Note: This article originally appeared on TechCrunch (“5 Ways for Startups to Grow Their Brands on Twitter”).

Last week I began an effort to answer those questions I get asked most frequently, starting with how to create an early-stage pitch deck. Today, I address the next most popular question: how best to grow your brand on Twitter?

Twitter is the ultimate marketing platform. But the scale of Twitter is so extraordinary (250 million tweets / day) that it is actually quite easy to get lost in the noise.

Separating yourself from the masses really begins with the recognition that Twitter is first and foremost a platform for conversation. If you believe that, you avoid the mistake most brands make: treating Twitter as a mechanism to push content rather than create engagement.

And once your goal is to foster conversation and engagement, you can follow these five guidelines:

1. Listen.
2. Be authentic.
3. Be compelling.
4. Find the influencers.
5. Extend off-twitter and onto your site.

In the below presentation, I breakdown these core themes and provides examples of people and companies successfully using Twitter to drive engagement and grow their brands.

Below is a screenshot of Facebook testing new listen buttons in the news ticker alongside music apps like Spotify.

Visually, its a bold move because they are all over the feed… and it turns a good percentage of Facebook into a music network (people, songs, apps, trends, etc).

It’s also a bold move because it’s potentially a very slippery slope… are “read” icons coming? “Shop”? etc? Visually that could create significant clutter / confusion – but it also creates hubs of verticalized activity. Fascinating to watch.

Hat tip to Andrew Machado for the screenshot. Founder of OpenHomePro and Dogpatch Labs resident

without the new listen buttons

Here’s the Google+ right column. It’s getting awfully crowded / busy and its one large promotion for Google+ functions / features:

- Google’s universal notification header
- a floating YouTube search tool (when clicked it expands and plays videos in a mini-browser)
- my friends and suggested uesrs to add to circles
- Google+ invitations (although anyone can now register)
- ability to start a Hangout (Google+’s best feature)
- ability to create a Google+ page
- Google+’s “Games” center and links to popular / featured games

I am not sure how I feel about. Clearly it differs from Facebook and that’s in part because Google is still fighting for adoption and engagement. For instance, it is more beneficial for Google to promote tools than it is to insert ad units. However, this is essentially a vertical-ized version of the horizontal navigation bar that rests atop every page. It’s cluttered, redundant and frankly ineffective at doing what Google wants it to do: drive deeper usage. For all the criticism that Facebook’s Ticker has received, it is clearly a more powerful usage driver than this is.

Sports fans today got a Black Friday present: the 149 day NBA lockout is on the verge on ending.

And the result is a good thing for fans: the season will be 66 games (a better result than the normal 82!), result in greater league parity (ala the NFL), lead to a healthier league (good for everyone), and create a whirlwind December free agency period (the surprisingly great outcome of the NFL lockout).

The lockout was painful, mismanaged on both sides and generally could have been avoided… or at least handled far differently and far earlier. But the 2011-2012 season is saved and hopefully goodness comes from the ugly.

One of the most interesting and overlooked aspects was the role Twitter played in a world where:

- players couldn’t communicate with the league

- players themselves were not entirely knowledgeable of the latest events / outcomes

- both sides were feeling significant pressure from the public (pressure is a soft word here for disgust for most and hate for some)

- both sides were starved for communication outlets

So everyone took the Twitter: the league, the owners and the players. Some were trying to position themselves, some trying to save face and others trying to voice their opinion in a public manner (since it wasn’t being heard privately). Fascinating.

So why Twitter was so important here? First, the NBA and its players could feel the public’s disgust… far more publicly. In prior strikes / lockouts, the fans didn’t have as much power as they do today. And in prior situations, nobody had the outlets they do today: players and owners were able to immediately express frustration, anger, etc… and to huge audiences. The result was a very public negotiation that made many of those involved come across as confused, desperate, disjointed and/or displeased.

Nevertheless, it provided a platform for all constituents to amplify their voice… and to listen. And while that was debatably an effective / ineffective exercise – it was terrifically powerful for the fans.

Here are some examples:

Miami Heat owner Micky Arison (@mickyarison) took to Twitter to express his thankfulness to his fans. This was retweeted by the NBA (@nba). Takeaway: comes across as desperate.

NBA player Luis Scola (@lscola4) took to Twitter at a time when there was debate within the players union as to whether they should pass the league’s proposal. There players were beginning to fracture and many had expressed confusion over the proposal’s specifics. In one of these tweets, Luis asks the NBA a question directly and publicly. Takeaway: shows player disjointedness and general player confusion with process / outcome… which shows weakness.

Here’s an example of Chris Sheridan (former ESPN NBA writer) and Luis. Chris posted a critical piece about the lockout and Luis retweeted it. Takeaway: fascinating as it shows the players are reading the commentary and clearly trying to share certain opinions.

This is my favorite one. The NBA took to Twitter to do a fan Q&A session about the lockout. It was in an effort to engage fans, show appreciation and help communicate… but it was a terrible idea (and I’m shocked anyone in PR allowed this to happen). It lead to fans spewing negativity, players tweeting questions, and the league being forced to answer uncomofortable questions. Takeaway: trying to do something positive but no an intelligent move.

Facebook has begun integrating their new Subscribe functionality into Facebook Comments. It includes a small subscribe link next to each commenter’s name / icon that allows in-line subscription. That does a few things:

1. It keep activity on the external site… so publishers love it.
2. It gives yet another incentive for users to comment… so readers love it.
3. And it provides more context for readers as Facebook helps sort content based on relationship, activity and ‘following’.

And….

4. It is a great way for Facebook to promote the Subscribe feature which frankly is lost of Facebook.com…. findability, context and usefulness is better off-Facebook.com (just ask Twitter).

I’ve written a fair amount about how publishers should be better leveraging Twitter, Facebook Subscribe, and social products… and even tailored it to verticals like sports.

Here is an example of good work by ESPN and their new Grantland property. It’s applicable to any publisher who is a network of content producers and/or sharers… and that is the majority of all publishers.

While this is a visual example of how to connect your content producers / sharers, it is also a reminder for brands to think of themselves as a connected network of individuals whose job is, in part, to be part to build the larger entity. This in turn drives more traffic to the overarching brand and builds the individuals beneath.

How it works:

First, Grantland is a new brand / destination (85k followers) operated by ESPN and managed by uber-popular Bill Simmons (1.5m followers). Grantland content is produced by a variety of ESPN personalities, celebrities, etc… and many pieces of content are collaborations between multiple voices.

When content goes live on Grantland (and it does several times a day), all associated personalities promote it. But they do it in more effective way than just retweeting @Grantland33′s post. Someone will announce the article and include the collaborator’s Twitter handles. Those users then reply in a conversational – but still promotional – manner.

The result:

- Grantland and it’s contributors are actually followable… if everyone was a circular retweet, this would not be the case.
- Grantland got itself off the ground by leveraging larger voices like Bill Simmons and ESPN’s top-level brand
- It in turn promotes its contributors
- Who in turn promote their associates and their brand
- Everyone wins as followings grow and content is effectively shared

Notice anything about the below screenshot of a Twitter search? Only two of the tweets actually contain the search query (“Peyton Hillis”)…. but all of the returned tweets are relevant and discuss “Peyton Hillis” on the linked landing page. This obviously means that:

1. Twitter (either directly or via partnership) is indexing landing pages and associating that content with the on-Twitter search query

2. Twitter search is far, far more valuable than it once was: a text match within 140 characters. And as 25% of all tweets include a link (thanks Quora), this is a big deal

3. I need to figure out if Peyton Hillis is starting today’s game!

Almost exactly two years ago, Facebook introduced a series of new ad units around gifting, polling, liking, etc. Two years later, here is a view of the new Facebook Bud Light campaign – which is an expanded unit and includes several social functions…. think of it as a miniaturized fan page: the unit contains / enables all of the core functionality a page does.

The single sponsored unit contains:

- Your friends who like the the page
- A link to the advertiser’s page
- Related posts
- A link to the advertiser’s album
- A larger-than-normal photo from the album
- Expandable likes and comments
- A like button
- Ability to comment in-line

Ahead of F8, Facebook has rolled out several changes … which is rather remarkable considering how many updates / features and how significant some are. To do it a couple days ahead of F8 is fascinating because it suggests bigger updates are coming. Tomorrow will be fun.

I love the new photo layout… screams mobile! Also like the persistent header

And here is the welcome screen for a user’s first experience with the new updates

I recently touched on the potential importance of Facebook Subscribe, Facebook Subscribe: Opportunity for Publishers & Online Voices… and here is why Subscribe is important and not simply a “me too” product:

- it is a natural fit for the Facebook environment
- it gives personalities and big voice (subscribe is for personalities what pages is for brands)
- it is driving real engagement and traffic (see below))
- which means that users are liking it – both the voice and the reader