Lou Sagar, Social Strategist

As Twitter is evolving beyond a universal utility, its a good time to update your approach to building value.

Focus on others. When you focus more on giving to and promoting others than you do on promoting yourself, you can stand out. There is no magic ratio I can recommend of tweets about others versus tweets promoting your content. Take some time every day to turn your focus away from your goals and look for ways to promote others.

Connect intentionally. When you connect intentionally with others, you can stand out. Use lists to home in on people you’d like to relate to regularly. Then show up every day and look for ways to build relationships with them.

Ask questions. Ask real questions. Ask because you’re curious and want to learn. Ask because you want to know the answer. Ask because you’d like to start a conversation. When you ask questions and stick around for an authentic conversation, you can stand out.

Add value by sharing pure content (not links). While it can be tempting to use content-rich tweets as a way to pitch a link to your blog post or website, you can stand out when you send tweets with pure content, no strings (or links) attached. When you are thoughtful in composing tweets, seeking to add value, you can get people’s attention.

Remember:   Authenticity drives Attention -
                      Attention grows with Trust -
                      Trust drives Influence.