15 Best Twitter/X Growth Strategies for Startups & Scale-Up Brands (2025)

💬 'X' (formerly Twitter) is an interesting channel to grow on, and for many businesses and categories/niches, it's probably not a channel I'd be focusing on - however, in the world of startups, VC, tech and marketing (as well as the likes of design, finance and general business), there's certainly potential to build a thriving audience - and even do it quite quickly (which I've done so myself in the past).

Like any social channel, it has it's nuances when it comes to approaching how you grow the right audience and community that can contribute to ROI/results for SaaS and startups.

I'm sharing some of the top 'X' tactics/strategies that I've seen work well for brands, as well from my experience over the years.

Various low-cost/cost-effective strategies and tactics to grow audiences fast (follower growth and engagement) on X

💬 With some of the checklist tactical points below, I incl. some reference examples, as well as some tools I suggest to check out to help with content production and growth.

If you’re in the tech/startup, VC, marketing or even the design 'twittersphere' (or 'xsphere' now), then no doubt you would have seen an increase in the amount of blue tick ‘verified’ profiles, especially by creators and founders posting often. 

And it’s for good reasons - X premium helps with:

• Creating longer posts
• Bookmarks (and having folders for them)
• Longer video uploads (such as YT vids)
• Less ads (or get Premium+ and see no ads anywhere)
• Reader mode
• If you’re on premium, you can even get the likes of revenue sharing from posts and subscriptions
• And reply prioritisation within feeds and those accounts you reply to

There are more features you can get access to (and naturally, X will ship even more awesome features in the coming months/years).

I came across a good case study on Buffer (worth the read) about the author’s experience - which has a breakdown of the results (before and after using X premium). 

This is one of my favourite tools that many power users of Twitter used over the years - and X took over and has now called this ‘X Pro’ (access via X Premium). 

The best capability of why I love this tool personally is the ability to have multiple timelines on the one screen - where you can follow certain accounts, topics, hashtags, news/articles, anything that’s trending… it’s awesome.

Two of the best methods I’ve seen utilised by many creators to grow their followings/impressions (and in some cases go viral on the platform too) are replies and getting involved with discussions. 

And they do this by: 

• replying/getting involved with discussions with accounts with larger follower counts, 
• or tweets that already have a good amount of engagement, 
• or tweets focussed on ‘viral’ based news/topics (i.e. trending)

Especially in the likes of the Tech/VC and startup Twittersphere, I’ve seen many people do this repeatedly. 

X threads are certainly nothing new, and they don’t look like they’re slowing down anytime soon in terms of being utilised for getting traction. 

Of course, it depends on the topic/content shared, but some accounts have “blown up” to huge follower counts in fairly short spaces of time. 

Particularly accounts that utilise visuals, or rely on trending topics (e.g. like all the AI carousels/content - too much if you ask me haha - I almost feel like that all copy each other lol).

So, why is it a good format and why do accounts get awesome numbers in terms of follower growth and engagement? These are the primary reasons why in my view:

• It’s great for extended storytelling, whilst still being ‘punchy’ and to the point
• On conjunction with the above, it provides clarity on what’s being communicated, and satisfies the “scrollers” - the reality is, people skim 
• Once you get a trickle on in terms of some engagement, the algo seems to still love it (especially if you have X premium too)

Numerous other smaller reasons too I haven’t mentioned, but these are the main.

In conjunction with both points above, many people in the tech/VC/startup space comment their thoughts/opinions on threads, and get some pretty good view counts and profile visits. 

If you see a thread do well, why not “ride the wave” by commenting/replying and seeing what results you see - totally worth experimenting. 

There are a few variables involved, such as topics/content being discussed, follower count, and a few other factors that determine whether or not longer posts/tweets can work effectively for you context. 

I’ve certainly seen some success from my end in terms of brands/creators I’ve worked with, and it’s worth experimenting/testing to see if you can work out the right format/length that works for your strategy. 

In terms of results and a case study, I came across this post from Hootsuite, where the author did a test between threads and long form posts. 

It’s a great breakdown of what she trialled.

Conclusion of the test - content matters > the format. 

Takeaway: However, in my view, you should be testing both, but from what I’ve seen by numerous creators and brands over the past few years, threads is worth focusing your 

Visuals, whether they be focused on stats or explaining some sort of process, get some pretty impressive traction - and that’s across a wide range of topics from creators I’ve seen (both in business and also outside of the business/tech world).

It makes sense why do they well too - they’re great “feed stoppers” and stand out, especially on a “text-first” platform like X.

