How to get your first 1,000 followers on X

To get your first 1,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter), pick one subject and make your profile say so. Spend your first weeks replying to people in that subject, then post one good original post a day.

It takes months, not days. This can be accelerated to weeks if you use Twiends as well, but still expect to do some work.

Here's the plan a week at a time, and the part of X's ranking code that each step leans on.

Where a small account's followers come from

Strangers meet a small account in a few places: its replies under other people's posts, its posts in For You, and X's Who to follow suggestions. For You is the feed X picks for each reader, from accounts they follow and accounts they don't (here's how X ranks For You).

All of them lead to your profile, and that's where people decide.

X publishes the code that ranks For You. Five things in it matter most when you're small:

• Replies count far more than likes. A reader's chance of replying to your post is weighted 5, and their chance of liking it 0.66.
• New posts from small accounts can get a lift in their first 2 hours.
• Mutual follows count extra. When you and a reader follow each other, their chance of replying to your original posts is weighted 20.
• Posts people pass on count most. Copying a post's link is weighted 20.
• Old posts and bursts lose. For You drops posts after 48 hours, and each extra post of yours in a reader's feed counts for less.

(The weights multiply how likely each reader is to do each thing, not how many times it happens.)

Each week below adds one habit and keeps the ones before. Every other way to grow, from giveaways to ads, is in our full guide to getting followers.

Week 1: pick one subject and finish your profile

Choose the one thing you'll post about for the next few months: your work, a hobby, your city's football club. One subject tells a stranger what they'd get by following you.

It also suits how X works now. In January 2026 Nikita Bier, then X's head of product, called X "an interest-based graph". The next day X announced Starterpacks: lists of accounts, by topic and country, to help new people find who to follow.

Months earlier, he'd posted this advice:

Nikita Bier@nikitabier

If you want to get rich on X, it isn't going to be through creator revenue or meme coins.

Instead, think about one subject matter that you know more about than anyone else in the world. It can be anything: plumbing, menswear, Indian food, furniture, social apps, whatever.

Post one unexpected insight you picked from your experience in that area. Keep it under 5 sentences. Do this every day for 6 months.

If you stick to it, we will promote your account to others.

By the end, you will be recognized as the world's leading expert in that subject area and you can charge whatever you want for endorsements, your time, or whatever. And no one will be able to take that way from you.

Sep 4, 2025 · 5.5M Views

1,196 Reposts1,409 Quotes19.5K Likes17.2K Bookmarks

X's published code has no six-month rule. The advice holds anyway: one subject, one useful thing a day.

Then finish your profile before you post much:

• A photo of your face, or your logo for a business.
• A bio that says what you post and who it's for, in up to 160 characters. Here's how to write a bio people follow.
• A first post that says who you are and what's coming, pinned to the top of your profile.

Week 2: reply to people a few steps ahead of you

Follow a handful of accounts in your subject: people a few steps ahead of you, who post often and get replies. Then reply to their posts, a few good replies a day.

A reply sits under the post, where its readers see it, and anyone curious taps your name. That's how a small account gets read before it has followers.

ValentinaAn example· 1h

Home bakers: what's the one change that fixed your flat sourdough?

861452031K

TheoAn example· 40m

Replying to Valentina

A colder, slower rise. Mine go in the fridge overnight now and come out much taller. Baker in Lisbon, happy to share my timings.

6482.2K

A reply won't reach strangers' For You on its own: X's code leaves out replies from accounts the reader doesn't follow. It's read under the post, so reply while the post is new and its readers are still arriving.

Make each one worth reading: an answer, a fact, your own experience in a line, or a question back. "Great post" gives nobody a reason to tap your name.

Write every reply fresh. X's code labels repeated replies as copy-paste spam, and that rule skips only accounts X already rates as credible, which a new account isn't yet.

Free accounts can post up to 200 replies a day, and any account can follow up to 400 a day. Those are ceilings, not targets. Follow a few people at a time, the ones you'd actually read.

Week 3: post one original post a day

Now add one original post a day: a post of your own, not a reply or a repost, about your subject. Share something you know that others in it may not: a lesson, a result with numbers, a short how-to.

Original posts are the ones X can lift. If you have 50,000 followers or fewer, its code can move a new post up a reader's For You, to about 16th place. The post must be under 2 hours old and seen fewer than 200 times.

It's one post per feed load, so treat it as a nudge, not a promise.

And when several small accounts' posts qualify, the code leans toward the one its first readers liked most often.

