tweet again in 6 hours anyway. So what's the point? So I think I think people get really in their own heads, and they do all of this stuff, and you kinda have to, like, you kinda have to fake it. Like, you have to you have to pretend as if the things you're doing are interesting.
Aaron
00:36:00 – 00:36:19
And in your head, like, while you're doing uninteresting things, you're starting to see, like, okay. I could pull out I could, you know, erase all of that context in this one bit of code. I mean, that's some of what I tweet about is code. This one bit of code, that could be interesting for a lot of use cases. I'm just gonna tweet that and see what happens.
Aaron
00:36:20 – 00:36:46
And you, like, you're already producing all the work. You're just not telling anyone. You know? And so if you can train your brain to see things as more tweetable, I feel like it gets a whole lot easier, and the mental bar of tweeting goes way down because you have a dozen things that you could tweet, and each one is less precious, if that makes sense.
Matt
00:36:46 – 00:36:59
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I was, when I was going through your feed earlier, I saw your I I don't know PHP, but I you tweeted a a a macro that you had created that you were pouring between projects.
Aaron
00:36:59 – 00:37:00
Mhmm.
Matt
00:37:00 – 00:37:13
And I I liked the replies. Like, some of them of just being like, oh, I love this. This is really cool. Or, like, oh, this exists over here or this. And it's just like you're like, I love the I love your, how casual it is to just be like, I had this thing, and I think it's cool.
Aaron
00:37:13 – 00:37:27
Yep. Yeah. That was that's a good, like, that's a good that's a good test case there because some of those replies were like, dude, this already exists in PHP. And my response was, oh, I didn't know that. Like, okay.
Aaron
00:37:27 – 00:37:49
So there's there's a function in PHP that's poorly named that if you pass the right parameters you could get the thing that I was doing. So technically, maybe I'm stupid. Right? But I like the way that I did it better, And my response to those people is not, defensive. It's, oh, I didn't know that.
Aaron
00:37:49 – 00:38:10
Like, that's cool. I didn't know that. And somebody I was in the replies of some thread the other day, and I was saying, like, oh, I'd like, fly dot io wrote this article recently, and I, you know, I read it and I I didn't realize you could do that. And somebody responded and said, like, this is called read your rights. It was published in the nineties.
Aaron
00:38:12 – 00:38:44
And I responded and said, well, I guess I'm one of today's lucky 10,000 Cause there's this xkcd article. That's like, even if it's something that everyone should know, if you do the math, 10,000 people are hearing about it for the first time today. It's like, well, today I'm one of those people that didn't know that this is called read your rights and it was published in the nineties. Like I just found out it from this blog post that I just read and I thought it was cool. And you have to kinda like, that is a very real thing is some people are gonna come and throw stones at you about how stupid they, how stupid you are.
Aaron
00:38:44 – 00:39:03
And that without making without reading people's minds, that just is like it's real. It almost makes me feel bad. It's like, dude, you don't have to prove that you're smart to me. Like, I, I don't know you. Like, you are probably extremely smart.
Aaron
00:39:03 – 00:39:22
I don't know you. And so one thing that I don't do is I don't when an like, I see code screenshots. I don't go in there and tell them what they could change because I don't wanna go nitpick on somebody's moment. You know? So if I see something that's like, oh, I wouldn't have done it that way, you know, where I don't tell them in the replies to their tweet, especially if I don't know them.
Aaron
00:39:24 – 00:39:26
So yeah. So
Mark
00:39:26 – 00:39:30
Yeah. That's my one rule is never debate on social media.
Aaron
00:39:30 – 00:39:39
No. No. Why do you think I'm here? Because I didn't wanna argue with you on Twitter about how great Twitter is. Okay.
Aaron
00:39:39 – 00:40:03
So what what are we thinking? Do you guys, like, have I convinced you? What are the hang ups? And like, I I would also be curious because you said you scrolled through my feed and you found it very authentic. And is there something in there that you're seeing that, you could emulate or that you're not doing that would make Twitter easier for you to engage with?
