Chapter 13

Making Twitter Your Personal Brand Diary

“You are what you tweet!”

@adamsconsulting

“Twitter is like a diary for me,” says Diana Adams. “I can look back through my timeline and know exactly what I was thinking and feeling on the days I sent certain tweets.”

Certainly looking at Diana’s Twitter stream (see Figure 13-1), you can immediately get a sense of the witty, superintelligent, and sometimes cheeky lady behind the tweets. Diana’s personal brand Twitter show radiates all the things that she loves, that she admires, and that simply catch her attention at a particular moment.

Founder of the #BA75 (that’s short for Badass 75 Women of Twitter, of which I’m proud to be one), Diana certainly knows how to strut her proverbial stuff on Twitter. As a researcher and writer for BitRebels.com, her curation skills are second to none, and she has a way of hitting exactly the right notes with her followers in providing both value and entertainment, a rare combination that Diana manages to achieve almost effortlessly, it seems.

So what’s the story behind Diana’s personal brand success?

First-Tweet Nerves

Diana remembers hearing about Twitter for the first time in December 2008, but she didn’t sign up to use the service until March 9, 2009. She recalls, “I heard people talking about Twitter and how interesting it was to type 140-character messages to people in the form of what everyone now knows as a tweet. I had never used a social media site before Twitter. Social media as a whole was still in its infancy, and Facebook was the only really popular social media site at the time. I wasn’t on Facebook, and I had no idea what to expect when I got on Twitter. I followed a handful of people and then sat back in amazement as I watched my Twitter stream for the first time.

“I just tried to watch and learn how other people tweeted before I actually sent a tweet myself. I saw people using the RT and quickly learned that is a retweet. Twitter is like anything else, if you really want to learn about it, which I did, it’s not hard to pick up. You just have to put a little effort into it. The first time someone sent me a tweet and the first time I was retweeted were both huge events for me. I remember jumping up and down with a big smile on my face.”

In the beginning, Diana says she didn’t have any thoughts about how useful Twitter would be from a personal branding perspective. “I don’t think very many people thought about it that way back then. … It was still so new, and at that time, none of us really understood what a powerful platform it would quickly evolve into. After about six months, the reality of what Twitter was capable of started to sink in.”

Back when Diana signed up, Twitter was a really small community, and it wasn’t very hard to make an impact. People were hungry for information, just like they are now, and it didn’t take long before she was completely hooked. Now, Diana has sent more than 112,000 tweets, and her popularity and influence on the platform continues to grow.

Fine-Tuning Her Personal Brand on Twitter

Diana learned how to use Twitter for her personal brand by trial and error. There were no user guides as such in the early days of Twitter and the platform was still very much in its infancy, so Diana was still feeling her way.

“I learned so much about personal branding when I set up my Twitter profile. The thing is, once you have established your personal brand with your username, it’s tough to change it. Some people have done it very successfully, like @AnitaNelson, @GlenGilmore, and @lorimcneeartist. They are all high-profile Twitter users, and all three changed their usernames to be more personal, but it can be risky.

“When I set up my Twitter account, I set it up as @adamsconsulting because I am the co-owner of an Apple-certified consulting company in Atlanta called Adams Consulting Group. At the time, that seemed like a logical username. In retrospect, I wish so much that I had used my name instead. I would have loved to have the username @Diana_Adams.”

But as time went on, Diana decided that to change her username would be a mistake. “I have so much time and hard work invested in @adamsconsulting, and that username has a whole reputation that’s already built. My entire personal brand is wrapped up in the username and I now have the same username on Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest. At this point, I’ve decided not to change it.”

Diana’s philosophy of personal branding in social media is all about building relationships in what has become a new value economy. This means letting followers see as much of the “real you” as possible through your bio (see Figure 13-2).

“If you are using Twitter to build your personal brand,” Diana says, “it’s vital to complete all the information that Twitter asks in the bio section. It’s important to have a profile picture, a complete bio, a link, and a location. Personal branding in social media is about building relationships, networking, meeting new friends, and helping one another. It’s hard to do that successfully if you don’t allow people to view you as a real person. Every piece of your Twitter profile will help you build your brand, so use it all to your advantage.”

