The 4 Most Important Factors to Having a Great Twitter Profile

Your customers are the most haphazard brand managers in the world. While your internal brand managers might spend days figuring out the perfect message to put out, your customers are just going out there and sharing whatever comes to their mind. They do it without filters, to hundreds, thousands, even millions of people.

Twitter is the second largest social media in the world. It’s also the most conversational social media network. Getting your Twitter setup done well will make it easier and more likely for people to talk about you and to you on this vast and fast paced social network.

Here are the four most important things for optimizing your Twitter account.

#1 – Informative Username That Sounds Great

Your username should have a snap to it. People should hear the username and immediately understand what your business is about. It should ideally also either be identical to or be related to your business or brand’s name.

Ask other people what they think about your Twitter name before you commit to it. Ideally, the name you choose for Twitter account is also the name you use on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks.

#2 – A Background and Profile Photo That Stand Out

The second thing you need is a background that really stands out and a profile photo that goes along with it.

Your background is your opportunity to demonstrate how much you care about your Twitter page. People who really care about Twitter put a lot of effort into their backgrounds. They look absolutely stunning.

Your background should be well designed. It should look like a lot of effort went into it; or it should look like it was done by a professional designer. If you don’t know how to make a world class design, consider hiring someone to do it for you.

Your Twitter profile photo should match and compliment this background.

#3 – An Informative, Snappy Bio

Your bio is a very short and succinct overview of who you are, what your company does and what customers can expect from your Twitter feed.

It should be attention catching and snappy while also interesting at the same time. Take a look at how other people wrote their bios. Some people choose to be just informative, while others add a good deal of personality to it.

How you write your bio depends largely on how you want to be perceived. A playful brand might use brighter and more fun words, while a large corporation probably wants to be a little more professional.

You could also consider adding some of your keywords to your bio. This can help you get more traffic.

#4 – Talk About What People Care About

Don’t use your Twitter account as a promotion engine. Instead, use it as a way to build a relationship with potential customers. Use it to put out value in the world, rather than try to use it to get people to buy.

Post things that people care about. Post tips. Share resources. Give discounts. Answer questions. Have a two-way relationship with your customers.

Post timely information. Use RSS feeds to monitor blogs in your industry and talk about events and ideas as they gain popularity. Use Google Insights to see what topics are getting hot and what topics are fazing out of favor.

Sprinkle in search engine targeted keywords here and there. Twitter shouldn’t be about SEO, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a couple keywords that you’re trying to rank for with your Twitter page.

Twitter Marketing isn’t like buying a newspaper ad. It’s not you pushing marketing into the world. It’s you having a two-way conversation with your audience. These tips will help you make a great first impression on your audience, then help you have a great conversation with them afterwards.

via