Aaron
00:40:03 – 00:40:23
Because I feel like it's very authentic. I don't put a lot of stress or pressure. I don't schedule things. I'm just like frigging tweeting all the time. And so as you're looking at it and it's coming through as authentic, which is good, is there something that you could like, oh, I could I could do this or I could do that or I could do it this way?
Aaron
00:40:23 – 00:40:24
What what are y'all thinking?
Matt
00:40:25 – 00:40:49
Yeah. So right away, what I'm thinking is with a lot of the freelancing I've been doing, I was a Java developer for, like, a decade, and then I started learning Python and some of the frameworks there. And already, I'm picking up just it's the, would you learn by doing? Like, oh, oh, oh, there's a little like a what an interesting learning opportunity for how Django REST framework does this. It's like that is a moment where you can be like, oh, this is actually cool.
Matt
00:40:49 – 00:41:03
And they don't talk about they don't highlight it in the documentation. So it's like, oh, actually, you can have this approach. And it's literally like the kind of thing you have here. Like, it's a block of code and you can literally just that's extremely shareable. Big time.
Matt
00:41:03 – 00:41:26
Love that. So, yeah. Like I have especially because I'm learning and and writing so much Python code, I'm learning and then learning why something is bad and then learning what the good the good way to do it is. And I'm realizing, like, I don't care if, like, the if the language creator see that. And they're like, well, of course.
Matt
00:41:26 – 00:41:32
It's like, yeah. Because there's one of you that knows that. Like, turns out this is extremely shareable. People would really dig this.
Aaron
00:41:33 – 00:41:58
A 100%. If you are in the position right now of learning something new, you are in a wonderful and enviable position to be coming across fresh new content all the time to be tweeting. Because if you imagine that expertise is pyramid shaped, most of the people are at the bottom. And that's just how it is. There are fewer experts than there are middle and fewer people in the middle than there are noobs.
Aaron
00:41:58 – 00:42:21
And so as you're learning so as especially as an experienced developer in something else, learning something new, you're in a prime spot to be sharing, like, cool interesting stuff because you have, like, expertise, but it's not in this language. So you get to look at this language and compare it to that one or, like, learn techniques in this one. Yeah. You're you're golden.
Matt
00:42:21 – 00:42:42
Yeah. So I think maybe a clear takeaway from this that I can start doing is recording some of these small lessons that I'm learning, whether they're little code blocks or little snippets or whatever, but like detailing these learnings and just putting them out there. I feel like every day I'm learning something new or realizing a mistake I made and how to improve it. Big time.
Mark
00:42:50 – 00:43:11
Yeah. So, I mean, I I definitely I keep a log of everything I do all day long. So it's it's really just a question of changing that habit and turning into a tweeting habit instead. Mhmm. But I still gotta get over that mental block of what what I want to get out of
Matt
00:43:11 – 00:43:11
it.
Aaron
00:43:11 – 00:43:17
So that's the question. What do you wanna get out of it? Because I know what I wanna get out of it. What do you wanna get out of Twitter?
Mark
00:43:18 – 00:43:25
Yeah. Like, I want I wanna meet people. Like, I because that's the my biggest problem with being an indie hacker is it feels very lonely.
Aaron
00:43:25 – 00:43:26
Mhmm.
Mark
00:43:26 – 00:43:29
Like, my wife is little fed up of hearing
Aaron
00:43:29 – 00:43:29
about
Mark
00:43:29 – 00:43:32
my You were. The the the same problems
Matt
00:43:32 – 00:43:34
that I encounter all the time. Unbelievable.
Mark
00:43:35 – 00:43:52
So, like, yeah, it feels lonely. Right? Like, it feels like, I you know, I wanna talk to people that are doing the same thing as me. And so that's what I wanna get out of it. But but at the same time, I also want to have, you know, a soapbox that I can stand on when I when I need to.
Aaron
00:43:52 – 00:43:52
Yep.
Mark
00:43:52 – 00:44:14
So so I wanna have a following. I wanna be able to I mean, for for example, like, you're talking at Lyricon. Like, is there, like are you talk are you, like, trying to use Twitter to tell people about that? Or, like, how do you what do you do when you wanna you wanna spread a message?