Plus, many people are visual learners/processors - so whenever they see something visual, it does cut through to them faster than a wall of text.

The “build in public” has been a ‘movement’ within the startup/tech scene for quite a few years now, with the likes of X/Twitter and LinkedIn being the leading channels - X/Twitter for me though was where I saw it really take off a few years ago with a few creators/founders. 

I love it as an initiative, and even from first-hand experience having done elements of it, it certainly can be effective. 

To show the proof it can work, I came across this awesome Medium post with a breakdown of some results from Mario Gabriele, founder of ‘Generalist’ - which is a newsletter for tech and venture capital. 

He mentions these are the key benefits (which I certainly resonate with too):

• It creates accountability
• It helps aligns vision 
• It creates connections with audiences - people love to relate
• It “open sources” your problems - which in turn can help audiences reach out and offer support/opportunities

In many ways, X Spaces are the “live video” alternative that the likes of Instagram, Facebook and TikTok provide to their users. 

Although, you can even do live streaming on X.

Now if you were on Twitter a couple of years back with all the NFT stuff going on, Spaces was used A LOT.

Now that’s died down a lot (thankfully), with Spaces, not many creators/brands are using it currently, which is a good opportunity to get further reach/engagement with potential target segments. 

Spaces are a great way to host AMAs, discussions, and conversations with other accounts - and an awesome way to get visibility fast amongst your followers. 

That’s not where the magic is in this strategy - in my view, this should be an initiative where you invite creators/thought-leaders with large audiences, where their followers will see that they are part of your ‘space’. Some of their audience will then tune in and hear the discussion, which can lead to them following you, and start engaging with your profile/content.

And that’s where the flywheel can kick in (be exposed → tune in → follow → visit site → convert (hopefully)).

If you’re in the early stages of an account or perhaps looking to strategise ways to grow faster, one of the best methods I’ve seen work well (which also worked of me when active on the platform), is by building relationships with other folk on the platform within your niche. 

Help each other share content, retweet, co-create content, host spaces, collab with other brands, invite others to join and work together with content creation - whatever it may be. 

I can say write now with other client/consulting work that it's effective (especially in ICP-focused campaigns for B2B SaaS brands).

Ultimately, people love to read stories and lessons learnt from working/startup experiences - from the good, to then the ugly. 

Audiences connect with this sort of content because it’s “real” (in most cases). 

^ sort of like the "build in public" approach as mentioned above (the stats speak for themselves) - very good chance you've seen quite a few of these styles of posts, and you naturally see them getting decent support. Even if low engagement numbers in terms of likes/reactions, you do get people replying.

Who doesn’t love reading case studies, right? 

Amazing for social proof and good to have as part of the content mix, where attracting new audiences is key, you want to nurture those who are more TOF/MOF stages with your brand.

A good friend of mine Vaibhav Namburi does a good job with his business Smartlead and his X account. Here's a couple of examples he's done a good job of designing. :)

Most of you would know what polls are on the platform, as they’ve been around for a while now. 

They can be effective when you want to get quick insights on something - it’s then what you do with the data/insights that matters afterwards. 

For instance, backing up opinions on a topic, proof on what people are looking for, lots of things.

Even the likes of authors from top publications feature various polls based on a topic they may be writing at the time. 

I like them as part of data collection and content creation for reasons such as:

• Great for getting feedback on product features (and getting exposure to new audiences)
• Frictionless experience for users to engage (rather than an external survey) 
• Easy to create and they’re fun/interactive 
• And when you get a kickstart with engagement, you can really get some impressive numbers in terms of reach/impressions

Thing to note: is it always reliable data? No it’s not always, but it’s a great format based on the above reasons to help indicate potential content strategy thoughts, more potential polls to ask further questions, and many other benefits.

I've done a few ad campaigns on the platform, but not extensive experience per se - I can say that it can be effective as a channel for buzz/awareness (and the targeting options are awesome), but in terms of conv. focused campaigns, haven't had the best of results. I'll certainly be doing more testing in the future, but more focused on targeted "hype" campaigns (video promos for launches, remarketing, etc).

In terms of ad formats, there's a few which you can use (as you can see in this screenshot from X business page).

And to help you with growth efforts on the platform, it's good to look into supporting tools, especially around the likes of analytics, scheduling and threads creation - and to help you with exploring/researching, I put together this guide on some of the top X/Twitter tools I've used (which are cost-effective and have awesome features, especially with the three mentioned).