episode 35 w/austin schlessinger (austinschless) & leveraging twitter to network

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

for those of you tuning in, I've become really bullish about Twitter. And so I met Austin Austin, dropped some absolute knowledge bombs on Twitter. And it was one of those were like some of my connections like to Austin's post and then I saw Austin's post, the power of Twitter and the organic kind of reach of that. And so I DM'd Austin, I don't even know who this guy is and he'd greet hang out with me. So Brian, what's going on, dude, it's good to see you. So Austin, not a whole entire intro, but I guess talk real quick about where you're located and what you do just as super high level.

So super high level. I'm located in New Jersey. I do strategy consulting for Deloitte and on the side. I'm a content creator on Twitter. Love it, love it. Twitter. So what is, what is that strategy? What does that entail? In detail like from a, that's fancy. What is that? It is fancy and I'm still trying to figure it out. I think I'm trying to figure it out. But yeah. So we'll go ahead and dive in again. If you are watching at us comment, I don't want to waste any time because I really want to kind of uncover what Austin's found on Twitter and share it with you all.

So check it in. What's the Twitter handle? How can they find you, Austin? What is your Twitter handle? I wish I would have put it in my name down there, but it's at Austin, S-C-H-L-E-S-S. Okay. If there's an all right. What about up on the screen? Yeah. I don't know if there's a way to do it. What I'll do though here, let me do this. Pan or hold on. I'm gonna do this on the fly. Let's see here. Austin, what did you say it was? It's Austin and then S-C-H-L-E-S-S. S-C-H. How you have L-E-S-S? Yeah. All right. Let's see here. Ad banner. Let's see if this works.

Boom. Is that it? There we go. Perfect. There we go. I love it. So Austin, now that we have people watching, finally, give the people what they want. One more introduction. Where you live, what you do, and then we'll dive into the Twitter conversation. Sure. So I am currently residing on the Jersey Shore and beautiful Point Plus New Jersey. And I am a tragic consultant for Deloitte. And in my free time, I produce content on Twitter. Awesome. Fantastic. So for everybody, I've become really bullish about Twitter. And honestly, I don't know what's on Twitter. I'm figuring it out. I just put out content, put out content.

Yes. People are tagging you in this Austin, so there you go. So that being said, Austin, let's talk about Twitter as a platform. Right? So how did you discover Twitter? Like, what did you kind of get a little bit more bullish about Twitter? And then kind of talk with your journey about just getting to the point of starting to put out content. And it will kind of go into your content creation. So I've been on Twitter since like middle school, probably like 10 years ago. Early adopt. Never. Yeah. For it. I mean, never really used it for, never used it the way that I'm using it now.

It wasn't until around December of 2020 that I kind of started to understand this. And the first kind of introduction to using Twitter and the way that I use it now is a networking tool and a way to test ideas is through Dickie Bush's ship 30 for 30 challenge. I'm not sure if anybody's heard of that. But essentially it's your right 30 essays on Twitter in 30 days. So Twitter is the platform and people are compelled to share their ideas for 30 days. So you in the end, you build the writing habit and then you also have this portfolio of work that you can leverage in any way to make connections with people and also build upon your ideas.

So that was my initial introduction to Twitter and ever since completing that challenge in I was part of the January cohort. So early February, I've just continued to ride that Twitter wave and it's been truly amazing. So. And then when you say essays, you're talking about like when you thread them is that we were talking about where you kind of thread the whole thing. So through Dickie's challenge, he does everybody does like screenshots of essays where you can read an entire essay in a Twitter picture. But then towards the end, I started writing more threads. And now on all in on threads, I think threads are the best way to share ideas and produce content on Twitter's platform.

Actually, I think it's probably the best way to share any type of idea across any social media platform, but we can talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is what we're here for. I mean, we can kind of go on topics. So here's how I mentioned that why do you think to threads are better than just a bunch of tweets? Because I just do a bunch of tweets. Right. I usually don't do threads. I see people doing threads. And so again, the reason why I have people on us, like I learned as well, selfishly. So what are your thoughts on threading versus kind of individual tweets?

So I think that the, and for anybody that doesn't know threads, what threads are on Twitter, it's essentially where you have a tweet, and then a tweet that follows that. And it tells a story. So it's like, this is what this thread is about. Here's all the content that's related to specifically that as opposed to sending one tweet and then sending another tweet. Your ideas are linked. So the reason I'm bullish on threads is for two reasons. One, it's a great way to tell a story and share your ideas and two. It creates different entry points for engagement. So whereas if you were to post a blog post, it's a long form thing, people can't jump in at like a specific paragraph and comment on something.

