How to find your target audience on X

Step 1: describe a person you want to talk to

Start with a situation, not an age bracket. Instead of “people interested in tech”, try “developers launching their first paid product while working a full-time job”. Then name the problem you want to discuss with them. For that developer, it might be finding someone willing to pay before spending another month building.

My test: can you picture a person reading your sentence and saying “that’s me”? If not, make it narrower. Replace a broad interest with something they are doing now, or something they are stuck on.

Choose people whose questions you can answer from experience, or whose problems you are working through yourself. You do not need to present yourself as an expert. Say what you are trying and invite people working on the same thing to compare notes.

Fill-in target audience profile for X

Copy these prompts into a note. Write a short answer for each. Treat the profile as a starting point to test in conversations, not a description of everyone who might eventually follow you.

Turn it into a sentence: “I talk to [people in a specific situation] who want [outcome], and I share [relevant work or experience].” Use that sentence when choosing which conversations to join and which posts to write.

The Talk First PDF starts with chapter 0, “Write your audience sentence”. See what’s inside the guide.

Worked example: a developer with a new account

Here is an illustrative profile for a developer building a first paid SaaS. It is a writing exercise, not a case study or a claim about results.

The audience sentence becomes: “I talk to developers building their first paid SaaS after work, and I share what I am learning while looking for my first customer.”

A bio draft could be: “Building my first paid SaaS after work. Sharing customer conversations and what I change because of them.” Use this only if it describes what you are actually doing.

A connect-post draft: “Building your first paid SaaS alongside a day job? I’m working on finding my first customer. What are you finding harder right now: making time to build or finding people to talk to? Say hi.”

For a follow-up post, share a real decision: “I was going to build [feature]. After talking to [type of person], I’m trying [smaller change] instead. How are you deciding what to leave out?” Fill the brackets with something that happened. Do not invent a customer conversation to fit the format.

Step 2: find people who match the profile

Take words from the profile and use them as search starting points. For the example above, try “first customer”, “building a SaaS” or “building after work”. Read the posts before replying. Look for the situation you described, not just the presence of a keyword.

1. Read the person’s profile and recent posts. Check whether they are working on the problem you want to discuss.
2. Answer the post in front of you. Share a relevant experience or ask about the specific part they are stuck on. Leave out the pitch.
3. Keep notes on their words. Record the problem they described and what you could usefully discuss next. Separate what they said from what you guessed.

My per-reply data starts after my first 1,000 followers. Between 14 and 30 September 2026, 70 of my replies asked to connect and brought 14 new followers, about one in five. That is my account’s experience, not a forecast for yours. The breakdown is in my X reply strategy.

Source: my X Analytics content export and follower records in guide/data.

Step 3: turn the profile into a growth plan

Give each part of your account the same audience sentence to work from. Describe that person in your bio. Write a pinned introduction about what you are doing and why you want to meet them. Then choose posts that let you discuss the problem together.

• For conversations: find a post about the problem in your profile and write a reply that addresses it.
• For your own posts: show a piece of work, explain a decision, or ask a question about the problem you share.
• For a connect post: name the situation precisely and invite people to say hi, rather than asking them to follow.

My connect posts did not all get the same response. Five on 29 August got 0 or 1 replies each. The one on 1 September got 24, and the one on 2 September got 79. I would not discard an audience profile after a quiet first attempt.

Source: public reply counts of my posts, read on 30 September 2026, in guide/data.

For a broader plan beyond defining the audience, use how to get followers on Twitter. For my early account experience, read the first 1,000 followers on X.

Step 4: review the people, not just the reach

After trying the profile in conversations and posts, review who answered. Did they match the situation you wrote down? What did they ask about? Which conversations would you want to continue even if no one followed you?

Keep a simple note for each useful conversation: the topic, whether the person fits your profile, and a follow-up question. Use those notes to choose your next post. If the same problem keeps coming up, try making that problem the focus of your audience sentence.

I would not judge fit by impressions alone. My biggest day, 24 September, had 106,603 impressions and 128 new followers; on 31 August, 4,456 impressions had brought 204. Those are observations from my account, not proof that a particular topic will work for yours.

Source: my X Analytics account overview export for 27 August–30 September 2026 in guide/data.

Common mistakes I would avoid

• Defining the audience as everyone in tech. Name what they are trying to do now. Use that detail to decide whether a post belongs on your account.
• Writing a profile you cannot speak to. Pick a problem you have worked on or are working through. Share your experience without pretending it is universal.
• Using volume as the whole plan. On 29 August I posted 16 times and got 4 replies in total. I would put a relevant conversation ahead of another post written only to fill a schedule.

  Source: public post and reply counts, read on 30 September 2026, in guide/data.

• Changing everything after a quiet post. Try another question about the same problem before replacing the audience sentence. Change a specific part of the profile so you can explain what you are testing.

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