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Follow Me!: Creating a Personal Brand With Twitter
FOLLOW ME! CREATING A PERSONAL BRAND WITH TWITTER-Wiley-SARAH-JAYNE GRATTON-2012-EDN-1
- GenresBusiness
262 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 8, 2012
Twitter has become one of the most dominant social networking platforms. For many people it is the primary way that they interact with the online, and increasingly offline, worlds. No organization or individual can afford not to have a Twitter presence, especially if they care about their reputation or brand. In fact, the whole notion of personal branding has become possible in large part thanks to Twitter and other online social tools that make it possible to easily and effectively promote yourself. In "Follow Me" Sarah-Jane Gratton (@grattongirl) explores the nature of Twitter personal branding, and provides you with many useful tips and insights for getting ahead and becoming noticed and valued on Twitter.
This book is not an introduction to Twitter for complete novices. It is meant for those who have already had some experience with this platform and who want to take it to a new level. The early chapters are fairly general and deal with the nature of online engagement and interaction. Some of the "theories" of what Gratton thinks works seem to be homespun, while others are grounded in some established research and best Twitter practices. The book promotes the well-known SITE formula for the four kinds of twitter posts that make for a good Twitter presence - Share, Inform, Thank, Engage. This is a very simple approach to twitting, and it's amazing how many people (including myself) have not been practicing it to the fullest. Gratton gives her own suggestion on what the best mix of those posts ought to be like, but you may want to experiment yourself in order to find out what works the best for you. For me the most important tip in this book is the message of the importance of curation and timing of your tweets. It turns out that for a very good and successful Twitter presence a little bit of planning and forethought goes a long way.
The latter parts of the book deal with some real-life Twitter success stories and the list of useful Twitter tools. Twitter is a very open platform, and there is a whole little industry of apps and online sites that try to help you make the most out of the use of Twitter. Some of these tools are well known to even the casual Twitter user, but others are a bit more powerful.
My only issue with this book is that, while still useful and informative, it feels like yet another way for the author to be promoting herself. There are literally dozens, if not over a hundred, screen shots throughout the book featuring the author's profile picture. After a while this becomes too much. It smacks of the promotion for the sake of promotion approach, which in my opinion is what a lot of this "personal branding" is all about. You get the impression that Twitter is used by a lot of people as a tool for some kind of self-promotion pyramid scheme. They are far more benign than the usual pyramid scams, but in the end they operate on similar principles. Undoubtedly a lot of it has been used for very positive purposes, but a fari amount of it is just an extension of our vanities.
This book is not an introduction to Twitter for complete novices. It is meant for those who have already had some experience with this platform and who want to take it to a new level. The early chapters are fairly general and deal with the nature of online engagement and interaction. Some of the "theories" of what Gratton thinks works seem to be homespun, while others are grounded in some established research and best Twitter practices. The book promotes the well-known SITE formula for the four kinds of twitter posts that make for a good Twitter presence - Share, Inform, Thank, Engage. This is a very simple approach to twitting, and it's amazing how many people (including myself) have not been practicing it to the fullest. Gratton gives her own suggestion on what the best mix of those posts ought to be like, but you may want to experiment yourself in order to find out what works the best for you. For me the most important tip in this book is the message of the importance of curation and timing of your tweets. It turns out that for a very good and successful Twitter presence a little bit of planning and forethought goes a long way.
The latter parts of the book deal with some real-life Twitter success stories and the list of useful Twitter tools. Twitter is a very open platform, and there is a whole little industry of apps and online sites that try to help you make the most out of the use of Twitter. Some of these tools are well known to even the casual Twitter user, but others are a bit more powerful.
My only issue with this book is that, while still useful and informative, it feels like yet another way for the author to be promoting herself. There are literally dozens, if not over a hundred, screen shots throughout the book featuring the author's profile picture. After a while this becomes too much. It smacks of the promotion for the sake of promotion approach, which in my opinion is what a lot of this "personal branding" is all about. You get the impression that Twitter is used by a lot of people as a tool for some kind of self-promotion pyramid scheme. They are far more benign than the usual pyramid scams, but in the end they operate on similar principles. Undoubtedly a lot of it has been used for very positive purposes, but a fari amount of it is just an extension of our vanities.