Diana also learned a lesson about keeping consistency in your brand profile, especially where her profile picture was concerned. She recalls, “I had a very interesting experience regarding my personal branding on Twitter. I like to change my hair color a lot. It seems like a trivial thing, but in a profile picture, it can be a big deal. I had always heard people talk about how important it is to be genuine on Twitter, and that includes your profile picture.

“In my original Twitter photo, my hair is auburn [see Figure 13-3]. After I colored it blonde one day, I changed my picture so that it would be current [see Figure 13-3],” she recalls.

What happened next surprised her. “Suddenly people couldn’t find my tweets in their Twitter stream because they were looking for my regular profile picture. I received tweets from people saying that the change was weird, and I even had someone tweet me and say that he felt strange tweeting with me because I was suddenly like a different person. I could go on and on, but the lesson here is that people get attached to avatars, and from a personal branding perspective, you don’t want to lose the trust you’ve built with people just because you changed your picture. After only two days, I felt the backlash of my avatar change so much that I changed it back to the original one.

“I’m not saying that I won’t change my photo again. After all, I don’t want to be 50 years old someday and have the same profile picture I have now, but next time the change will be subtle. I will not do a drastic change to my photo ever again. I definitely learned my lesson on that one!”

Addicted to Twitter

“I’m a Twitter addict,” Diana claims (see Figure 13-4), “so my experience with Twitter might be a lot different from most people. Aside from an eight-day period in 2010 when I had a serious case of social media burnout, I’ve been on Twitter every single day since I signed up for the service on March 9, 2009.

“A lot of people set aside 15 minutes in the morning or evening to tweet. I don’t use Twitter that way. I’ve incorporated Twitter into my lifestyle, so I don’t set aside time to tweet. Instead, I tweet whenever all day long. For example, if I’m on hold for someone on the phone, I’ll send a tweet. If I’m standing in line at the store, I’ll send a tweet. If I’m in the bathtub or even if I’m riding my bicycle and I think of something funny, I’ll send a tweet [see Figure 13-5]. I sleep with my iPhone under my pillow, so during the night if I wake up, I’ll send a tweet.”

As far as content goes, Diana writes a minimum of three articles on BitRebels.com every day, seven days a week, which she tweets links to, again embracing cross-platform promotion (CPP).

“I’m humbled to say that our blog recently reached a Twitter milestone. We’ve been retweeted more than a million times. I also tweet other content that I find, plus retweeting is important to me. It’s a way to give back on Twitter, and I retweet a lot.”

Diana Adams’ Golden Rules for Personal Branding Success

Diana has ten best practices for successful personal branding.

1. Know your brand

“Before you start promoting your brand on Twitter, be sure you know what your personal brand is. If you don’t feel confident about your brand message, and if you can’t describe your brand in one or two sentences, you might want to think about refining it a little.

“My personal brand is wrapped around everything that is considered geek, and I attract the geeky crowd on Twitter. I’m known for tweeting about Star Wars, Lego, geeky apps, and social media.

“What is your brand? Do people see your profile picture and immediately think of your brand? If not, that’s your goal. If even you are unclear about your brand, the first thing you want to do is develop your brand identity. What is your passion? What do you want to tweet about? What is your blog about? In what areas could you be considered a leader? Those are places you might find your answers when it comes to personal branding.”

2. Determine where you will get your content to tweet

“Once you have determined your personal brand, the next step is to figure out what content you are going to tweet that fits into your branding strategy. Most of the tweets on Twitter come from three main sources:

• “You can retweet people’s tweets. I call this going tweet shopping, and it’s a great way to find killer content. However, if you are going to establish yourself as a leader in your personal branding niche, you don’t want your entire Twitter stream to be retweets. You want to show people that you can find and create content on your own too.
• “You can learn how to use curation tools to find good content and then use them on Twitter using cross-platform promotion (CPP).
• “You can create your own Twitter content on your blog. My colleague Richard Darell (@Minervity) and I write a minimum of three articles each, every day, seven days a week, for our blog called Bit Rebels. We decided that we wanted to create our own content to tweet. We still retweet a lot, and we still tweet content from other sites that we find. However, the majority of our content we create ourselves. We used Twitter as a springboard for our blog which launched in June 2009. We write geeky content, which fits our personal branding objectives and now have between 2 million and 4 million visitors on our site each month.”

