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Updated January 28, 2020Tweet whatever is top of mind, no matter what that is. Share what you happen to be reading or interested in, no matter what that is.Austen Allred (@Austen, co-founder and CEO, Lambda School*
Twitter is filled with individuals who value peer learning and having interesting and novel information curated for them that helps expand their minds and knowledge base. Twitter can be a wonderful place to think aloud and learn in public. We feel a magnetism to people who aren’t fearful of looking stupid. People are often happy to join in the learning process if you take the first step in this micro risk. When you’re open to sharing what you’re learning, people will start to see you as at once a teacher and a peer—they’ll be learning along with you, as you help them learn.
Think of areas where you’re currently learning:
What interesting offline conversations have you been thinking about?
What’s a bit of “common sense” that no longer rings true for you?
Often, sharing your latest obsessions can lead to people chiming in with additional recommendations and ideas you hadn’t thought of. Their replies will help you strengthen your own belief or force you to think differently. Successfully pulling knowledge from others, on topics you care about, can expedite your learning and introduce you to new information.
Ideas to get you started learning in public:
Talk about your favorite authors who have informed your worldview.
Mention the podcast episodes that have inspired you to think differently, and explain how.
Post links to article and blog posts you found thoughtful, and let people know why they should consider reading.
Highlighting interesting people and ideas also serves as a form of curation and others may follow you because you regularly find insightful and interesting information. If you’re retweeting an article or someone else’s take on it, add your own analysis and opinion.
important It’s always a good idea to amplify the work of people who have been helpful to you as you learn about a certain subject. This can be a good way to provide accreditation and also share the work of others that have been influential and thought-provoking. If you say something really insightful, you might even get a follow from the person out of it.
I will usually @ people to cite them when I’m drawing on their work. I will also reply to their tweets when I feel I have something to contribute to the discussion.Kevin Simler (@KevinSimler), software, data, and automation, Hexagon Bio, author
Often Twitter can be a powerful tool for getting a sense of what you should build, write, or do. If you’re concerned about investing time, energy, and/or money into a project, using Twitter to gauge initial interest can provide you with a “yes” or “no” on whether to move forward. For instance, if you want to write a blog post on a topic, testing a potential response by formulating a few tweets on the topic can be an indicator of how people might receive your ideas in long-form. David Perell is one great example: “The genesis of my own writing course came from Twitter.”
caution While your followers can provide valuable information to consider, we do not suggest making decisions based solely on what your followers and Twitter at large find interesting. Feedback you receive on the platform should only serve as data, among other data points, that ultimately allows you to make the best decision.