I took an even more isolated approach with this experiment. By using Twitter\u2019s advanced search, I looked for happy birthday tweets in Canada and the US. From here, I reached out to strangers on their big day hoping they spent it well and with those close to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Would people find that creepy?<\/strong> That\u2019s what I wanted to find out. While plenty of etiquette are well established on social media, congratulations seemed like an untouched topic. If the response was positive, I also wanted to see if it could be used to give my personal branding a little boost in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, yes. The response was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, only a single person was weirded out by getting a birthday message on Twitter from me, but they were still grateful. I\u2019m sure I put a smile on a lot of faces in the process!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like any experiment I do on social media, I always have growth in mind so I kept a spreadsheet handy to track metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since this is such a lighthearted growth hack, I decided to keep the metrics very simple\u200a\u2014\u200aI kept track of Twitter handles, follower to following ratio, ifthey followed me and if they replied to my tweet. On top of that, I followed people with follower to following ratios above 1.00 since it\u2019d be likely they\u2019d follow me back and I also followed anyone who retweeted the birthday message.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIs it socially acceptable?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"happy](\"http:\/\/christweten.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/happy-birthday-twitter-growth-1024x663.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nCan happy birthday messages be used as a growth hack?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n