Twitter Personal Branding Strategy: Get the Most Out of Re-tweets

What does your Twitter personal brand communications plan look like? Do you have a plan, or do you spend a lot of time tweeting about what you had for lunch or what movie you saw last night?

Along with creating on-brand original tweets that will resonate with your target audience, consider building a re-tweeting strategy to fully leverage the value of Twitter.

In fact, if you do nothing else on Twitter, posting relevant re-tweets can be a powerful way to build brand evangelism, a quality Twitter following, and get on the radar of people you want to rub elbows with, such as subject matter experts in your niche and hiring decision makers at companies you’re targeting in your job search.

Here’s some advice on how to re-tweet (RT) appropriately and courteously from social media strategists, the people at Twitter, and finally, me:

You may not be aware of this, but according to Twitter Support, “Re-posting another person’s updates without giving them credit and without their permission is a violation of Twitter’s rules”.

Twitter further states:

1.  Re-posting others’ updates, regardless of stating authorship, is a potential form of spam.

2.  Re-posting others’ updates as one’s own without giving credit to the original author is tantamount to plagiarism.

For some in depth statistics, read Dan Macsai’s (@dmacsai) 9 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter, at @FastCompany.

Here are some of my “give to get” re-tweet strategies (Tweetdeck and other applications will help you manage it all):

• Your re-tweets should be consistent with and support your brand. That doesn’t mean you can’t RT off-topics and humorous tidbits.
• Don’t automatically re-tweet something containing a link without making sure it works and that it doesn’t lead somewhere you don’t really want to send people.
• Structure your original tweets so they’re short enough to allow for more than one re-tweet without alteration.
• As a thank you to new followers you may or may not follow back, find a tweet of theirs to RT.
• Take the time to tweet a thank you to people who RT you, even if you’re not the tweet originator.
• It’s always nice to include your own brief supportive comment with a re-tweet that’s exceptional. If you’re having a hard time generating conversation on Twitter, re-tweeting in this way will help.
• Boost a Twitter newbie by checking in on them from time to time and re-tweeting their relevant tweets.
• Don’t change the wording of the original tweet, except to abbreviate for space.
• However, use abbreviations sparingly. A jumble of single letters and numbers can be confounding and doesn’t give a professional impression.
• If you have the time to track down the original author of the article or post you’re re-tweeting, give them attribution with an @username.
• Many blogs now have the nifty Tweetmeme (or other) re-tweet button alongside each post – a great time saver. But sometimes the blogger hasn’t customized the plug-in to include their @username in the RT, or the generated tweet includes the blog name, making the RT too long, or a guest blogger wrote the post, but the Tweetmeme RT doesn’t attribute them. Take the time to restructure and tweak the RT to resolve these issues.
• Use hashtags in your RTs when you can. Read BenParr’s (@BenParr) HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags, at @mashable for all the skinny.
• Regularly, but respectfully, re-tweet people whose attention you’re trying to get and who you’re hoping will follow you. Also, if you’re not already following them, coincide a re-tweet of one of their original tweets right after you hit the button to follow them. Sometimes this gets their attention. But realize that some popular tweeps don’t want to follow a lot of people, so they may never follow you.

If you have other re-tweet tips, please let me know in a comment. I’d love to hear your strategies!

Related posts:

14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

Best of Twitter for Personal Branding and Executive Job Search

 

An Executive Personal Branding, Online Identity and Job Search Strategist, Meg is a 20-year careers industry professional and one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials, both gold standards.

“I love my work collaborating with savvy corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who know where they’re going, but need help differentiating their unique promise of value in the new world of work and executive job search, and positioning themselves to work their passion. My clients are typically c-suite, senior-level executives and rising stars.”

Find out more about Meg at Executive Career Brand, and by viewing her LinkedIn profile and following her on Twitter.

Want Personal Brand Health Insurance? Follow the 3 C’s

  

To safeguard the integrity and vitality of your personal brand, and keep it working for you, practice the 3 C’s of brand communication. 

William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson, who innovated the strategy in their benchmark Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand, say the 3 C’s are the cornerstone of personal branding. 

Every strong brand embraces these three essential characteristics: 

1. Clarity 

Be clear about who you are, who you are not, who your competitors are, and who your target audience is. 

• Understand precisely what differentiates the value you offer over and above your peers so that you can express it with energy and confidence.
• Know your competitors so that you can distinguish your brand messaging from theirs.
• Determine how to attract people who will aid you in reaching your career goals.
• Identify your target audience and where you will find them so that you can strategically position yourself and your value proposition in front of them.
• Design and communicate crystal clear brand messaging that will resonate with them. Be sure your personal marketing materials speak to your target audience and are thoroughly aligned with meeting their needs.

For example, don’t create a generic resume and career biography, trying to be all things to all people. If you’re covering too many bases, you can’t possibly address the specific needs of your target companies and express how you are the best hiring choice to meet their challenges. You’ll be communicating a murky message that won’t hit home with anyone. 

2. Consistency 

Consistently express the same personal brand message, designed to resonate with your target audience, across all communications channels (online and offline) you decide to use in your brand communications plan. 

