by Gene Patterson

Created on: September 30, 2010   Last Updated: October 13, 2010

Having a personal online "Brand" is a great way to get noticed and achieve success.  Twitter is an incredible format for building such a recognizable Brand.  Whether you are importing a brand that has been successful outside of Twitter or starting one from the ground up there are set steps that you need to take make a quality brand.

♦  Decide on a

niche and a brand.

What do you want to brand and what do you want to be known for.  If you are doing it for business purposes do you want to be professional, associated with your existing company, associated with something you are going to sell or simply be known as an expert in a specific area.  You need to know what where you want to go and what you want to do long before you can create a path to get there.

♦  First Impressions last.

First impressions are lasting impressions.  The first thing you need to do is tailor a good background image and theme that represents what you want it to represent.  Then you need to put as much information in your profile as possible.  If you want to seem creative make sure your background and profile are creative and original.  If you want to be seen as professional make sure your they make that statement for you.

♦  Connect with people on Twitter

Your Twitter account is useless if you have no followers.  Reach out to everyone you know in the field.  Then reach out to people that you do not know.  Be aggressive.  Follow lots of people, Retweet good stuff.  Tweet your own interesting information.  Use the system for all it is worth and be seen as, “one of the good guys”

♦  Become known for quality on Twitter

This is important.  It is only 140 characters.  There is not time to tweet the works of Shakespeare.  You have to pass a lot of meaning in a short Tweet.  If you are Tweeting or Retweeting Blog posts or articles make sure they are good ones.  Do not over do it and get to the point where people simply ignore everything that you send. Become known for quality.

♦  Put out quantity also

It is a fine line.  Sort of like the Goldilocks and the three bears.  You have to be like the middle bear, “Just Right”.  Put out too much and you can seem to be “spammy”  but if you do not put out enough you will be hard to remember and harder to “brand”

♦  Expand your reach; touch on “movers” and shakers and try to get them involved.

Once you have things going try to connect with movers and shakers in your field.  If they have a blog post on it.  Retweet a lot of their tweets.  Send them @ tweets, but only if the quality is VERY high.  You want to make a connection with them, but not be seen as TOO pushy.

 ♦  That is it! 

Follow those steps and you should have a great personal branding or be well on your way to getting one.  Rome was not built in a day, so it is hard to rush to make a brand.  Build it slow and steady, brick by brick, and you shall build a winning brand.

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