Would You Follow Yourself on Twitter?

By Laurel Miltner | Posted August 12, 2011 | 3 Comment(s) | Filed in: Social Media

If you're using Twitter for business, and/or to build your personal brand, it's important to have a strategy. At the most basic level, you need to know:

• Who you're trying to reach
• What kind of content you plan to share
• The person or brand you want to present
• The goals and objectives you want to acheive
• Metrics you'll use to measure success
• How you'll allocate time to keep your account regularly updated

It's also important to remember that your strategy shouldn't simply be developed early on and forgotten about. You need to revisit your Twitter activity on a regular basis, and make sure that you're sticking to what you've set out to do. Especially with a site that is heavily reliant on immediacy, it's easy to slip into bad habits, like eccessive public tweeting of personal communications, posting irrelevant updates, reading too much from others without providing much value yourself, or tweeting sub-par content just to keep your account fresh.

To avoid this, try the "Would I Follow Me?" test. It's simple:

Go to your Twitter page (i.e. twitter.com/laurelmackenzie) and scan through your most recent 10-15 tweets. Ask yourself: 

• How much of what I've posted is interesting or entertaining? 
• Am I participating too much in private conversations or silly banter?
• When was the last time I posted an update? Am I tweeting frequently enough? Too much?
• Would I click on any of the links I've shared?

Stay updated: Subscribe to the PR 20/20 blog, check us out on Facebook or follow the team on Twitter.