Building your personal brand requires tenacity and dedication. If you’ve been focused on developing your personal brand you also know it takes time and money. It takes time to engage your audience and it takes even more time to create content that will get noticed. The last thing you feel like doing is working overtime trying to monitor your results. Fortunately there is a quick, easy, and free method that you can use to gauge your efforts.

 

This is where “Twitter Lists” can help. Get in your Wayback Machine because Twitter released this feature in November 2009!

Free white papers and eBook’s, free seminars and webinars, free assessments, free consultations, free demonstrations, free software download, free, free, free.  It sounds great, after all, why pay for business advice and knowledge when you can get it for free?

 

But it’s not really free because every choice has cost.  What we don’t spend in dollars, we spend it time, attention, and effort.  There is also “opportunity cost” to consider.  When you pick one path you are losing the opportunity to explore another.

 

It appears to be a friendly welcoming, offering help to the receiver of the message, but it’s not.  In fact, if you are using those ten words at the front end of your lead generation campaign then you are actually damaging your brand.  Here is why:

 

1. You delivered it through a direct message automation application didn’t you?  I thought that was the case.  Sorry, but most people delete those messages without ever reading them.

My prime prospect is showing me their child pose.  That’s code speak for “I’m not paying attention now, so don’t bother me.”  The silence is deafening.  What are my options?

1. Get busy with some loud broadcasting activity? You know, blast them with all the channels including the phone, email, texting and social media.  Sure, I can wake them up and force them to engage with me!

2. Hoover over them and watch to see if their current position shifts in the slightest.  At that point I could quickly swoop in and hijack their attention before they nod off again.

 

I wish I had a dollar for every time I was asked that question because I’d be able to retire immediately.  It’s right up there with:

 

 

And let’s not forget:

 

 

Why do executives cringe every time they’re asked those questions?  Because just about every solution-based qualification call on the sales training planet includes one of those questions, and that means they can see your sales prospecting pitch coming from a mile away.

Yes, it’s true; you can monitor professional reputations on Twitter.  So, if you are in Human Resources why bother asking for 3 references when you can quickly access hundreds or even thousands of short reviews on the executive you are vetting.  It’s kind of like reading customer reviews on Amazon, and just as easy.

 

Here is what you need to know.  Back in November 2009 Twitter launched an interesting feature called Twitter Lists.  In short, Twitter Lists allow you to organize the profiles you’re following into groups.

 

I believe that is one of the most wasted phrases in a marketer’s persuasion playbook.  I can just imagine Don Draper pitching that line to his client.

As you probably know, the AMC prime time drama “Mad Men” provided a 1960s setting portraying advertising agencies as all-powerful influencers.  In fact, much of the shows content suggested that “consumers didn’t know what they wanted until we told them.

In the business world it’s a casual phrase that’s tossed around all the time.

 

· I thought I’d reach out to tell you a little bit about our company.

· I thought I’d reach out to see if we could set up a time to chat.

· I thought I’d reach out to give you one of our new white papers.

· I thought I’d reach out to introduce myself and make sure you understand my company.  And then you can buy something!

OK, that last one was over-the-top.  But more broadly, "

Some of the smartest business people I’ve met place their trust in fantasy-based marketing plans.  They believe it’s possible to do more with less.  In truth, they know better.  Because when “less” means reducing the marketing budget, “more” marketing activity is not what you get.  A decreased budget means change, because something somewhere has to be reduced, compromised or eliminated.  That means scaling back on lead generation campaigns, lower quality PR events, fewer advertising initiatives, downgrading your staff experience-levels (hiring less expensive/experienced talent), and or finally a reduction in headcount.

LinkedIn’s advice on sending connection requests reads that you should “only invite people you know and trust.”  The number of requests I receive from individuals I’ve never met (and therefore have no basis for trust) leads me to believe there are a lot of people who are not following that rule of thumb.  Or, perhaps it suggests their “trust” in certain profiles is deep enough to overcome their fear that they’ll be rejected because they don’t personally “know” their desired connection.  Research shows that social rejection activates the same part of the brain that physical pain does.