Aaron
00:44:15 – 00:44:43
Yeah. So I am so so part of part of my strategy is, like, we're building a Laravel tool. Me and my two partners, we're building a tool for Laravel. Part of our strategy a year or 2 ago was that I would try to do some of the developer relations, developer advocacy stuff in the Laravel world. And back then, it was like, okay.
Aaron
00:44:43 – 00:45:02
Well, you're gonna have to get become more well known in the Laravel world. And so I set out to do that on purpose, which is why we're here now. And when I want to get a message out, let's say, it's a longitudinal thing. So it's not just a tweet. Right?
Aaron
00:45:02 – 00:45:45
It's I'm sharing every time I pick up the project, I'm trying to share a piece about it on Twitter. Right? So it's not, you know, a launch tweet, which can happen and probably will happen, but it's tweets over 10, 12, 16 weeks about, oh, I did this on my product today, and I oh, look at this new feature we added, and, oh, man, this was a huge mistake, and I just pulled this out, and that kind of stuff. And, again, people love to be a part of the journey. And so as I'm sharing these screenshots about things that went well or things that went hysterically wrong, people are like, oh, yeah.
Aaron
00:45:45 – 00:45:57
I remember that he's working on that. I remember that thing. And it's gotten to the point now where people are reaching out to me being like, hey. That thing you're sharing, can I use it? Like, is it available?
Aaron
00:45:57 – 00:46:23
I'm like, yeah. Let's go. And so in terms of using it as a soapbox, it all, like, it it all overlaps. The the sharing in public and the building as marketing and all of that kinda overlaps with making friends and being vulnerable. All of that just works together in the way that, like, I have kind of a universe.
Aaron
00:46:23 – 00:46:56
I've got, you know, these products and this product and my open source stuff and just who I am as a person, and I'm just trying to bring people into my universe and, like, bring them along for the journey as I'm building things. And so in terms of, let's just be crass, in terms of getting people on Twitter to pay me for things. Like, it's it's the same deal. I just share what I'm working on, and from time to time, I'll say, like, hey. I just opened the early access list for this thing I've been talking about for a long time.
Aaron
00:46:56 – 00:47:12
Like, if you wanna go sign up, go sign up. And that moves the needle for sure, but what moves the needle more is the fact that I continue to talk about that for the next 3, 4, 6, 10 months, that kind of thing. So does that answer, like, the the soapbox question?
Mark
00:47:12 – 00:47:21
Well, yeah. Sort of. I mean, I understand now. Be because there's so much volume, there's so many tweets. Like, what that tweet where you say, hey.
Mark
00:47:21 – 00:47:32
You can sign up for the early access. It gets you know, like, it drowns in all the other tweets. Mhmm. But the fact that you're talking about the project the whole time means that it's it's fresh in people's minds.
Aaron
00:47:32 – 00:47:33
Yeah.
Mark
00:47:33 – 00:47:41
Totally. But that link, like, for the early adopters, like, do you tweet it multiple times? Do you retweet it? Do you?
Aaron
00:47:43 – 00:48:12
So specifically for this project, I've tweeted it a couple times and it's always accompanied a, like, progress update. So I'll say, like, hey, I just finished Refine, which is the name of our product, and Nova, which is a Laravel product. I've just finished the Refine Nova integration. Here's some screenshots, you know, tweet tweet tweet. Then at the the last tweet I'll put, if you wanna sign up for the early access list, here it is.
Aaron
00:48:12 – 00:48:32
Would love to get you in early in the next couple of weeks. That kind of thing. So it comes it is subordinate to sharing progress, but it is a great CTA at the bottom of, like, a thread, but not like a thread emoji. Just like Right. I I don't do those.
Aaron
00:48:32 – 00:48:40
What I do is, here are a bunch of pictures. Like, look how cool this is. Not, you know, 10 things I learned. And then at the bottom, it's so if you want, sign up for the early access here.
Mark
00:48:40 – 00:48:41
Okay.
