Is Twitter a must for your project?

You have it backward. You ask yourself "Why do I need a Twitter account for my project". If you can come up with valid reasons, then you need it. I will tell you why not only you don't need it, but it's wasted time (in my opinion):

1. almost everybody has it. When everybody applies a strategy, it's when it stops being effective.
2. people relate more with people than with brands.
3. your project has a high risk of failure. Imagine spending months building a twitter following that it's now completely useless for. On the contrary, a personal profile will always be with you.
4. there are examples of successful makers that don't have a Twitter profile for their projects, like aj (carrd), ben tossell (makerpad) and pieter levels.
5. all the time you spend on twitter is a time that you could spend elsewhere and when you are just starting out there a million things that you should think of before starting a twitter page. Being successful on social media requires hours every single day. It's the most crowded space I can think of and people leverage all the same strategies. It's hard to find a competitive advantage. The alternative is doing it like crap, like the people at point 1 do it, and have 0 results.

Now a couple of reasons why you should have it: 1. you have outgrown your personal brand. I hope it for you, but it's going to require years if ever happens. 2. you basically sell advertising. Think about betalist and similar. They have a paid tier and to make you pay they tell you that they have x amount of followers.

We used to post on Twitter at the beginning of the project. Now we are mostly focused on GitHub and Linkedin. Somehow there is so much political noise on Twitter, it is difficult to do anything technology-related there.

This is completely contextual to the specific startup.

Would a local dentistry benefit from investing time into social media - probably not
Would a UX designer who posts 🔥tips to grow their audience before a book launch - 100%

In the case of my own startup, Marketing Examples it's been a massive help. About 30% of my traffic comes from twitter. And I've grown to > 1000 followers in 50 days

Why? Because I actually have stuff to tweet about. Twitter is the perfect match to promote my case studies.

But if I was a local dentist, it might be a waste of time and you'd be better going out into the town on foot!

Hey! 👋 I’m on both sides here. I think it’s great to have a dedicated Twitter acc to separate tweets from your personal stuff — if people follow your project they likely want to see related content, not your personal views on politics or fast food.

On the other hand, my Twitter acc for Setup Scout has been empty from the start, and still is, because I just haven’t been able to find the time yet. So I’m in the same boat as you.

In any case, see what best fits you and your audience. Are they even ON Twitter? That’s the real question. If they are, it’s likely worth investing the time and energy. If not, well... the problem kind of solves itself.

Since I didn't see this really in the current comments, for me, when any product/company, it depends on who your audience is. Every social network as a different audience, some vary slightly while others vary drastically.

The question should be, is my audience on Twitter?

I think it's useful for me because I work with webdevs and they're generally on Twitter

I set up a Twitter account right away, and cultivated a small follower base of. about 600. Way premature, and maybe totally pointless. The account will drive a click here and there, but that’s about it.

I’m probably leveraging incorrectly, though. Social media is not my area of expertise.

Never really understood Twitter. Not for me. Wouldn't want to get on it to push a product because I don't value it and I imagine it will come across as not genuine

"but does it take many more energy to maintain it? " - Dude, if you want to make it, you need energy, a lot of it. So stop thinking in 'lazy mode'.

Twitter is a means to market your product, so yes get it. Unless your customer base doesnt care too much for that sort of thing. Simple.

Keep pushing. You'll do great!