Should I create a second X/Twitter account?

[ashvinne]

My business is an online store selling biology equipment for a specific group of animals (think molluscs or microbes.) I have a Twitter account with my store's name that I post to once or twice a month with new products and other news. The majority of the posts are retweets of other people's photos of cool looking molluscs/microbes. I do this to try to create an appreciation of these less-popular animals, and to try to get interest in my store. I retweet 1-2 photos every 5-7 days a week (depending on what I find.)

My intention is to add some of my own photos in the future.

I wonder if the people most interested in my store are put off by the number of retweets. I have never gone above 25 followers. A competitor has a few hundred followers and doesn't retweet photos.

My question: should I create a second account (maybe called something like "I Love Diatoms") that focuses solely on the photo retweets, and keep my main account strictly business focused?

That way people can follow either or both as it appeals to them. I would put somewhere on the "I Love Diatoms" account "Sponsored by Store". I would like to continue retweeting photos as I and some people I have talked to enjoy seeing the photos. I also think it is good to create an appreciation of these creatures.

Any insight is appreciated, thank you!

 

[iamhimwhoishe]

@ashvinne I follow this sort of thing and related stuff on Twitter because I'm a nerd. My key takeaway of the platform is that stuff like this just doesn't fare well there. Niche sciency stuff was always hard in the past but has been even worse in the last year or so. It really just seems like a platform where people share shit opinions and the FBI uses it to push mentally unwell users over the edge.

I guess I mean to say, I don't think it's you, or anything you're doing right or wrong. A lot of the most popular accounts in some of these spheres solely retweet stuff. That's it. They don't produce original content at all. Some don't even comment and I still struggle to see the appeal. I'm confident at least half are bots or not even managed by real people 100% of the time. I don't know if their followers are even organic.

It might be more worth your time to explore different platforms. I don't think people log in there to learn or have fun. It seems like a place where people go for their 10 minutes of hate.

 

[ashvinne]

@iamhimwhoishe Thank you very much for replying and sharing your insight! I usually stay in my niche, sometimes other sciency niches, so I miss a lot of the "dumpster fire".

Not mentioned in my OP, but I have tried this for almost 2 years, and no one seems to care. At least a third of my followers I suspect are bots. Plus there is the person pushing her Only Fans (not to judge a book by its cover, but I suspect she doesn't care about microbes.)

Any alternative places you would recommend? Or anywhere you like to go for niche science stuff?

 

[iamhimwhoishe]

@ashvinne Instagram and YouTube are really good for this.

 

[ashvinne]

@iamhimwhoishe Great! Thank you very much!