Twenty-thousand Twitter followers can’t be wrong.

That’s the number attorney Exavier B. Pope reached last year, a number twice as big as the goal he set in 2011, two years after he launched his Twitter account.

“People don’t understand the power of social media,” Pope said. “It’s like striking gold for branding.”

Pope’s Twitter growth is largely a product of his Twitter use.

That, and a six-step strategy he developed on the road to 20,000.

Become a student

Pope launched @exavierpope in June 2009. In 2011, he was still under 100 followers.

He was pursuing representation to set up media appearances, and his future agents said they couldn’t represent him until he had more followers.

So he started studying.

“Attorneys should treat social media like getting another Continuing Legal Education credit,” Pope said. “Take a class on it. If you truly want it to be a part of your business, then treat it like a part of your business.”

Pope took a class online at Social Media Marketing University. He also studied Twitter accounts of users with a lot of followers.

“When his (future) agent told him to boost his followers, he took it to heart,” said Pope’s wife, Dana. “He started reading everything he could. He’s like Encyclopedia Brown. You can’t have a conversation with Exavier without him researching and Googling.”

Decide what to say

Pope’s feed consists primarily of three elements: expressing positivity, talking about sports and entertainment largely from a legal perspective and sharing stories.

His advice for attorneys is simple. Tweet what you know.

“If your practice is about family law, then you want to start tweeting family law articles,” he said.

Experiment with hashtags

#Oscars2014. #chicagolaw. #SuperBowlXLVIII. #FreeAtCDLB.

These are hashtags — organizational tools used to drive communication. Think of them as a filing system. A hashtag attaches your tweet to every other tweet with the same hashtag.

When people search that hashtag, they find your tweet.

That’s what happened to Pope during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

As Clint Eastwood berated an empty chair representing President Barack Obama, tweeters used the hashtag #RNC as well as #Eastwooding, a play on the popular “Tebowing.”

One of Pope’s tweets during that event has, to date, been retweeted nearly 1,500 times and was referenced by a number of news outlets.

“Clint Eastwood summed up the #RNC perfectly: An old crotchety rich white man fighting against an imaginary black threat. #eastwooding”

Pope recommends using hashtags to find conversations you want to join. Do this by searching terms like #familylaw, #tortlaw or Pope’s favorite, #sportslaw.

Mine for followers

Like using hashtags to search, you also want to find tweeters valuable to your business. Pope mines followers by connecting with influential people who can lead their followers back to Pope.

Call it the Twitter transitive property.

“All you need is one (influential) person,” Pope said.

Followers of that person will see that he or she follows you. Those followers will then follow you, too.

“You build on the goodwill of that following,” Pope said. “That’s how you build up your Twitter following.”

Be communicative

“(Some) people are more narcissistic about how they use Twitter,” Pope said. “They mostly use it as a megaphone as opposed to a telephone.”

Not Pope. He talks to everyone.

“I met him first via Twitter,” said Marcus Leshock, a reporter on “WGN Morning News.” “There’s a word in social media: It’s ‘social.’ And he understands that.”

A prolific tweeter himself, Leshock recognized Pope’s Twitter appeal immediately.

“He doesn’t just hop on Twitter and drop an opinion and leave,” Leshock said. “For a guy who has 20,000 followers, that’s huge. A lot of people (at) that level say ‘I have this pulpit now and I will preach to them.’ ... He genuinely cares what people are thinking and talks with them about those issues.”

Never stop exploring

Twitter is always changing. A good tweeter is up on the trends.

“Every few months, I come back to (mining) and do it again,” Pope said.

He is constantly evaluating his feed’s value to his followers’ Twitter diet. He also knows that results come slowly. But they come.

“It’s a year strategy,” Pope said. “You can’t be frustrated if you don’t see the follower count add up just yet. Once I hit 2,000 followers, I leaped.”

That’s a hare move. But he got there like the tortoise.