September 8, 2015
The challenge of writing a book on social media is that at least some of the book becomes obsolete by the time it is published. And so is the case with Sarah-Jayne Gratton's (@grattongirl) "Follow Me!"
My purpose for reading the book was to find tips on how to maximize my Twitter experience without spending all my time on Twitter. Follow Me! was written for those who extensively use Twitter for their professional marketing experiences.
The practical section of the book, Part Two, includes chapters on:
-Defining your brand,
-Creating a great profile
-Building your Twitter followers without falling prey to spam, bots, and multi-level marketers.
The chapters I found most helpful described:
-The four-types of Tweets (Share, Inform, Thank, Engage, or SITE)
-Creating a "Twittertorial" Calendar (how to curate and pre-schedule tweets for maximum impact)
-Thinking of Twitter as your own personal broadcast show (what to schedule, when to schedule, and repeating the schedule).
The second-half of the book is where it starts to show its age. Chapters are devoted to:
-Twitter Branding Showcase Stories, nine Twitter feeds that (as of 2012) author Gratton found particularly descriptive;
-Twitter Toolkit, descriptions of particularly helpful Twitter tools. Some, however, no longer exist (bye-bye, TweetDeck).
If your interest in Twitter is non, or low, or only for interacting with friends and family, then this book probably will not appeal to you.
For those who care about their personal or professional brand, Twitter is a key component of the social media strategy, and "Follow Me!" has a lot of good advice.
My purpose for reading the book was to find tips on how to maximize my Twitter experience without spending all my time on Twitter. Follow Me! was written for those who extensively use Twitter for their professional marketing experiences.
The practical section of the book, Part Two, includes chapters on:
-Defining your brand,
-Creating a great profile
-Building your Twitter followers without falling prey to spam, bots, and multi-level marketers.
The chapters I found most helpful described:
-The four-types of Tweets (Share, Inform, Thank, Engage, or SITE)
-Creating a "Twittertorial" Calendar (how to curate and pre-schedule tweets for maximum impact)
-Thinking of Twitter as your own personal broadcast show (what to schedule, when to schedule, and repeating the schedule).
The second-half of the book is where it starts to show its age. Chapters are devoted to:
-Twitter Branding Showcase Stories, nine Twitter feeds that (as of 2012) author Gratton found particularly descriptive;
-Twitter Toolkit, descriptions of particularly helpful Twitter tools. Some, however, no longer exist (bye-bye, TweetDeck).
If your interest in Twitter is non, or low, or only for interacting with friends and family, then this book probably will not appeal to you.
For those who care about their personal or professional brand, Twitter is a key component of the social media strategy, and "Follow Me!" has a lot of good advice.
March 2, 2013
First of all I must mention that you do not have to be a company to use this book. Every person has their own brand. Those of us with an online presence like bloggers have a brand.
I love learning about social media so I was excited to read Follow Me! My blogs are my brand and I love twitter but know I have some things to learn on the best way to use it.I have switched back and forth between programs and twitter.com trying to find the best one for me with not much luck. I finally got Tweet Deck to work on this computer (online anyways) and have been using that to be more active and engaging on twitter.
Read Full Review: http://www.smsnonfictionbookreviews.c...
I love learning about social media so I was excited to read Follow Me! My blogs are my brand and I love twitter but know I have some things to learn on the best way to use it.I have switched back and forth between programs and twitter.com trying to find the best one for me with not much luck. I finally got Tweet Deck to work on this computer (online anyways) and have been using that to be more active and engaging on twitter.
Read Full Review: http://www.smsnonfictionbookreviews.c...
December 23, 2013
A good read for those already familiar with Twitter and wanting to ramp up their presence. Great tips and suggestions that can be used for business brands too. The nature of the content means this book will date quickly. Author is bound to have gained thousands of new followers from releasing this book, perhaps that's the one power tip she left out!
September 20, 2013
Twitter is one of the most powerful social media tools in today's world! Follow me book teaches you how to gain more followers and interact with them more effectively and become an expert in what you do!
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
January 1, 2013
Terrific book. Now going to purchase it as there is a need to keep referring back to the information and how toos
September 19, 2015
Good read but a lot of the information is basic. Its great if you are just starting to build a brand on Twitter.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews