Twitter syntax is important

This week, I started more actively building my brand online. As part of my strategy, I announced on my blog and on Twitter that I will donate $0.25 for every new Twitter follower that I get this year. And in the first day, a few prominent people helped by re-tweeting. I grew my Twitter following 10% in one day. I’m starting with a fairly small base, but that’s progress.

In the process of tweeting, I’ve already learned a few syntax things about Twitter that are useful as I spend more time on Twitter (hat tip to @adamrubin for his clear explanations):

$0.25 for every new Twitter follower

As I embark on a new journey to build “brand me”, it’s clear to be that I have a cold-start problem. I’ve spent too many years not sharing my story and being involved enough in the conversation. And as a result, I had 520 Twitter followers as of yesterday.

I came up with an idea that I think might help me with my cold-start plan. I’m going to donate $0.25 to Water.org for every new Twitter follower I get this year. If I hit 10,000 new followers, that will be a $2500 donation to a charity that I believe does a lot of good around the world. And if this blows up well beyond 10,000 followers… well, I’ll cap my donation at something reasonable.

I tweeted this today and a few times “I’m donating $0.25 to Water.org for each new follower this year. Tech/biz folks love my content. Will u RT?” A few prominent people re-tweeted it and I’m up to 565 followers. So that’s $11.25. A good start.

Will you help me grow my followers on Twitter? Please RT this post.