Welcome to the second lesson in my mini-course on writing for Twitter. In first lesson, I taught you what "word fatigue" is how to avoid it. In this lesson, I tackle something that everyone can benefit from: putting more of their unique personality into their tweets.
Although this mini-course is coming out ahead of my main course on writing, selling, and personal branding on Twitter next week, everything I teach for Twitter can and should be used for writing on other mediums. Whether it's teaching the engaging power of negation (as I do in 'Level Up Mentality' or it's giving you the basics of word play, writing for Twitter is no different than writing for any other medium.
The goal is to be read, shared, and prolifically grow your fan base. If you can do it on Twitter, you can do it with the rest of your writing.
A big part of accomplishing those goals is standing out.
Why Your Tweets Sound Like Everyone Else's
One of my favorite things to watch on Twitter is guys talk about the secrets to growing a big account. Two things always come up: be polarizing and write platitudes.
They think the secret is just to get an emotional rise out of people and drop generic motivational quips. This advice is interesting because it is simultaneously right and wrong. It's right because these topics naturally tend to generate a lot of engagement. It's wrong because it misses the most vital element of all: a unique personal spin.
Whether it's implied through your personal brand and body or it's explained via anecdotes you tell about your life, it should be evident that your tweets have a personal stamp on them. How does one put a personal stamp on a tweet? Consider this simple example.
"A bird in the hand is worth two in he bush"
The idea expressed in this popular saying is that less of a thing you're sure of is better than more of a thing you aren't. As it stands by itself, this is a generic platitude. Let's spice it up with a few personal variations.
- "A gun in the hand is worth the entire police force on the phone"
- "A breast in the hand is worth two in the shirt."
- "One mistake of yours is worth is 40 good moves by your adversary."
I also just tweeted, "Whether you think you're a victim or in control of your own destiny... You're right." This is a personal twist on Henry Ford's famous line, "Whether you think can or you can't, you're right".
I've taken a common sayings and put different personal spins on them. This doesn't work for everything you could possibly say on Twitter, but many things can be taken from the mundane to the exceptional. You don't even need to be a good writer to do so.
Some More Basic Examples
"Time vs. Money" is a common discussion point. The challenge is to discuss the idea in a manner that is unique to your personality. Here are two examples of expressing the idea with a twist.
"There are quite a few millionaires. There are no immortals. That tells you everything you need to know about the value of time versus money in your life."
"The only real problems are the ones you can't solve with money. Everything else is just a matter of time or timing."
"A sure sign you've used your time well is that you have the money to show for it. A sure sign that you've used your money well is that time is your only obstacle."
I tweeted all of these while I was creating them, so don't reuse them. They're already out there. I suspect they'll generate moderate to high engagement, which is good for everything I want to accomplish on Twitter (build a big email list, get more visitors to my website, sell things, develop clout).
I've implicitly told you how I do this. Now I will explicitly give you my simple formula.
The Simple Formula For Making Unique Tweets
- Tweet how you think not how you talk. Most of us filter our communication and in doing so, we filter our personality. Better to write it how you think of it first. It's only the first draft. You can modify the idea if looks like trash when you write it down.
- Whenever you think about something you want to tweet, think of a few different ways to say it. I'm not saying you have to write every variation down, but thinking of a few different ways to express yourself will naturally get more of your personality into the tweet and make it sound unique.
- Draw from your experiences. Not just what you've actively done but passively consumed as well. Your personality and perspective have been shaped by all of that you've done. There is a new expression of something old that only you can create from your experiences.
It's really that simple. To sum it up: Try to be yourself and everything you create will carry a personal mark. Try to copy others and you will produce second rate work that people will ignore.
In the next blog, I'll teach you how to make some extra cash for the summer using Twitter. No one is giving out what I'm about to give out for free.
The rest is up to you.
Hustle Hacker 💲 💲 💲