They have to wait for the end to type in a reply or comment or something like that. So Twitter threads give people the ability to engage with specific content, repost a specific piece of it that resonated with them. So it's very cool mechanism to share ideas, share and engage with ideas. That's awesome. I see. I didn't know that. So some of my boy Danny, so Danny is awesome. If you don't know Danny, you need to connect them on Twitter. He is an absolute powerhouse. And so, yeah, Danny, we are absolutely kind of taking apart Twitter. So thanks for tuning in, buddy. So talk about threads.

So let me ask you this. So let's say somebody's watching us either now or in the future. And they go, this is great. Threads are great. I mean, that's great. Awesome. That's great. You had Twitter for a long time. How, like, what would you suggest somebody who just doesn't understand it would be the easiest way to get rolling on Twitter? So I think that to get started, and what do you mean by getting started? Like what is it? Yeah, just starting to like utilize it in any way, shape or form, right? Because because like I'm trying to think about like, all right, like I take my mom, for example, right?

Like my mom is doing like some Instagram for my dad's restaurant. She's like, oh, like I see all your activity on Twitter. Like do I need to be on Twitter? It's like, I don't need Twitter straight everybody. And I think Twitter is a lot of volume. So, you know, what are your thoughts with starting to put out content on Twitter? And how would you navigate it? So actually just wrote a thread about this. And I wish I can share it with people. But essentially, if you want to look it up, it's about it follows Sawhill Bloom's Twitter growth. Essentially, Sawhill started writing about finance. That was his thing.

And he has this meta thread called the allegory of finance. And the way that he approached it, and I dissected specifically like how he did it. And now I'm trying to implement that too. So if you're on my Twitter profile, you can go to my pin tweet. And you can kind of see what I'm about to share as an example of kind of what I'm telling you now. So what I would do is that whatever you're interested in dissect the defined principles first. So for me, like I mentioned it in creator economy, Twitter creating content and that kind of thing. So what are the principles?

So, you know, writing a newsletter, creating a podcast, starting a blog, writing online. Those are the essential building blocks that kind of form that. So first, define the principles. Second, you know, tell the give examples. So what are some examples of people, successful people that are doing these things? And then once you have those examples, then tell stories. So what's the story behind it? And if you kind of define those three things and leverage threads and kind of embed those principles within each of those future threads. And if this doesn't make sense, I can explain it in a better way. But that's actually how I would approach it.

Define principles, you know, pilot examples and then tell stories. I love it. People are asking more about what Austin's Twitter account is. I love it. Here's Austin's Twitter account. So go follow him, give him a follow. But yeah, so then, so let's talk about this. So why, why would someone use Twitter? Right. So so we're talking about threads. We're talking about the importance of content. Like why would you suggest someone use Twitter right now? I think that there's two ways, there are two reasons why you should use Twitter. Number one, to test your ideas. And number two, as a networking tool. So I'll give you a quick example.

I'm like, I love talking about ideas. Like I love talking about building, building businesses or, you know, creating things. And I never really had that avenue to in that community to share that with. I was able to find that on Twitter. And that was really like amazing for me. There's all these little sub communities that exist as well that are just waiting to be uncovered. So that's one aspect of it. The other aspect is the networking aspect of it. Like six months ago, if you talked about me, they're taught to me. I would have told you that LinkedIn is the best networking tool. Twitter is by far.

Crushes it out of the bar. Really. So I'm seeing people starting to pass the maps. Say what? So it's pretty ambitious, especially because we're live on LinkedIn. But I think that we're live on Twitter. We're live on Twitter. So I didn't know that. I'm on Twitter. Yeah, man. So if you want to go to my profile, should I probably tell you, sorry about that. But yeah, so I'm starting to hear that one. Right? Like I'm starting to hear that like Twitter is better than LinkedIn. And I will tell you this. I think you don't have to have the followers on Twitter to still connect. Right?

I think a lot of people are like, man, like, you know, Taylor, you tweet all all this today, right? Like, you can leverage Twitter for the way that you want a leverage it. And I think that's incredibly important. Like, your goal is to just find a community within knitting. Let's say you just love knitting. You can have three. Yeah. You can have 300 followers on Twitter. And your engagement is off the charts. Because you have that community. And I think that's what's lost with Twitter and also social media as a whole is followers versus engagement. And that's a whole another conversation of itself. But but my, but let me ask you this.

How would you suggest people find interests? Like like if you're getting on and you're like, you know, Austin's I love knitting. Like that gets me really, really high. like how would you suggest someone go find knitting or seek out knitting people? So if you're if you're really into knitting, I would say that you have to start with the Twitter search bar. There's like, thank you. It's so underrated. It is. And you can, I mean, you can also use tweet deck and tweet deck even makes it even more. It's easy to kind of drill down into specifically your interest. You can create specific feeds like for different keywords and from specific accounts.

Like it's just it takes a little like I'm still learning it. I mean, I'm half the time. I'm just typing into the top search bar. And there's there's an advanced search. There's all over all kinds of stuff that you can do. So, you know, if you're looking for that, it just, it's just a matter of kind of navigating that search bar. And if you master that, let me know because I'm still trying to figure it out. Yeah. Again, I think the search bar is is is incredibly underrated. And both LinkedIn and Twitter. I mean, it really is. I mean, I know I'm doing this to you.

Yeah. You can search in Twitter for a topic near you. And then you can start engaging with people on a specific topic like in national for me. You're in Jersey Shore for you, right? And so I think that's incredibly important. So few things Danny, so Danny goes for me and again, Danny, thanks for watching. I need to get you on here again and talk about this because Danny, Danny's Twitter following is, is is is is crazy. For me, Twitter's where options may live, but LinkedIn is where the money in genuine network can exist. I love Twitter is definitely my largest audience, but the money making moves is 10 fall in LinkedIn.

There you go. I mean, again, right. I think people it's how you leverage it. Right. And how you leverage it. I think for me, I think it's a one to punch, but I also think what's interesting, Danny, I'd be interested to catch up with you sidebar. Maybe this weekend about this is everything that Twitter's about to throw through. for now, just from an ecosystem perspective, right? Because for those of you who do not know, Twitter's throw rolling out Twitter spaces so Clubhouse is rival. Twitter's throw, I believe coming out with their own way to deliver newsletters through Twitter. I've read a little bit of it, but essentially, I guess it's it's essentially creating email list to your Twitter or whatnot.

And then the third thing I just saw is essentially like Patreon or, you know, basically a way for you to pay for premium content on Twitter for certain followers. So I think Twitter is about to really kind of come to the forefront. And so why do you think you need to be spending time on LinkedIn? I think you really need to be looking. If you haven't looked at Twitter at all, I think now's time to do that. I don't know if you any thoughts on that. So I think like I can, I used LinkedIn as a way to get my job, like my big options with the, that was the way to do it.

Because that's where those people exist. And I was actually talking to someone else earlier this week. And we were, we were discussing like, you know, do we, publicize, do we let people know that we work for these like a big four company or financial services company on Twitter? Because it's, you're right. And I think Dan said like it's a different, it's a different community. And, you know, you, there's certain things you'd post on LinkedIn that you wouldn't post on Twitter. There's certain things you post on Twitter. And then you'd be hesitant to post on, on LinkedIn. So I think that it's, it's going to take time.

But for like if someone to come to me and say, hey, like, how can I find a job, go to LinkedIn? But I'm still saying. If you, like, if someone where it comes to me and say, hey, like, I want to try to become like working to start up or I want to learn how to create content or I want to learn how to make money as a creator online. Like, Twitter's where you want to be. I love that. Dude, this was a great idea. Oh, Twitter jobs will kill it. Yes. Oh, totally. If there is a way people are doing that. Yeah. How? What do you see people doing?

So there's like these, so Anthony Pompliano who's like the huge crypto guy on Twitter created Pomp jobs or something like that. It's not within Twitter, but people are creating these job boards for the specific niche that they're creating content for. So I've seen that in the crypto space. Well, that is well on my website. And it's linked. If you go to my Twitter profile, you can view my personal job board. But it would be tight though to be like, be able to do it within the LinkedIn or Twitter ecosystem. Twitter is just, it's about to explode. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Which is crazy. Because it's been sitting idle since, since obviously Austin's been in middle school.

So it's, it's about to go boom. So well, everybody, thank you again for hanging out Austin. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for hanging out with a complete stranger like myself. For a few minutes on a Friday. Everyone, thanks again for tuning in. If you have any questions, we'll stay on for another few seconds. If you have any questions for Austin about what he does again. One thing I took out of this from Austin is threads. I need probably do more threads. I love that. And then also just leveraging the search bar. Right. And so if, if anybody has any questions, please throw them up.

Add us now again, Austin's home. I'm coming back. This is Austin's Twitter account. This is so big. It's ridiculous. Go fall Austin. He's a great father. He doesn't spam it up. He's a good dude. That's why I wanted to have him on. And then otherwise no more major questions. A lot of comments. Austin, thank you again for hanging buddy. And let's stay in touch. Okay. Thanks, Tyler. Appreciate it.