One of the keys to success on Twitter is being consistent, so it’s important to determine where exactly your tweets will come from, so you will have a consistent supply of content to send out to your followers. And don’t forget to use the four types of tweet introduced in Chapter 5.

3. Invite people to see the real you

“Use every opportunity Twitter gives you to invite people to see you as a real person and get to know you.

For people to like, trust, and connect with your personal brand, they have to be able to see you as a human being. Twitter gives each of us several opportunities to promote ourselves, yet so few people take advantage of them. If you are promoting your personal brand, be sure to fill out your complete Twitter bio, keeping it in sync with your brand message.

“This includes a personal profile picture (headshots work well), a completely-filled-out bio that describes you, a link to your blog or other site, and a location. If you travel a lot and want to put ‘worldwide’ for your location, that is fine. People put some funny things in that space, but just don’t leave it blank. Leaving any aspect of your Twitter bio blank sends a message that you were too lazy to complete it.

“Twitter also gives you the opportunity to jazz up your Twitter background with graphics. There are many websites you can go to which offer free Twitter backgrounds, or of course, you can use a personal photograph or create one of your own.”

4. Be likable, be yourself, and engage

“Once you’ve determined your personal brand message, you’ve figured out where you are going to get your content to tweet, and you’ve completed your Twitter bio, you are ready to go!

“Remember that in addition to great content, you want to engage with people on Twitter and get to know them. I always joke that it’s called ‘social media’ because it’s social. Again, using the four types of tweet will ensure that you cover all bases and maximize your personal brand message.

“Being on Twitter is like going to a cocktail party, only for this party, you can wear your pajamas instead of a dress. Sometimes people who are new to Twitter get very nervous about how to start a conversation with people and how to get to know them. All you have to remember is to be likable and be yourself. Be the same way as you are offline. You want to be genuine and sincere. If you are doing that, you are doing it right. It’s that simple.”

5. Don’t be bullied

“When Twitter and social media as a whole were very new concepts, there were many people who tried to dictate what was right and what was wrong in social media. In the case of Twitter, I remember those days, and the new people who joined the site did everything the existing people advised because they wanted to ‘do it right.’

“Times have changed a lot since then, and there will inevitably be those who, for one reason or another, will decide to criticize or challenge your tweets or style of tweeting. Remember that nobody has the right to tell you that you are tweeting too much or too little. If any person tries to bully you or starts to cramp your Twitter style, you can always unfollow or block that person.”

6. Keep it fun

“Because everyone on Twitter follows different people, everyone’s Twitter experience is different. Twitter is a very fun, positive, happy place for me. As the saying goes, my friends live in my computer, and I get to talk to them whenever I log into Twitter. If Twitter is not a fun place for you, adjust who you are following. It’s that simple. Find someone on Twitter who you like and look at who he or she is following. Check out the bios of those people, and find a new crowd to hang out with. If you follow the right people, Twitter is a blast!”

7. Don’t get into rants on your public Twitter stream

“There is nothing that can ruin your personal brand faster on Twitter than having a rant with someone in the stream. It’s not worth it. Remember to always keep your cool, and if you need to rant about something, move to a Twitter direct message where it will be kept private.

“I’ve had people try to bait me into arguments on Twitter, but the way I look at it, I don’t want to give that person the satisfaction of showing up on my page, so I just ignore them. If such people continue bothering me, I unfollow them, and in extreme cases I’ve had to block people. Again, Twitter is like real life in that not everyone will like you. Sooner or later, you may run into bad apples, and when that happens, don’t indulge their tantrums but step back and be the better tweeter.

8. Get chatting!

“Twitter chats are made up of groups of people with the same interests who meet on Twitter for one hour either once a week or once a month. They tweet using a specific hashtag, and if you follow along on Twitter search using that hashtag, you can keep up with the conversation and meet a lot of new friends.

“If your personal branding strategy has to do with health, you might want to join the #FitStudio chat. If you are a woman who wants to cyber-meet other strong women on Twitter, you might want to join #BA75chat. If you like country music, the #CMchat (the largest chat on Twitter right now) might be for you. There are hundreds of chats on Twitter, and you can discover them by simply doing a search on Twitter and on Google.”

