The real post is in your replies
Posting is half the job; answering the people who reply to you is the other half.
Posting and walking away is like throwing a party and hiding in the bathroom. The people who replied to you did the hardest thing on the internet: they engaged. Answer them, ask a follow-up, and a post turns into a conversation.
When Twitter open-sourced its ranking code in 2023, the published config showed what its main ranking model predicted and how much each prediction counted. A like had a weight of 0.5. A reply had 13.5. A reply that the author then engages with had 75, the highest positive weight on the list. Twitter noted the weights were originally set so each type of engagement contributed about equally on average, because some actions are far rarer than others, so don’t read it as “one reply equals 150 likes.” The same README says the weights can change at any time, so treat this as a 2023 snapshot, not today’s formula.
The craft lesson outlives the code. After you post, stick around and answer every real reply with more than “thanks!” Add a detail you left out, ask what they tried or push back politely.
The example
- Instead of
- “Thanks for the comment!”
- Try
- “Good question. A free trial converted 3% for us; a $9 first month got us to 11%. Which one have you tried?”
Before you flush
Open your last post and answer every real reply with a question or a detail you left out. Then plan 20 minutes of replying after your next post.