Create your mini personal brand guideline and Twitter bio

You have five lists from the PIERS framework—and they may be way over the 160-character limit for a Twitter profile. Now we’re going to distill those lists down so that you have a clear brand guideline to follow when you’re creating your Twitter profile. By the end of this step, you’ll have a short line that you can put in your Twitter profile.

If you’ve ever worked in marketing, design, or branding, you’ve seen a brand guideline. It’s the style guide that companies create so that their brand is represented consistently across all platforms. It outlines things like fonts, sizes, colors, words, and anything else the brand wants to remain consistent. 

We’re going to take those five PIERS lists and turn them into a simple, visual brand guideline. Here’s what mine looks like:

Now it’s your turn, draw two boxes: 

• In one box, put together your Principles, Interests, Exceptions, and Strengths to create a picture of you. 

• In another box, put Reluctances to know who you don’t want to be.

You can use these boxes to help you create new content and to determine what that content looks like. If you’ve branded yourself as friendly, for example, you might not want your profile to only be black and gray. Your brand guidelines will help remind you which areas to focus on so that your brand stays consistent. If you have second thoughts and want to adjust things along the way, that’s completely normal. It’s always a work in progress! 

Exercise: Write your Twitter bio

Alright, you made it this far. Congrats! You’re on Step 10. Now, we’re going to work on those three parts of a Twitter profile, starting with your Twitter bio.

1. What you represent

2. Your credibility

3. A call to action

Before we dive in, there are some important things to know about what makes a successful bio. At its core, it should address three main questions a visitor will ask:

• Who is this person?

• What will they be talking about?

• Is there potential to collaborate in the future?

If you can get them excited about all three of those things, then you’ll get a new follower! To achieve this, I recommend splitting your bio into two main lines.

1. Write your first line

Take the outcome-focused line that you created in Steps 2 and 3 and refine it using the box that describes you. This is to write the first line of your bio. This line should show the 1-2 things that you want to highlight to your followers and potential clients. Here are some examples of great first lines: 

• Katelyn Bourgoin - “‘The Customer Whisperer’ / I demystify buyer behavior so you can market smarter 

• Diego Pineda - “The Solo Author | Helping solopreneurs become thought leaders in their niches”

• Lynn Rivest - “Helping you focus on what matters most in your business to make it flourish.”

• Tatiana Figueiredo - “Helping thoughtful community founders build profitable businesses” 

2. Write your second line

Your second line is for standing out from the crowd. It’s the one that helps you build a non-business connection, show some personality, and act as a conversation starter. For example, mine is: “My baby girl runs from me.” It’s short, sweet, and tells you so much about me.

• My baby girl = I want people to know that I’m a father. It implies that I’m not as young as they may think I am.

• Runs from me = I want people to know that I have a sense of humor. While I’m professional in my work, I am fun and casual

• Listing my baby girl as part of my identity signals that I’m a family-oriented person. Plus, I also occasionally show up at work with my baby girl, so it’s good they know in advance! 

The qualities that this line highlights are the ones that I’d like my customers to have. You can do the same thing: Write a second line that draws in the types of freelance clients you want to work with. 

Here are some more examples that nailed the second line: 

• Mathilde Leo - “Fighting Muay Thai by night” 

• Dagobert Renouf - “My father-in-law doesn’t approve of my startup.” 

• Waikit - “As a dad, I've been building for 8 years at 4 hrs/day before bed” 

• Shlomo Freund - “I buy & grow websites so my girls can travel the world with me” 

• Arnaud Belinga - “Can do a 360 flip on a skateboard”

3. Bring it all together

Put those two lines together and read them out loud. How do they sound? Don’t forget to check the character count! 

As a reminder

• First line: Your spiky outcome!

• Second line: Stand out from the crowd.

What have we learned? 

What is the purpose of a brand guideline?

Why is it important to have a brand guideline for yourself? 

What are two important elements of a great first line of a Twitter bio? 

What are two important elements of a great second line of a Twitter bio?