Personal Branding Weekly - How to Create Meaningful Attention

Because content has been touted as “king”, we see many spewing out loads of content thinking that is the way to draw attention to their personal brand. The question then is “any content good content?”

Twitter as an engagement tool

On Twitter, you hear the advice of “tweet 8 times a day to get noticed”. Is it more a broadcast channel or a place to really create engagement and develop relationships?

The answer is “yes” if you focus on that. There are definitely several brands and individuals who broadcast at high velocity to stay top of mind. You, as a personal brand, have the ability to do so in a more meaningful way by providing meaningful mentions for meaningful attention.

Twitter used correctly is a creative way for you to personally connect with people that you wouldn’t otherwise have a direct connection with. It’s also a great tool to build relationships with acquaintances.

You can reach company presidents, organization leaders and influencers in your industry in a way that establishes rapport and a chance for them to get to know you. People do business with people they know, like and trust. Enter into true conversations with people on Twitter, and you can develop know, like and trust with them.

To chat or not to chat

If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, you’ve heard of Twitter chats. They are conversations. It is a chat session that goes on via Twitter, sending your messages out via public tweets.

Where I see people struggle is in deciding to create a chat themselves. Some delve into this quickly, after all the practice of creating your own Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups is so popular now that the natural tendency is to believe that developing a Twitter chat should be just as easy.

Gary Vaynerchuk recommends “don’t do it!” He says to ride the hashtag rather than create it.

As the creator and moderator of #brandchat, a weekly chat on Twitter all about every aspect of branding that’s been in existence of five years, I see the value in creating a chat yet there has to be good decision making and strategy around it. I have a few of my own thoughts, too, and if you’re interested in exploring if a Twitter chat is right for you or need the “how to’s” in creating one, then I cover that in my YouTube series titled, Twitter Chat Tips.

Be meaningful

One easy way to be meaningful immediately, is to retweet with purpose or mention someone with your thoughts included. When commenting on valuable content that has been tweeted, posted, or otherwise written, be sure that your comment is thorough and shares your insights as to why this pertains to you. Answer the question – what made it valuable to your specific area of expertise? Don’t just recommend it; provide a reason why it is your recommendation.

This week we also covered: