How to Create a Recognizable Twitter Brand in 2024

Twitter has over 386 million active users, posting an average of 500 million tweets per day.

Many businesses may think that Twitter is dead or not worth pursuing anymore, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Usage stats aside, Twitter is still one of the most popular social media platforms in existence.

When it comes to brand recognition and authority marketing, having a presence on Twitter is an absolute must.

Why It’s So Important to Create a Strong Twitter Brand

Twitter is unique in the sense that it’s equally important for personal brands and company branding alike. In both scenarios, it’s a chance to share quick thoughts, statistics, opinions, and visual content with a massive audience.

But my favorite part about Twitter is how personal the connection feels between brands and audiences. That’s one of the many reasons why it’s such a great place to drive engagement from your followers.

79% of Twitter users follow businesses on the platform.

And what’s even more interesting is that they follow these brands for such a wide variety of reasons:

This is great news for your branding strategy, as the door is open for you to truly brand yourself however you want knowing that you can appeal to both wide and niche audiences.

I’m not disputing that Twitter has gone through its fair share of ups and downs over the years. I personally thought the decision to rebrand itself as X was a mistake (especially since everyone still calls it Twitter).

But the fact remains that it can be a gold mine for social media marketing, personal branding, authority marketing, and lead generation.

How do You Want to Brand Yourself on Twitter?

Deciding how you want to brand yourself or your business on Twitter is a key first step, as this will ultimately determine who you want to follow, who follows you back, and what kind of content you put out there.

While you don’t need to pigeonhole yourself into just one particular branding approach, you should have a clear direction on how you want to be perceived on the platform.

It’s also worth noting that there are some slight variations in branding strategies on Twitter for businesses compared to personal branding for individuals. Let’s look at some examples so you can see the differences.

Twitter Branding For Businesses

• Customer-service focused
• An industry news provider
• “Behind the scenes” brand (showing the inner workings of your industry or business)
• Product showcase branding
• A brand that’s focused on corporate social responsibility
• Trend setting or innovation brand
• A brand that’s focused on employee stories and company culture

Twitter Branding For Individuals

• An authority figure
• Thought leader
• Storyteller
• An educator or teacher
• Niche specialist
• Comedian
• Conversationalist

As you can see, the approach for an individual will definitely look a bit different from a company brand. But what’s really cool is that you can actually do both of these jointly, with two different profiles.

This is an advanced strategy that I really love to see. For example, your company account could be more about showcasing your products and providing customer support. But your personal profile, as say a CEO, could be focused on thought leadership.

The amazing thing is that getting thousands of followers is not that hard, especially if you’re using multiple profiles for branding. You can even get an overlap in followers between each if you follow some simple steps, like sharing valuable information from your blog posts and links to industry information.

Twitter Tips For CEOs

Years ago, I conducted an interview with Michael Gass, founder of Fuel Lines Business Development. We talked about the exact same strategy mentioned above—combining personal branding (as a CEO) with your company branding on Twitter. 

Michael makes some amazing points, and they all still hold true today. Here’s a quick video of his thoughts:

In summary, businesses just aren’t as personable as real people. That’s why you can use your business Twitter page for certain aspects of your branding strategy (that don’t require as much personality), and use your CEO profile for establishing more meaningful connections.

If you want to follow Michael’s approach, you can use the 70-20-10 rule for what to post on your CEO page:

• 70% of tweets from your blog
• 20% of tweets from other sources
• 10% of tweets are “personal touches”

I really like this approach, and it’s something I do myself. But you can always tweak those numbers to fit your own branding strategy.

When you combine this stuff with the personal touch, it’s easier for people to learn a little bit more about you and your activities.

For example, I’m in Boston today. As soon as I landed at Logan Airport, I checked in via Foursquare that posted directly to my Twitter account and also posted a photo there at the terminal. It creates interest, and people follow along with what you’re doing and those activities.

21 Tips for Getting Started with Twitter and Building Your Brand

Taking that first step is often the most difficult part of any new marketing initiative, especially if you’re trying to build a Twitter brand from scratch. Some of you may already have a Twitter profile created, but it could be inactive or just not quite where you want it to be from a branding perspective.

To help steer you in the right direction, you can follow these simple tips to get the ball rolling and build momentum:

• Connect your Twitter account to your blog or website
• Engage and contribute in a meaningful way (and followers will come organically)
• Set aside a specific time each day to use Twitter for business purposes
• Don’t be overly self-promotional (or people will dislike you)
• Reply to all questions within 24 hours
• Put a “follow me” icon on your website, blog, and email signature
• Don’t get too personal or be too negative
• Humanize your content (rather than using corporate rhetoric)
• Listen first and then respond when you can add value to the conversation
• Tweet at least once per day
• Complete your bio so others can quickly know who you are and what you do
• Only share quality photos (and make sure your profile picture is really you)
• Don’t instantly start following hundreds of people (or you’ll be perceived as spam)
• Go back and delete old Tweets that don’t align with your new branding strategy
• Tweet in a conversational tone while avoiding unprofessional phrasing or slang
• Don’t thank people publicly for following you (it’s unnecessary)
• Place links 25% of the way through your tweets for the best CTR
• Use action verbs instead of nouns whenever possible
• Tweet on weekends and later in the day, not just during “business hours”
• Add visuals, videos, and other media in your tweets
• Encourage your employees to get involved and re-tweet your content

Going the Extra Mile: Using Twitter to Eliminate Cold Outreach

CEOs and executives aren’t the only people who can benefit from building a personal brand on Twitter. Sales reps can also use Twitter to build their brand and help eliminate cold calls and cold email outreach.

No one likes cold calls. They’re just about the most intrusive form of advertising we can think of (if you can even get people to answer the phone). Cold email outreach is also difficult because our inboxes are flooded with just too many messages from brands, sellers, and spammers.

But if you can build the right brand, then can ultimately Twitter to eliminate cold outreach.

Unlike the cold-calling model which is entirely passive, Twitter marketing is active on both sides. Remember, it’s that conversational aspect. You’re putting your advertising message out there, in the gentlest non-spammy way possible, and consumers can choose to hear it, to comment on it, to ask for more information, and otherwise engage with you.

Whereas cold calling alienated people who didn’t want to hear your message, advertising venues like Twitter make people feel included. Customers and potential customers WANT to hear your message. They’ve made the conscious choice to listen!

How much more powerful is your message when it’s falling on the ears of people who are receptive to it?

All of this starts with nailing your branding strategy on Twitter.

You Still Need to Nail the Basics

For those of you who are completely new to Twitter, I just want to quickly share some of the basics you need to know about using the platform. Otherwise, it will be really difficult to build your brand if you’re still trying to figure out basic functions.

Short and sweet—that’s what Twitter is all about. Just the basics. It’s all about making a big impact with a small number of words. For example, you might want to pull a cool piece of data from a blog post rather than just use the post title in your tweet.

Tweet Length

140 characters are allowed, but use 120 instead, which leaves room for people to add “RT @username” for retweets. (Retweeting is when users share someone else’s tweets.)

Retweets

Retweets are a way of sharing the tweets you like. “Add RT @username” before the message for retweets. You can also @reply with your reaction to a tweet.

Mention

Mention other users by their Twitter usernames (preceded by the @ sign with no spaces) in your tweets. Mention a celebrity as they often respond to fans. You’ll see their response on your Mentions tab. Use this format to talk to others: @McDougallSocial Thanks for the cool Twitter info!

DM

DM stands for direct message and this is how it’s done: DM username This is a message.

“Following” People

Follow people for them to follow you back, that’s going to end up being one of your main strategies for growing your reach on Twitter.

Favoriting Tweets

Favoriting relevant tweets like following people is another way to gain more exposure on Twitter by getting your name out there more.

Hashtags

Hashtags categorize tweets by a keyword.

The hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (with no spaces in between) categorizes those tweets and helps them show up more easily in Twitter Search.

Clicking on a hashtagged word in any tweet shows you all other tweets marked with that keyword. Hashtags can be placed anywhere in a tweet—at the beginning, middle, or end.

It’s also worth noting that hashtagged words that become very popular are often trending topics on Twitter.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to building a brand, you have a unique opportunity on Twitter— which is to show your chops for your business niche.

Always remember that the more you give, the more you get.

Have facts and figures, and don’t just “fluff” your content for the sake of posting something.