10 Tried-And-True Tips to Build a Personal Brand on Twitter

You already know you need to grow on Twitter.

That's why I won't give you a boring list of reasons in this article. Instead, let me begin with my story.

My name is Sveta Bay. I'm a co-founder of MakerBox and SponsorThisNewsletter. Six months ago, in June 2022, Dan (my Co-founder) and I started building and selling digital products. Since then, we have generated $24 000+ with our products.

Okay. But how is Twitter related to it?

Twitter is our Top-2 traffic source, requiring a $0 budget. Consistency and personal brand pay off.

By the way, we also have an article about our Top-1 traffic source. Check it out to learn more about launching on Product Hunt.

Let's come back to Twitter. Consistency is just a habit. Get used to:

• showing up daily
• posting 3 times daily
• writing 20 comments
• spending on it 1-2 hours.

The hardest part is building your personal brand and being memorable. Just imagine: there're 245M daily active users on Twitter. Your tweets will be lost in the feed if you don't have any differentiators from others.

I wrote my first tweet on 1st July 2022: I had 0 followers, my threads got 3 likes, and impressions didn't reach even a hundred. Today is 16th November 2022. In 4.5 months, I got 5K followers and an extremely responsive audience. The craziest part — in 9 months I got 15K followers.

Here're 10 tips that helped me to do it. Sorry, but no hacks and shortcuts inside.

1. Niche down.

If you tweet about everything, you tweet about nothing. Of course, you can simultaneously create content about marketing, football, urban planning, and ecology.

But people won't have any associations with your profile. It'll be just a dump of your thoughts. Not because it's terrible but because it's a mix of everything.

Instead, understand your main topics that are connected.

2. Treat your Twitter profile like a product.

Twitter is fun and intuitive if you have 10K+ followers and feel your audience. But to reach these 10K, you need to treat your profile like a product.

I suggest you have brainstorming sessions about content and growth planning. Also, keep your value proposition updated. And don't forget about "competitor analysis" to get inspired and connect with other creators.

3. Create a content matrix.

Believe me; you don't want to spend hours daily thinking about what to tweet. Invest 1 hour in creating a content matrix. Thank me later for saving you 10+ hours monthly.

• Come up with 3-5 big topics you want to cover.
• Mix different content types: engage, educate, inspire, challenge, and entertain.
• Brainstorm a content matrix: combine content types and big topics.

4. Mix professional and personal.

People follow people, not robots or content machines. Personal content helps build connections and make friends.

Also, educational content doesn't work well on weekends. So, it's the best time to share something about you.

5. Don't spam with your product.

You want to grow on Twitter to get free traffic to your product. But do you like it when your feed is full of links and promotions? Of course, no.

Keep it organic, share updates and progress about the product, and plug your product into threads with value. But please, don't insert a link in every single tweet.

6. Focus on personal experience, not on theory.

If you want to find any theoretical information, you don't go on Twitter. Instead, you Google it and find articles or YouTube videos.

If you want people to remember you and your product - share learnings from building and growing your product. That's the type of content that people search for on Twitter. Explore the #buildinpublic hashtag, where people post consistent updates.

7. Don't be a copycat. Get inspired instead.

Take this advice not only for Twitter. Copying content from others has never helped to build an audience.

Instead, get inspired by content formats and topics. Observe and come up with something unique. Always add value.

8. Connect with people with the same interests.

If you read threads about growing on Twitter, you'd notice that all of them have a tweet about building connections. DM people with the same interests and connect with them. Small talks can lead to making Twitter friends who'll always be there for you.

No jokes. They'll support you and engage a lot. And you'll want to do the same when you see them in the feed.

9. Being kind is a superpower.

This is the most underrated advice. Sometimes there're days when you don't know what to tweet or to write meaningful comments. The good part is that you don't have to force yourself to do it.

Instead, you can write a supportive tweet. You can cheer up people in the comments and congratulate them for the wins. Good emotions for both you and the people who read it. Win-win.

10. Experiment with content formats.

I'm not sure whether it's possible to grow without experiments. Content that works for you now might not work tomorrow. So, be open to new formats.

Try memes, engaging questions, one-liners, threads, and positive tweets. The worst thing that can happen - this content type won't work for you. It doesn't sound scary, is it?

Conclusion

Don't try to find any shortcuts and hacks. They're never scalable and don't work in the long term. Instead, double down on the value you provide and experiment.

Don't treat your account just like a traffic source. Have fun connecting with other people and learning from each other. With this approach, it'll be much easier to grow.