Day 839 - Personal brand outlasts your products - https://golifelog.com/posts/personal-brand-outlasts-your-products-1681870148714
Most days I'm not sure why the amount of time I spend on Twitter is justified.
I average 2h a day on it, some days 3h or more when it's interesting. That's a substantial chunk of time. Yet the ROI isn't always clear.
My customers are mostly not on Twitter. My most important engagement for Plugins are in the Carrd groups and communities on Facebook, Reddit, Telegram. I do have a Plugins Twitter account but it's not adding much. Twitter also isn't a great customer acquisition channel for Lifelog, on both my personal and Lifelog account (in fact, I've not found any sustainble channel for Lifelog).
There might be some word of mouth effect from other indie hackers and creators, as I often build in public and share about my indie journey on Twitter, using examples from my projects. If someone needs help with Carrd, they might redirect to me perhaps, but based on experience I don't see that as a substantial pipeline. I don't think my 6k followers contribute much to my profit bottomline, to be honest...
So 2-3h a day, that's 14-21h a week. I'm spending almost 1 waking day out of 7 days a week on it. Without any noticeable returns on investment.
So ***why***?
*Why bother?*
Even if I do enjoy connecting to like-minds, get exposure to ideas, and gain some emotional/social support from Maker Twitter, does it really justify the amount of effort and time I'm spending on it?
And when you ask, sometimes the universe replies, unwittingly through others:
> "Your personal brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business. Usually, that means a time investment. How are you growing your personal brand? 🤔" – [@robertodigital_](https://twitter.com/robertodigital_/status/1647993330700107780)
So okay... I'm actually building personal brand on Twitter. I don't really like that term, but it points to something about it being an asset. Something that persists beyond and outside of my products and services. So that even if I close one or all my products, I don't lose everything that I invested in that products. I still get to keep something. An asset. Assets that originated as a side effect, a by-product of building something else, but outlasts the main product's lifespan.
And this asset can be helpful in my next project. Thinking about it from the lens of the ten forms of capital framework: If making products are about making assets that grow your intellectual, experiential or material capital, then building a personal brand is about growing your social capital. And these various forms of capital can be transformed from one form to another. Social capital can be transformed into financial capital.
In a way then, building an audience, having a personal brand, building trust and reputation, is a hedge against risks of rug pulls on my products. It's diversification of my various forms of capital. It's building resilience.
It's worth *something*. Even if measuring it is hard.
I average 2h a day on it, some days 3h or more when it's interesting. That's a substantial chunk of time. Yet the ROI isn't always clear.
My customers are mostly not on Twitter. My most important engagement for Plugins are in the Carrd groups and communities on Facebook, Reddit, Telegram. I do have a Plugins Twitter account but it's not adding much. Twitter also isn't a great customer acquisition channel for Lifelog, on both my personal and Lifelog account (in fact, I've not found any sustainble channel for Lifelog).
There might be some word of mouth effect from other indie hackers and creators, as I often build in public and share about my indie journey on Twitter, using examples from my projects. If someone needs help with Carrd, they might redirect to me perhaps, but based on experience I don't see that as a substantial pipeline. I don't think my 6k followers contribute much to my profit bottomline, to be honest...
So 2-3h a day, that's 14-21h a week. I'm spending almost 1 waking day out of 7 days a week on it. Without any noticeable returns on investment.
So ***why***?
*Why bother?*
Even if I do enjoy connecting to like-minds, get exposure to ideas, and gain some emotional/social support from Maker Twitter, does it really justify the amount of effort and time I'm spending on it?
And when you ask, sometimes the universe replies, unwittingly through others:
> "Your personal brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business. Usually, that means a time investment. How are you growing your personal brand? 🤔" – [@robertodigital_](https://twitter.com/robertodigital_/status/1647993330700107780)
So okay... I'm actually building personal brand on Twitter. I don't really like that term, but it points to something about it being an asset. Something that persists beyond and outside of my products and services. So that even if I close one or all my products, I don't lose everything that I invested in that products. I still get to keep something. An asset. Assets that originated as a side effect, a by-product of building something else, but outlasts the main product's lifespan.
And this asset can be helpful in my next project. Thinking about it from the lens of the ten forms of capital framework: If making products are about making assets that grow your intellectual, experiential or material capital, then building a personal brand is about growing your social capital. And these various forms of capital can be transformed from one form to another. Social capital can be transformed into financial capital.
In a way then, building an audience, having a personal brand, building trust and reputation, is a hedge against risks of rug pulls on my products. It's diversification of my various forms of capital. It's building resilience.
It's worth *something*. Even if measuring it is hard.