Put yourself in the place of people assessing you through your communications and deciding whether to hire you or do business with you. If your brand message varies from one real-life setting to the next or from one social network to the next or from one website to the next, you will confuse them. 

Design all of your personal marketing communications to steadfastly convey your good fit for your target companies or organizations. Adjust your messaging if your target audience changes. 

3. Constancy 

Strong brands are always visible to their target audience. 

Proactively stay top of mind with them through social media, real-life networking, and all other personal marketing efforts. 

For instance, the immediacy of social media at sites like LinkedIn and Twitter allows you to constantly update your network and target audience in brand-reinforcing micro messages that amplify your visibility and credibility. 

With your personal brand 3 C’s in line, you’ll be able to design a far-reaching personal brand communications plan. Be sure your plan initiatives are realistic and will keep you engaged. They may include social networking, blogging, speaking engagements, real-life networking through professional affiliations, publishing articles and white papers online and in print, and volunteering, to name a few. 

Include regular monitoring of your online brand visibility (i.e., self-Googling) in your routine to assess the ongoing efficacy and viability of your plan, and immediately address any digital dirt about you. 

Need help defining and monitoring your personal brand? Check out my previous Brand-Yourself posts: 

Personal Branding Worksheet: 10 Steps to Defining Your Unique Value Proposition 

Personal Branding Demystified 

Digital Distinction: Does Your Executive Brand Pack a Punch Online? 

 

An Executive Personal Branding, Online Identity and Job Search Strategist, Meg is a 20-year careers industry professional and one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials, both gold standards. 

“I love my work collaborating with savvy corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who know where they’re going, but need help differentiating their unique promise of value in the new world of work and executive job search, and positioning themselves to work their passion. My clients are typically c-suite, senior-level executives and rising stars.” 

Find out more about Meg at Executive Career Brand, and by viewing her LinkedIn profile and following her on Twitter. 

Leverage LinkedIn for Personal Branding and Targeted Executive Job Search

Does your job search mostly center on posting your resume to job boards and waiting for responses?

If so, it’s time to shift your energy to the strategies that yield the best return on investment.

A successful job search campaign begins with identifying the job(s) that will meet your needs and be a good fit, and determining which companies or organizations can provide opportunities for you.

Any professional job search strategist worth her or his salt will tell you that networking is the best way to get a job. If this is news to you, you need to rethink the way you’re approaching job search.

The gold standard in executive networking, LinkedIn, is THE place to reconnect with the network you may have neglected, connect with fresh faces who may lead you to new job opportunities, and communicate your unique promise of value — your personal brand — to employers.

But that’s just part of what LinkedIn can do for you. Have you investigated all the job search resources on LinkedIn?

Along with completing and branding your profile, here are two LinkedIn features you should be taking advantage of:

Your LinkedIn Profile

Before leveraging all that LinkedIn has to offer, you have to set up your home base. If you already have a profile, it may need pumping up to be brand-evident and search engine optimized.

It’s also important to have a 100% complete profile, according to LinkedIn’s guidelines. See Walt Feigenson’s excellent post here, Make Sure Your LinkedIn Profile is 100 Percent Complete.

As you’re building LinkedIn connections, using the two tools below and other means, anyone you invite into your network will first go to your profile to assess whether to connect with you. Make sure what they find in your profile is what they need to know about you and the value you offer potential employers.

For best impact, your profile needs to communicate your personal brand, target and resonate with your target market, and be searchable to attract recruiters and hiring decision makers sourcing candidates like you.

Download my free e-book to learn how to bring it all together, Executive Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile: How to Transform Your Executive Brand, Resume, and Career Biography Into a Winning LinkedIn Profile.

Remember to revisit your profile and re-focus your professional headline, brand promise, and other relevant information if your target changes.

Here are two LinkedIn features that provide company research and market intelligence, and help you connect with people at your target companies:

LinkedIn “Jobs” Tab

You’ll find the tab in the top menu on your profile home page, along with Contact, Groups, Inbox and More…

What you’ll find on the Jobs pages:

Click on the “Advanced Job Search” tab to refine and narrow results using keywords and by location, function, experience level, job title, company, industry, and when listing was posted.

Results yield links to job descriptions (through LinkedIn and/or Simply Hired) and application capability, along with links to the LinkedIn profiles of people who work at those companies.

LinkedIn job posting pages also provide a link to the profile of the person who posted the listing, people at the company you’re already connected to through Groups or your network, and suggested people in your network who may be interested in the job.

The Jobs tab leads you to exclusive job listings found only on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn “Companies” Tab

One of LinkedIn’s most powerful features, the Companies pages provide a wealth of valuable information to gather market intelligence for due diligence on companies of interest and people who work there, including hiring decision makers.

Companies pages are accessed from the same menu at the top of your profile home page. Click on the drop-down menu for “More…” and you’ll see it at the top.

What you’ll find when you search your target companies:

• Company descriptions
• Total number of employees, with the number in your LinkedIn extended network
• Current employees with links to their profiles
• Former employees with links to their profiles
• New hires with links to their profiles
• Recent promotions and changes with links to their profiles
• Popular profiles (most visitors) with links to their profiles
• The right sidebar includes information sourced in partnership with BusinessWeek:
  –  related companies
  –  career path for company employees before and after
  –  key statistics (company size, revenue, locations, company website, common job titles, median employee age, number of males vs. females)
  –  recent company news culled from various sources
  –  stock information.

Smart-networking expert Liz Lynch suggested how to use all this company information in her post at the Personal Branding Blog, The Hidden Goldmine Within the LinkedIn Companies Tab:

• Current employees are invaluable resources for getting a handle on what is happening at the company now and the direction it’s going. Plus, they can be great allies for helping you get your resume to the right people and putting in a good word for you (if they know you, of course!).
• New promotions and changes may be in the market to hire for new positions as they expand their department, replace existing under-performers, or fill their own prior position.
• New hires can hint at where there may be growth opportunities within the company. Even if you can’t speak to them directly, you can get a sense if certain divisions have been on a hiring spree and target them first.
• Recent departures might be more open to talking about the challenges the company is having, which managers might be great to work for and who might be a nightmare (good info to know before you accept a job, right?).

An Executive Personal Branding, Online Identity and Job Search Strategist, Meg is a 20-year careers industry professional and one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials, both gold standards.

“I love my work collaborating with savvy corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who know where they’re going, but need help differentiating their unique promise of value in the new world of work and executive job search, and positioning themselves to work their passion. My clients are typically c-suite, senior-level executives and rising stars.”

Find out more about Meg at Executive Career Brand, and by viewing her LinkedIn profile and following her on Twitter.

Create a Remarkable Web Presence at Brand-Yourself.com

Once you’ve leveraged LinkedIn to identify relevant job opportunities, it’s time to create a visible web presence around it. Did you know that more than half of employers are more likely to hire you if you’ve spent time developing your personal brand across social networks? To help you do this, we built a platform to manage your online reputation from one central hub. Create your Brand-Yourself account today and see how our tools can help you build, optimize and promote a remarkable web presence that gets you hired.

Do You Have a Good Ear For Networking?

You know how it goes sometimes at networking events.

You’ve barely introduced yourself to someone new and gotten through your brand positioning statement (or 30 second pitch) when they jump in and ask you to help them with something- a formal introduction to someone at your company … or advice on who to connect with there … or something else.

What??? This complete stranger expects you to do them a favor already?

They’re not practicing “give to get” networking. They should be slowly and gently building relationships by giving of themselves, before asking for help.

Networking that benefits everyone is all about helping, sharing, finding common ground, and being a good listener.

Listening well is a powerful way to attract people to you and keep them there, ready and willing to help you, because:

• Most people love to talk about themselves and to be heard with intent interest by the listener.
• Most people are not being listened to, but crave it.
• Most people, especially at networking events, have their own agenda and are interested in your needs.
• Being listened to makes people feel valued and good about themselves.
• Most people are in such a hurry to move on to the next shiny object that they’re bowled over by someone who slows down and takes time to listen to them.

Too many people these days are overly self-absorbed and have short attention spans. Keen listening is becoming a lost art, along with so many other basic courtesies and good manners. It’s a rare personal attribute – one that is greatly valued and can differentiate you from your peers.

People remember those who give them that boost by being truly interested in what they have to say. They are much more inclined to keep considerate good listeners at the top of their mind when they hear of an opportunity that may be a good fit for them.

Are you a good listener in these important ways?

• Do you listen for cues that will tell you how you may be able to help the speaker?
• Do you keep in mind others in your network as you’re talking with people, in order to determine if they may be able to help each other?
• Do you ask questions and listen to challenges facing their companies? Maybe you’re the answer to their problems. If you’re not, maybe you know someone who is.
• Do you listen carefully to determine whether this is someone you want to network with further or if she/he is an energy-drainer who will take more than they’ll give? After all, it’s nearly impossible, and quite exhausting, to be a sounding board for everyone who needs your ear.

Your takeaway:

Good listeners set themselves up for reciprocity in networking. Being an intent listener may just make you more memorable than the powerful personal brand message you express when networking.

An Executive Personal Branding, Online Identity and Job Search Strategist, Meg is a 20-year careers industry professional and one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold both the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials.

“I love my work collaborating with savvy corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who know where they’re going, but need help differentiating their unique promise of value in the new world of work and executive job search, and positioning themselves to work their passion. My clients are typically c-suite, senior-level executives and rising stars.”

Find out more about Meg at Executive Career Brand, and by viewing her LinkedIn profile and following her on Twitter.

Create a Remarkable Web Presence at Brand-Yourself.com

Once you’ve improved your networking skills, it’s time to create a visible web presence to put these networking skills to use. Did you know that more than half of employers are more likely to hire you if you’ve spent time developing your personal brand across social networks? To help you do this, we built a platform to manage your online reputation froCm one central hub. Create your Brand-Yourself account today and see how our tools can help you build, optimize and promote a remarkable web presence that gets you hired.

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