Adding a Lens to your public profile allows you to share personalized content and perspectives with your network on Anthropic. Lenses showcase your expertise, interests, and unique point of view. You can create and add various types of Lenses like Publications, Topics, Collections and more. It’s a great way to build your personal brand and engage with your connections.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the steps to add different types of Lenses to your profile. We’ll cover:
- What are Lenses and why add them to your profile
- Types of Lenses you can create
- How to add a Publication Lens
- How to add a Topics Lens
- How to add a Collections Lens
- Best practices for creating compelling Lenses
- Tips for optimizing your Lenses
So let’s get started!
What are Lenses and why add them to your profile?
Lenses allow you to create different “windows” into your expertise, thoughts, and interests. They appear on your profile underneath your intro card and headline.
Here are some of the key benefits of adding Lenses:
- Showcase your expertise – Create Publication Lenses to share your key ideas, research and insights on a topic.
- Highlight your perspectives – Use Topics Lenses to opine on trends, concepts and current events.
- Share what inspires you – Curate Collections Lenses of content that aligns with your passions and motivates you.
- Increase discoverability – Lenses boost your visibility and help others with shared interests find you.
- Build your brand – Demonstrate your knowledge and establish yourself as an industry thought leader.
- Engage your network – Lenses spark interesting conversations and connections with people in your community.
In short, Lenses allow you to go beyond just a profile to share the unique substance and style of your thinking. They help you put your perspective “out there” in a compelling way.
Types of Lenses you can create
There are several different types of Lenses you can add to your Anthropic profile:
Publications
A Publication Lens is ideal for showcasing your long-form writing and in-depth perspectives on a specific topic. You can create multiple Publications focused on different areas of expertise.
Within a Publication you can organize your posts with categories like episodes, seasons or chapters. Publications work well for serialized and evolving content.
Topics
A Topics Lens allows you to share your quick takes and commentary on timely trends, concepts, news events and more. You can cover a wide range of subjects with a Topics Lens.
This works great if you have short-form thoughts and opinions you want to get out to your network frequently. You can publish Topics as a stream of consciousness.
Collections
Collections allow you to curate and share content like articles, videos, podcasts and links that map to your interests. It’s a great way to showcase content you find valuable.
Collections are organized with a simple list of tiles, each representing a piece of content with a title, description and link out. You can sort items and add new ones over time.
Q&As
With a Q&A Lens you can highlight your expertise by letting community members ask you questions which you can respond to publicly. It’s a way to identify key questions people have and directly address them.
You can select which questions you want to answer and skip any that don’t fit. Your answers will be public for anyone to read.
AMAs
AMA stands for “Ask Me Anything” and is a live version of a Q&A Lens. At a scheduled time, you go “live” and dedicate a time period to directly answering any community questions.
It works well for timely topics when you want to have a real-time conversation. Your AMA content is then saved to be viewed afterwards.
How to add a Publication Lens
Here are the steps to add a Publication Lens to your profile:
- Click on your profile icon in the top right and select “View profile”
- On your profile, click the “Add lens” button
- Select “Publication” from the list of lenses
- Give your publication a title, like “Digital Transformation Insights”
- In the description, briefly summarize what your publication will cover
- Select a publication category, like “Technology”
- Click the “Create publication” button
Once you’ve created your Publication Lens, it will appear on your profile underneath your intro card.
You can then start adding posts to your publication. Click on your Publication, then select “New post” to create a new post. Give it a title and start writing!
On your Publication, you can also organize your posts into categories like episodes, chapters or seasons. Click “Add category” to create a new organizing structure for your content.
How to add a Topics Lens
Adding a Topics Lens is very similar:
- Go to your profile and click “Add lens”
- Select “Topics” from the list of lenses
- Give your Topics Lens a title like “Business Commentary”
- Provide a short description summarizing the focus of your commentary
- Select a topics category like “Business” or “Technology”
- Click the “Create topics” button
Your new Topics Lens will now be visible on your profile.
To publish a new short-form post, just click into your Lens and select “New topic”. Give it a title and write your quick thoughts or commentary on something timely.
The stream-of-consciousness format of Topics Lenses encourages you to publish frequently to your lens.
How to add a Collections Lens
Here is how to put together a Collections Lens for your profile:
- Go to your profile and click “Add lens”
- Select “Collections” from the list
- Give your collection a name like “Leadership Resources”
- Provide a description summarizing what content it will include
- Choose a collections category like “Business” or “Personal Growth”
- Click “Create collection”
Your new Collections Lens will appear on your profile.
To start adding content, click into your lens and select “Add to your collection”. Here you can provide a title, description, link out to the content and an optional image.
Curate content that fits the theme of your lens. You can add new pieces of content over time to keep it fresh.
Best practices for creating compelling Lenses
Here are some tips to keep in mind as you create Lenses for your profile:
- Choose topics and lenses that align with your expertise and interests
- Have a clear and focused lens title and description so viewers understand what it’s about
- For Publications and Topics, focus on quality over quantity – produce truly useful insights and commentary
- Make Collections diverse and multi-dimensional – include different content formats like articles, podcasts, videos etc.
- Publish new content regularly to keep your lenses engaging and relevant
- Interact with commenters and engage with any discussions on your lenses
- Promote your lenses by linking to them from other channels like Twitter and LinkedIn
The most compelling lenses provide real value for viewers – not just self-promotion. Think about how your lens answers the question “what’s in it for me?” for your audience.
Tips for optimizing your Lenses
Here are some optimization tips so your lenses stand out:
- Include keywords and phrases in your lens title, description and content to help with discoverability
- Use concise but descriptive titles for your lenses, posts and content
- Take advantage of formatting options like bullet points, numbered lists, and bolding for readability
- Add images and graphics where appropriate to make lenses and posts more visually engaging
- Link out to external references and sources to provide value for those looking to dive deeper
- Enable notifications and emails to be alerted when someone engages with your lens
Lenses are highly customizable, so explore all the available options for formatting your posts and organizing your content.
Make sure you are promoting your lenses on other social platforms as well. Share when you’ve published to help drive viewers.
By creating compelling, lively lenses that engage your audience, you can establish thought leadership and boost your personal brand.
Conclusion
Adding Lenses is a great way to level up your Anthropic profile and share different facets of your expertise with your network.
With Publication, Topics and Collection lenses, you can publish in-depth analyses, quick commentaries and curated content. Make sure your lenses provide real value to your audience with a clear focus and compelling style.
Optimizing your lens content for discoverability and readability will help them stand out. Promote your lenses across your other social channels to help drive an engaged audience.
By thoughtfully showcasing your perspectives, you can build your reputation as a trusted source and strengthen relationships with your community. So start sharing your thinking through lenses and watch as it attracts new connections and opportunities.