Aaron
00:48:41 – 00:48:45
And I could I could sell a lot harder, but I just don't I don't want to do that. That's not my style.
Mark
00:48:46 – 00:48:52
No. It's just but there's sometimes there's things you want to you want to be louder than other things.
Aaron
00:48:52 – 00:48:53
Yeah. For sure.
Mark
00:48:53 – 00:49:00
Like, I I just released a new feature. I want all my customers to know about it. I mean, I I should I should be emailing my customers. Totally.
Aaron
00:49:00 – 00:49:01
Yep.
Mark
00:49:01 – 00:49:08
Yep. But I haven't got to that yet. But, you know, I figured Twitter is is an easy way to to announce the new feature.
Aaron
00:49:08 – 00:49:34
Yeah. Anytime you finish something cool or you're in the, you're in the middle of something cool, it's a great time to start tweeting about it. Like, even if you're at the beginning of something cool and you've got the hello world version of the thing that you think is gonna be cool and you're excited about it, share it. Use your excitement as a, bellwether for whether you should be tweeting about it. Yeah.
Aaron
00:49:34 – 00:49:35
You like that one too?
Matt
00:49:35 – 00:49:39
Man, you're you're full. I'm gonna have I'm gonna come out of this conversation with multiple tattoos.
Aaron
00:49:42 – 00:50:16
Well, it's great because, like, it comes through, and that's part of why I'm against personally, I'm against, buffering or or or scheduling things is because it comes through when you're excited about something versus when you buffer it to be shared a week and a half later, and it fits into your content calendar wherever it fits in, and you mentally have already moved on. And so you're not amped about it. Right? If you share something that you're amped about 10 minutes later, you're going to come back and reply to that same tweet and share something else. Cause you're so amped.
Aaron
00:50:16 – 00:50:34
And then a day and a half later, you're gonna quote tweet yourself with, oh my gosh, it actually works now. Look at this. And like it's just gonna you're gonna be vibing out there on Twitter versus, alright. Well, it looks like the next open spot is, you know, next Monday at 10 AM. It's like, I'm so bored just thinking about that.
Aaron
00:50:35 – 00:50:47
Like, I wanna be vibing with people while I'm vibing. You know? I don't wanna be, like, sharing it when I've moved on and people get back to me and I'm like, oh, yeah. Actually, that didn't work. Like, that sucks.
Aaron
00:50:48 – 00:50:49
What a letdown.
Mark
00:50:50 – 00:50:51
I totally agree.
Matt
00:50:52 – 00:51:11
Because, man, like, I'm I'm really I'm I'm thinking about this and how it applies to you, Mark, because, like, I don't know. You you have so much momentum. Like, just thinking about you specifically, like, you have a killer product that people really enjoy. It solves a major pain point. And it's like this idea of vibing.
Matt
00:51:11 – 00:51:26
Like, how can you pick up on the vibes of other people? It's like, oh my god. Power importer just fucking saved me. Like, it's like, how can we like, alright. How can we take that vibe and cast it out for the rest of the people to to hear?
Matt
00:51:26 – 00:51:37
How can we put them on blast? Because that's you're you're totally right, Aaron. Like, it's it's such an opportunity to take that energy and just, like, throw it out there for people to see.
Mark
00:51:37 – 00:51:52
Yeah. And and this is all the opposite of what everyone in my circles is telling me to do. Right? To use buffer and to to use this tool for for ideas, and and I I I try it, and it just feels phony, and I just don't wanna do it.
Aaron
00:51:52 – 00:51:53
Soul crushing.
Mark
00:51:53 – 00:51:58
Yeah. Exactly. It's like, I don't this is why I hate marketing. I don't wanna do this stuff.
Matt
00:51:58 – 00:52:03
Yep. So does do you feel like sharing a win like this is phony?
Mark
00:52:07 – 00:52:08
What do you mean?
Matt
00:52:08 – 00:52:24
Well, like, I I guess I'm I'm thinking, like, I I I just love the word vibe. Like, when you have that vibe and you have that energy and you're like, I just shipped this thing was really hard and it's really cool. Like the bidirectional sync. That's killer. When you ship that, you're like, Fuck, yeah.
