How to Create a Winning Profile on Twitter

Setting up your Twitter profile is just as important as setting up your website and in fact your website and profile should be aligned with one another if you want to appear credible.  Here is a step by step guide to setting up a profile that works for you and will help you to get it right from the beginning.  

To create the content in your profile, register with Twitter and then go to settings and account.  Here you can add your information, starting with your name. 

What's in a name?

Choose a username that is either the name of your business, says what you do or alternatively use your own name.  It is good to use your own name if your Twitter account is doing more than one thing, or if what you do changes from time to time.  So for instance, if you have multiple businesses or projects on the go, it might be wise to use your own name and go for a personal branding approach. 

Upload a photo

Not having a photo is one of the top reasons that people won't follow you.  This can be a logo, a mug shot or a stock photo that reflects your branding.  Make sure you name the photo using keywords, these will show in your URL and improve your SEO.  If you are developing a web presence, it is important to be consistent, so try to use the same photo throughout the various platforms that you use. 

Website

As with the photo, not having a website, or using a Myspace account as your webaddress are two more reasons that might stop you from being followed if you are using it for business.  Don't use a URL shortener here either, people may assume you have something to hide. You can drop the http or the www. from your URL if you run out of space, or you can buy a short domain name to point to your site. 

Your Author Bio

Tell the world what you are about in 160 characters! This is your unique selling point so you need to be succinct, and it needs to be well thought through.  Have a look at other users and see which ones jump out at you.  Try to use some keywords, but avoid making it look like a meta tag entry box! Think about what would draw you to someone else's profile. 

Mind Your Back!

Go to settings, then design and finally change background image. 

Create a WoW Twitter background that is in line with your branding.  You can use this to give more information, either visually or with more words.  You can only use images though, so although your readers can see the words, the search engines can't.  This means that they can't click on the links either.  Mashable have a fantastic blog post about creating your Twitter background.  Please check it out, it contains information about size, use of space, design, applications and they give examples.   They give you the exact dimensions it needs to be and exactly how to place the left hand column so that it doesn't get covered up.  You can choose a free background from Twitterbacks or TwitBacks both of which offer free backgrounds.  You can log in with your Twitter details and it will be uploaded straight away to your account.  Alternatively, there are webdesigners who specialise in creating Twitter backgrounds and you may choose to have one done professionaly.   Or of course, you can use a good image of your own.  Be careful to make sure it is big enough or it will tile. 

Search Engine Submission and Feedburners and Tweets

Now you have a cool profile and you want people to find you, here are some tips.

Submit your profile to the search engines.  scrubtheweb offers you a free submission once a month. 

Burn your Twitter feed so that people can subscribe to your Tweets.  This is easy, just submit your profile URL to feedburner.com. This will allow people to subscribe to your Twitter feed.  A word of warning, if you are linking to blogposts that have been written on Word, your feed may have problems with the html and be rejected by feedburner.  Make sure you pre-write your blog posts on Notepad or something like that before uploading them to your blogs. 

Include keywords in your tweets.

Post your Twitter profile in all of your blogs, sites, social networks and emails.  

Grow your following!

Follow and engage with people, have conversations and offer Tweets of value.  

Use Twiends.com to grow your targeted following in a rapid but steady way.  It is easy to use and you can sign up for free.  It is completely Twitter compliant and has a loyal customer base of thousands of users.  

Are you proud of your profile?  Show it off here!  Leave us your URL so we can check it out and follow you!