Build Your Twitter Brand
Defining your presence on the platform of ideas
The more people know what you do, the luckier you get.
Having an audience gives you digital leverage you can use to direct attention toward topics that matter.
Social media is not a nuisance we are forced to deal with but rather a powerful tool to get you closer to achieving your mission. The moment you realize this, you will stop using the platform to consume and start creating.
Instead of getting drained, you'll start putting out the energy you'd like to see in the world.
Make sure you establish your personal brand before diving in. Your brand will be your evolving commitment to both your followers and yourself.
If you commit to nothing, you'll be distracted by everything.
Building a personal brand is essential if you want to make your voice heard. If you'd like to reach the aesthetically minded, go on Instagram. If you'd like to reach dancing younglings, you go on TikTok. If you'd like to reach the greatest minds in tech, politics, and philosophy, you go on Twitter.
I chose Twitter (X) as my primary platform, and if you are reading this, you likely will too.
At the end of this piece, you'll have the means to create all the components needed for a profile capable of effectively building digital leverage.
Here's how to get started:
Identify Your Mission
What are you on Twitter to do?
This should be in line with your larger calling in life.
It's fine if you haven't clearly articulated a fully-fledged life mission yet. In this case, it is important to use your curiosity as a compass for where you'd like to go in the long term.
You can have temporary missions during this exploratory phase and refine your objective and wording as you continue to learn more about the world and yourself.
Once you know what your current mission is, write it down in a sentence.
This will be the first part of your bio and the main reason why people will follow you.
Example:
Building XYZ to $1M and helping you do the same!
Identify Your 3 Topics
Once you've established your mission, you'll want to establish the three topical pillars of your brand.
The three topics should be subjects you are naturally drawn toward exploring and you find easy to chat about.
What topics do you enjoy reading about or discussing with your friends?
In the long term, your audience will be made up of people that are interested in one or multiple of these topics.
They do not have to be directly related to your mission, but the more aligned the better.
This will be the second part of your bio.
Example:
Join me for thoughts on 1, 2, and 3.
Write out three subtopics within each pillar. This will be helpful to guide your content production process in the future.
Make sure to follow a handful of active accounts per pillar as well; this will help you introduce yourself into conversations.
You can view these as mentors to imitate and get in touch with.
Reply to their posts and leverage their audiences to get eyes on your ideas early on.
Visual Aesthetic
Finally, you will want to define a visual aesthetic.
You'll want to establish a visual identity that is in the spirit of your stated mission.
Like the subtopics, the visual identity does not have to be a slave to your mission, but alignment helps.
More important is that both your profile picture and cover photo match.
You want to mix and match the use of symbols, words, and colors for your visitor to enjoy the moment they get impressed by your profile and think, "Aha - this makes sense :)".
Even though I am a fan of having my real identity associated with your work, don't fret if portrait profile pictures are not your thing.
There are thousands of anonymous accounts contributing great value to the platform.
Examples:
Show Your Work
After showing your profile visitor what you are all about, you'll want to provide some proof of why they should trust you with a follow.
This is best done by showing off some of your past (and current) work to establish authority.
You can shorten a link to a project you're proud of with services like tinyurl to reduce the number of characters they take up.
Add these at the very end of your bio, the link section, or the pinned tweet of your profile.
Examples:
Building: vaut.xyz
Read more here! tinyurl.com/3k76wcf5
X Premium
I recommend getting X Premium if you're serious about growing on Twitter.
It serves several functions that help you grow.
First of all, you'll get boosted by the algorithm on both the timeline and replies. That means more impressions by the people you'd like to get looking at your content.
Secondly, you'll be taken seriously by other creators. I personally use the blue checkmark as a spam filter and only get notified by verified users. If a user is not willing to invest in X Premium, I find it unlikely they'll invest the energy needed to produce quality content worth my attention.
If you're serious about having your voice heard, X Premium is a worthwhile investment.
Let’s Start Growing
And there you have it, my friend.
All the components needed to establish your Personal Brand on Twitter.
Now, let’s start growing:
Use your subtopics as subject inspiration to start writing some content.
Post consistently a couple of times a day.
Don't get caught up in editing too much; no one is watching at the beginning anyway.
See what ideas gain attention and expand on those.
You'll have hundreds of followers before you know it.
A strong social media presence is one of the most powerful tools you can build in the digital era. Build leverage in the attention economy and things will start working out effortlessly.
Join the conversation and start finding your audience.