Matt
00:52:24 – 00:52:32
It works. I got it. It's like, do you feel would you feel phony sharing something like that? Like, the fact that you just shipped this really hard thing?
Mark
00:52:34 – 00:52:45
No. Not at all. No. But I think I think I did tweet it, but it just it fell on deaf ears, and then it was it was over. I should have been, you know, tweeting the whole time about it because it was context.
Mark
00:52:46 – 00:52:46
Yes.
Aaron
00:52:46 – 00:53:01
No one had any context. You you shipped this. You landed a rocket on the moon, but nobody knew that you ever had a rocket headed to the moon. And so you tweeted like, oh, I just did this amazing thing, and everybody's like, who's this guy? What's he talking about?
Mark
00:53:01 – 00:53:01
Right.
Aaron
00:53:01 – 00:53:29
Where if you'd been talking about the the, like, the woes of bidirectional sinking for weeks and how you were, you know, just chipping away at it, and then you landed it, people would be like, hell yeah. You got there. Like, you did it. I've been part of this, and you did it. And so the the whole context is missing, and it's hard to, like, you have to just tweet a lot to give people context because, you know, most people miss 90% of the tweets.
Aaron
00:53:29 – 00:53:30
So you just gotta
Mark
00:53:30 – 00:53:30
Yeah. Exactly.
Aaron
00:53:31 – 00:53:32
Get them a lot.
Mark
00:53:32 – 00:53:52
That that's what I'm realizing is that this I'm using this channel all wrong. Like, I I I see it as you need to get us an audience, and then you stand on the soapbox and you announce your your news. Like, oh, I have this new feature. And then you go back to work, and then come back a week later. I have this there's a second new feature.
Aaron
00:53:53 – 00:53:56
Yeah. That's an email list, I think.
Mark
00:53:56 – 00:53:57
Exactly. Exactly.
Aaron
00:53:57 – 00:54:08
If you sent me 30 emails in a day, we would have words. If you tweak 30 times a day, I'm not gonna notice. I'm gonna be like, oh, yeah. Mark tweeted 3 times today. Oh, no.
Aaron
00:54:08 – 00:54:10
It tweeted 30 times. I just didn't see them all.
Mark
00:54:10 – 00:54:12
Exactly. You'll only see 3 of them and
Aaron
00:54:12 – 00:54:13
Yeah.
Mark
00:54:15 – 00:54:18
Okay. I know this is great. I have one one other question.
Aaron
00:54:18 – 00:54:18
Yeah.
Mark
00:54:18 – 00:54:22
Like, do do you what do you do for, like, Hammerstone's Twitter account?
Aaron
00:54:23 – 00:54:24
Or It doesn't exist.
Mark
00:54:24 – 00:54:25
It doesn't?
Aaron
00:54:25 – 00:54:32
It doesn't exist. No. Okay. So Hammerstone is the name of our company. It doesn't exist.
Aaron
00:54:32 – 00:54:44
So I have a Twitter. Sean has one. Colleen has one. All personal. And I don't have quite as well formed thoughts on this as I have on other things.
Aaron
00:54:45 – 00:55:23
My nascent thoughts are, it it's not congruent with the way that I use Twitter. So if I were to try to use Twitter as a brand, all of my rules wouldn't apply because I'm not an individual anymore. And who cares, like, who cares if the hammer stone account is in the replies, like, saying way to go because it's, like, it's transparently a brand account trying to gain brand traction. Right? So I wouldn't know how to use Twitter as a brand.
Aaron
00:55:25 – 00:56:01
For Hammerstone the brand is me, Sean, and Colleen. And so that doesn't work for, that doesn't work for American Airlines, but it works for us. And so you have to imagine that it's a spectrum between us and American Airlines, and it's kinda gray in the middle at what size does it work and what size does it not work? And it also depends on, it depends on your personality and your goals. Like, I know people I know people that are way, way, way successful and have zero interest in being the public face of their brand.