TheoAn example·35m

My sourdough timings after a year of flat loaves: mix at 6pm, fold twice, shape at 9, fridge overnight, bake at 7am straight from cold. What do you do differently?

4112150

So post when you can stay for the first two hours and answer replies. Replies are among the heaviest things the score weighs.

Your answers don't raise the post's score in X's code, but someone who gets an answer has a reason to come back.

Week 4: follow back the people you talk to

By now some people reply to you, and some follow you. Follow back the ones you want to hear from. Mutual follows, people you follow who follow you back, count extra in X's code.

Since July 2026, when you and a reader follow each other, their chance of replying to your original posts is weighted 20, not 5. Bier said the change should "help clusters form around interests".

Followers also get your posts without a discount. X multiplies posts from accounts a reader doesn't follow by 0.75.

Followers

FreyaAn exampleFollows you

Weekend baker in Porto. Rye, mostly.

Follow back

KaiAn exampleFollows you

Speedruns most nights.

Follow back

So a follow from someone you talk to does more for you than one from someone who never reads you.

Don't promise follow backs to get replies. A let's connect post is a better way to meet people in your subject: you say who you are, and they reply with who they are.

Twiends is a free community where people who want to grow on X find each other and follow by hand. It can bring you followers, not replies: those are still yours to start.

Weeks 5 to 8: write posts people pass on

Once posting is a habit, make some posts the kind people send to someone else. Think of a checklist, a template, a how-to in one picture, or a list of good accounts in your subject.

In X's code, copying a post's link is weighted 20, the most of any action. Sending it in a chat is weighted 5, a repost 1 and a like 0.66.

TheoAn example· 5h

Flat loaf? Check these five before you blame your starter:

1. Water temperature
2. Flour strength
3. How long it rose
4. How tight you shaped it
5. Oven heat in the first 20 minutes

224131018K

Before you post one, ask "who would I send this to?" If a name comes to mind, it's worth posting.

A link to your own site or video is fine. X's code has no link penalty, and opening a link counts as a small plus, 0.2. What hurts is a link to a site with a bad reputation.

When you have more to say than a reply, quote the post. A quote is a post of your own with theirs under it, so X can show it to people who don't follow you.

From week 9: keep a steady rhythm

By month three the plan is a routine: a few good replies a day, one or two original posts, and follow backs for the people you talk to.

Steady beats bursts, for three reasons in X's code:

• Extra posts count for less. Each time a reader's For You loads, your best post in it counts in full. The second is multiplied by 0.625, the third by 0.4375, and so on down to 0.25.
• Posts expire. For You only considers posts up to 48 hours old. After that, a post lives on your profile and in search.
• X's suggestions notice regular posters. Among the signals its Who to follow system ranks accounts by, X lists how often an account logs in and posts.

X's own guide for businesses says it plainly: "Give people a reason to follow you by sharing frequently."

Once a month, pin your best recent post to your profile, so people who arrive later see it first.

What doesn't help a small account

Many top guides to getting Twitter followers still repeat 2023: a reply weighted 13.5, a 2x to 4x boost for paying accounts, a heavy cut for posts with links. None of that is in the code X publishes today.

These don't help either:

• Premium, to rank higher. Nothing in X's published For You code boosts paying accounts. X does say Premium replies rank higher under other people's posts.
• Hashtags. They carry no weight in the ranking code, and X suggests one or two at most.
• Following hundreds for follow backs. Following and unfollowing in bulk is against X's rules, and a quick way to get your account locked or suspended.
• Promising follow backs. X's rules ban coordinating to exchange follows. In July 2026 X said creators in its payout program who post "I'll follow everyone who replies" 3 or more times are removed and referred for suspension.
• Like groups. A note in X's code says that opening a post straight from a group chat "has no ranking impact", and organized swaps are against X's rules.
• Buying followers. They're fake accounts that never reply, and they drop out of your count when X removes them. Here's why bought followers backfire.

How long does it take to get 1,000 followers?

Nobody can tell you, and we won't guess. It depends on your subject, the time you put in, and luck: one post people pass on can bring more followers than a month of steady ones.

We don't know of an honest average, so be wary of any guide that prints a timeline.

What you can measure is free. Notifications shows who followed you, and every post shows its view count. Each week, look at which replies and posts brought followers, and do more of those.

Judge it by the month, not the day.

Every account loses a few followers along the way. If your views fall to almost nothing for weeks, check whether you've been shadowbanned.

Start week 1 today: pick your subject, fix your bio, and write three replies you'd be glad to put your name to.