How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know. ….but Luke O’Neil does. Follow him on Twitter to find out. And the answer is NOT 47. Luke’s always tweeting and it’s always funny. Caution: don’t be drinking milk when you see a tweet by Luke. So maybe just avoid drinking milk while at the computer entirely. Whether it’s for his snot-rocket inducing blog PTSOTL (Put That Shit on the List), @BostonGlobe, @Esquiremag, @BULLETMedia, @VICE or @Slate, you know this crackpot freelancer will be tweeting, and that his tweets will stand the test of time. That’s why we included him on our Who to Follow on Twitter in Boston Guide.
Here are some Twitter tips from the man himself:
I’m not sure I really qualify to give advice on getting followers on Twitter, since I don’t really have all that many compared to others. Like the old saying about guns: I’ve got more than I need, but fewer than I want. I suppose the most I’ve ever had was like 25,000, but the problem is they were never all there at the same time. I lose about as many as I gain every day. Twitter is like a bailing out a row boat with a hole in it, but worse because you never had a particular direction in mind in the first place and the oars are jokes and the analogies are bad.
That said….I’d say a pretty good place to start is…
1. Try not to be so woefully, predictably banal. Or, failing that, be ironically, predictably banal. It’s a pretty cool trick that let’s you say all the same day to day personal shit that no one cares about, but it’s through a presumed lens of irony, so you can still come out looking cool in the end.
2. Be attractive. I find that being a generally physically appealing human has done wonders for me in that regard. Not just on Twitter but in life in general. Definitely look into that.
3. Maybe… I don’t know, find… a community of likeminded people? With whom you can share a common interest? And talk about that a lot? People like to like things and like people who also like those things.
4. Starting fights with people seems to be a pretty popular way to get noticed. But it has to be the right people. Try to fight with people dumb enough to RT you to their dumb followers when you troll them, that way all the other people hate-following them will see and think you’re good and smart.
5. Don’t manually RT anyone. This is fucked up and the same as being a literal Nazi such as Hitler. It’s like putting a toll booth in front of someone else’s joke. No one likes toll booths, especially the roads.
6. Lastly, I’d say the best thing to do is follow me first, then we’ll take it from there and see how you do after your initial review period. Think of it like an internship. You probably won’t learn anything, but on the other hand, you definitely were there, and someone probably noticed, and you can’t deny that. You definitely got noticed.