Aaron
00:56:01 – 00:56:19
Right? They just want to be a nameless, faceless brand that provides a product and makes a ton of money. And that's that's great. Like, if you can if you can do that, that's amazing. I don't know that I could do that, and I don't really want to.
Aaron
00:56:19 – 00:56:39
And so for me, I'd use it as personal, and we don't have a brand account because I don't know what we would do with it. I just Okay. Why would they follow it if they follow me? Because I'm always tweeting about Hammerstone stuff and other cool Arabel stuff. So, yeah, I don't have it sounds like I have strong opinions.
Aaron
00:56:39 – 00:57:03
I have strong opinions on that for me. I don't really, I don't really, I know, like, for example, the fathom analytics team, they've got a brand account, and it does really well. Tailwind, they have a brand account, and I think Adam is trying to move away from being the face of Tailwind and wants Tailwind to be the face of Tailwind. And so that's great. I I love that for them, but it just doesn't work for us.
Mark
00:57:05 – 00:57:16
I agree. Like, I don't see how I'm having a hard time making it work. I mean, I'm also having a hard time making my personal account work. Yeah. But now I I have a better vision of what what I need to do.
Mark
00:57:17 – 00:57:24
But for the brand account, it's like I I guess I like, what I did is I I just revamped it to look like a personal account.
Aaron
00:57:24 – 00:57:25
Mhmm.
Mark
00:57:25 – 00:57:33
And my idea was that I'm whatever I'm doing for the personal account, I'll do with this one too, but for a different audience.
Aaron
00:57:33 – 00:57:33
Yeah.
Mark
00:57:34 – 00:57:43
Because I'm thinking, well, maybe my Hindi Acura audience doesn't really care about seeing, like, web flow designers, like, sites. But
Aaron
00:57:43 – 00:58:17
Yeah. That's legit. Like, if you're if you have 2 separate distinct audiences, like, I can see from the brand account still tweeting as a person, but primarily focused on cool Webflow stuff versus indie hacker stuff. Right. I I would argue I think I would argue I would argue makes sense to not try to do 2 things at once and just tweet as a whole person.
Aaron
00:58:17 – 00:58:47
And part of your part of your guidelines or whatever instead of, you know, just Laravel, your guidelines are like Webflow and indie hacking. And you put it in your bio, I talk about Webflow and indie hacking. So when people come, speaking of tactics, when people come to your bio they see I tweet about Webflow and I tweet about indie hacking. And if they identify with those they're way more likely to follow you than if they come to your bio and you're like you have some quote from some philosopher. And they're like, I don't know who this guy is.
Aaron
00:58:47 – 00:59:02
I don't know what your bio is. Hopefully not that. But they're like, I don't know who this guy is. I'm not gonna spend too long trying to figure it out. I have a very clear brand message on my Twitter profile, and it's I tweet about Laravel building products and SQL.
Aaron
00:59:02 – 00:59:24
I'm dad to twins, and I don't do thought threads, and I don't do memes. Like, that's what my profile says. So you get an idea of who I am. Like, if you see me in the replies somewhere and you click on my face, you get an idea of who I am in a second. And then you can scroll the feed and see if that is true, like if what I said in my profile is true.
Aaron
00:59:24 – 00:59:36
And if it is true, then I have cemented the promise that I made in my profile. I've cemented it. And they're like, oh, yeah. I like Laravel and building products. I don't care so much about SQL, but I like Laravel and building products.
Aaron
00:59:36 – 00:59:47
I'll follow him. And I'm glad he doesn't do thought threads and memes because I don't want those. And if somebody wants those, great. They can go somewhere else. So yeah.
Aaron
00:59:47 – 00:59:57
So I would I would say web flow and indie hacking, like, yeah. Hell, yeah. Cross those over. Build build one set of people instead of trying to slog away at 2.
Mark
00:59:57 – 01:00:04
Oh, you're right. I mean, if I'm gonna tweet 30 times a day, it's better than 60 times a day.