9. Remember that on Twitter, you have to give before you receive

“This golden rule is alive and well on Twitter, and has been since the beginning. If you want to be recognized on Twitter as a leader and if you want your personal brand to grow, it’s important to give before you will receive. If you want more retweets, retweet others. If you want more help figuring things out, help others with things you know how to do. If you want more people to engage with you and tweet you, you have to engage with others and tweet them first.

“The most important thing is to never give up. Twitter is huge and can be an intimidating platform for newbies. It might take a little time to get your personal brand noticed by others. If you are genuine and consistent, though, it is only a matter of time until it all clicks for you!”

10. Overcome Twitter burnout

“I’ve had social media burnout before, and I can assure you that it’s a very real feeling. It’s tough because, if you are like me and if the majority of your friends are online, you miss them terribly when you are offline. However, if you are online 24/7, eventually your mental and physical state may start requiring more time offline.

“There are things I’ve done to overcome that Twitter burnout feeling, including eating meals away from my computer, keeping in touch with phone friends, and remembering that it’s all about balance.

Diana Adams’ Favorite Twitter Tools

“I’ve used too many Twitter tools over the years to even count,” Diana tells me. “I used Twitter.com for the first month I was on Twitter, and then I quickly learned how important it is to filter tweets from specific people, as it cuts down on the noise. According to a Twitter tool I checked out today for the first time, I have more than 179,000 tweets that I would see every day if I looked at my Twitter stream all day long. That is a lot of tweets! So, I definitely rely on my tools to help streamline things a bit.

“Over the years, I’ve used TweetDeck, TweetCaster, HootSuite, Seesmic, CoTweet, Pluggio, Echofon, and many more. Most people I know have experimented with different tools.

“First of all, as you grow your personal brand and your followers on Twitter, your needs change. A tool or app that worked before suddenly might not be fulfilling your needs anymore. Also, some of these apps (like a lot of Twitter tools) work exceptionally well but only until you reach a certain number of people that you follow. I don’t follow everyone back, but I do follow most people back. As a result, I’m following more than 62,000 people. A lot of Twitter tools get wonky when they have to manage that many people.

“So, I’m on an ever-changing quest to find the perfect tool, and so far I haven’t found it. Right now I’m using TweetDeck on my iPhone and my laptop, but will most likely be changing soon.

“Some other more general Twitter tools to try are ManageFlitter (to manage who you follow, to link Google+ to Twitter, and to find out who unfollowed you), Tweepi (to unfollow inactive Twitter accounts), Buffer (to efficiently schedule tweets), TweetChat [shown in Figure 13-6] to easily participate in Twitter chats without getting overwhelmed, TweetReach (to see how far a particular tweet traveled), TwitterCounter (to get a report and graph of your general Twitter stats), and — I could go on and on.

“There are more than 70,000 Twitter apps and probably just as many Twitter tools available for you to try out. Most of them are cheeky and fun, but some are really powerful!”

A Life-Changing Personal Brand Experience

For some people, building a personal brand on Twitter can seem like a daunting task. Diana makes it look simple but acknowledges, “There are so many details to think about, and if you aren’t careful, it might even start to feel like a chore. Remember to keep it fun. The best personal brands on Twitter were built from that foundation. Keep it simple, and keep it human.

“I’ve made connections on Twitter that are invaluable, and I’ve had once-in-a-lifetime experiences that I would have never been able to have if it weren’t for Twitter. For example, because I met @Lotay on Twitter, I was invited to fly to Shanghai for a Black Card Circle charity event. It was an experience that changed my life and my view of the world [see Figure 13-7].

“Another example of the incredible connections I’ve made is the Badass Twitter Women [#BA75] group. Along with @HowellMarketing, I wrote an article on Bit Rebels about the 75 most bad-ass women on Twitter. I had no idea when I wrote it of the impact it would make. That article has gone viral many times over, and the sisterhood and bond between all the women in it is something we all cherish. It’s a bond that will last forever.”

Diana believes that Twitter is so much more than just another social network. “Sure, it’s exciting to get a tweet from a celebrity every once in a while, and a lot of people join the site hoping for that experience, but for me, it’s not about that at all. Twitter is a site that has changed the lives of so many ordinary people like you and me, and the opportunities there are endless. Don’t be afraid. Dive in and take advantage of it all. It’s right there waiting for you!”