Aaron
01:00:04 – 01:00:34
Yeah. And a lot of those are replies to, you know, friends on Twitter. And so if you if you look, I'm in replies goofing around. And so, like, talking about the meaty part of the bell curve, it starts to I start to get into the standard deviations out here a little bit in replies where I'm just kinda like dorking around with some people that I know on Twitter, and it's less like Laravel Laravel Laravel. It's more making jokes and having fun and just, like, hanging out.
Aaron
01:00:34 – 01:00:40
And I I do most of that in replies, and it's always super fun. Right. So yeah.
Mark
01:00:41 – 01:00:42
I'm sold.
Aaron
01:00:43 – 01:00:47
Yeah? Yep. For real, or are you just telling me that?
Mark
01:00:47 – 01:00:49
No. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm I'm serious.
Aaron
01:00:50 – 01:00:52
Okay. That's great. Josh, Mike.
Mark
01:00:52 – 01:01:01
Because like I said, I I the all the advice I was getting was I just it it brought me the wrong way, and I just couldn't do it. So I just I'd do nothing instead.
Aaron
01:01:01 – 01:01:02
Yep.
Mark
01:01:02 – 01:01:05
But I will solidly give this a try.
Aaron
01:01:06 – 01:01:07
K. Matthew, are you sold?
Matt
01:01:08 – 01:01:13
Yeah. I am. I I think I'm still coping with fear a little bit. Mhmm. That's well, not a little bit.
Matt
01:01:13 – 01:01:28
I mean, I'm terrified of most things. So, you know, I'm still coping with fear. But I think coming at it from the idea of re of I wasn't asking the question of, is what I'm doing cool? Because I'm actually working on a ton of cool shit. Like, a ton.
Matt
01:01:29 – 01:01:39
And it's gonna be cool to somebody. Like, if I think it's cool, then, like, at least it's gotta be cool to at least one other person. So why not formulate it that way?
Aaron
01:01:40 – 01:02:37
Yes. So on just one final thought personally on on the fear thing. I got to the point, if there are if there if there are competing notions, on on one side, it's fear of I don't want to share, anything because I don't want to be embarrassed, which is real 100% real for me, and it sounds like that's what you're saying as well. That stands on one side. On the other side is, man, I don't know if you'd call it regret or or missed opportunity or what, but on the other side of the sphere is the idea that I could have been doing it all along, but I was too afraid to do it, and I and so I never did, and then I look back and I regret having never done it.
Aaron
01:02:37 – 01:03:00
And that applies that applies to a lot of things. Like, we're gonna have the emotional bandwidth to get into it, but that applies that that that applies to a lot of things. Right? Like, are you which one is stronger? The fear of messing it up or the potential regret of looking back later and saying you never tried?
Aaron
01:03:00 – 01:03:16
Like, woah. Like, you have to consider that because that I'll I'll I'll I'm saying you, I'm but I'm but I mean me. Yeah. You have to consider that because that's what that's the trade off you're making. You're saying it's more important.
Aaron
01:03:17 – 01:03:40
The fear is more important, and I don't wanna let myself be embarrassed. That's more important than looking back one day and regretting having missed out on all these opportunities. And I at one point, I just decided, okay. The fear loses now. Like, I'm more frustrated with myself for not doing it than I am afraid of doing it.
Aaron
01:03:41 – 01:04:06
And everybody's, like, everybody's trade off and everybody's balance is different, but you just have to make that a rational like, you have to name it. You you you have to, like, be honest with yourself. That's what I'm doing. And if you come to the conclusion that that's okay, that's okay. That's 100% okay, but you can't not interrogate the other side of of the fear equation.
Aaron
01:04:06 – 01:04:17
You have to look at the other side and say, is this worth it? Like, no. For me, no. It's not. If people on on the Internet make fun of me, that's okay.
Aaron
01:04:18 – 01:04:40
Like, they they don't have any control over me. So that would be that would be my my parting thought on on the fear. And frankly, if you decide to to not worry about that, those that's great stuff to tweet about. Like, Mark, you were talking about how you're lonely and want, you know, in the in the hackerspace, you're lonely, and you wanna connect with people. Okay.
Aaron
01:04:40 – 01:04:53
Well, start start talking about that. Like, start tweeting about that, and you know who else is lonely? Everyone. Like, come on. You're you're not everyone else doesn't have it figured out.
Aaron
01:04:54 – 01:05:14
Everyone else is feeling the exact same way that you're feeling, and everyone else wishes they were brave enough to say something about it. And so the moment that somebody is brave enough to say something about it, it's like, yeah. They freaking rule. I love that guy. And it's just everyone everyone feels the same way.
Aaron
01:05:14 – 01:05:27
They're just too afraid just like just like the 3 of us. Right. They're nobody's different. Everybody's afraid of being embarrassed. It's just some people have determined that it's not worth it anymore.
Aaron
01:05:27 – 01:05:28
So
Matt
01:05:29 – 01:05:39
Yeah. I thank you for saying that. It's you you put it beautifully. Because I I think where I am right now, I'm just obsessed with the feeling of fear. I'm not dealing with the other side.
Matt
01:05:39 – 01:05:58
And I think when I left my full time job to start for myself, that was an outcome that was greater than the fear. I just I I needed to do something else. And at this point, it's like, I I I guess the I never hit bottom. Or I with Twitter, I have not hit bottom of saying, like, no. The fear is not enough to prevent me from doing this.
Matt
01:05:58 – 01:06:18
Or maybe, like, either way, like yeah. It I think, like, if anything comes out of this conversation, I got a lot out of it. But I think the big one is I'm not asking that question. I was just allowing that feeling to exist, and I wasn't I didn't realize that there was a trade off. I was too busy with the feeling and not realizing that there there was another side of the scale.
Matt
01:06:19 – 01:06:24
Yeah. Sick. Aaron, like, Tim. Yeah.
Aaron
01:06:24 – 01:06:25
Susan, thank you so much. No.
Matt
01:06:26 – 01:06:26
Like, you
Aaron
01:06:26 – 01:06:29
you thought we were just talking about Twitter, but, man, we got there.
Mark
01:06:29 – 01:06:30
Yes. Yes.
Matt
01:06:31 – 01:06:33
Do I do I pay you for this?
Aaron
01:06:33 – 01:06:36
Like Seriously. I'm not a licensed counselor, so that would be illegal.
Matt
01:06:37 – 01:06:42
Okay. I I have health benefits. We can figure that out. Yeah. So thanks a lot, Aaron.
Matt
01:06:42 – 01:06:52
That was amazing. This is really good. I learned a lot and I I have some real actionable stuff. So and I'll put a bunch of stuff, links to everything in the show notes and everything. But, do you wanna plug your stuff?
Matt
01:06:52 – 01:06:54
Like, tell people what you're up to. We can get at you.
Aaron
01:06:55 – 01:07:05
Sure. So I hang out on an app called Twitter. I don't know if you guys have heard about it. I am Aaron d Francis on Twitter. That's where I am most of the time.
Aaron
01:07:06 – 01:07:33
All of the stuff that I mentioned about, like, me and my partners, that's at a place called Hammerstone. So hammerstone dot dev, and that's where you can find that stuff. And then, I'll be giving a Laracon talk in exactly one week on February 9th, and it's gonna be this year for the first time ever. They're doing it free, which is amazing. So it'll be on YouTube on February 9th, and I think I have the 11 AM slot.
Aaron
01:07:33 – 01:07:44
So if you're into Laravel stuff, come hang out. We'll be talking about some cool stuff, but mostly on Twitter, and you know what you're getting when you follow me. So come find me on Twitter.
Matt
01:07:45 – 01:07:45
Sick.
Aaron
01:07:46 – 01:07:47
Awesome.
Mark
01:07:47 – 01:07:47
Thanks so much.
Aaron
01:07:47 – 01:07:49
Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was a blast.
Mark
01:07:50 – 01:07:50
Awesome.
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos, and generally try really hard.

If you ever have any questions or want to chat, I'm always on Twitter.

You can find me on YouTube on my personal channel or the Try Hard Studios channel.

If you love podcasts, I got you covered. You can listen to me on Mostly Technical.