How Powerful is Your Twitter Profile?

What does your Twitter profile say about you?  Twitter doesn’t give us much space to create a powerful profile, but we can still do it.  Would a potential customer look at your profile and say, “I want to follow that person”?

Here are some tips you can use to help beef up your Twitter profile.  Like it or not, Twitter is here to stay.  You want to use it to strengthen your online presence, to bring readers to your blog or web site, and to learn what is happening in the online world.  

• Post a photo.  On Twitter you can create a company site as well as an individual site.  If you develop a product profile for your company, you’ll post the company logo.  But, you’ll also want your own individual profile.  People like to see people, not logos.  Twitter is very personal.  You “follow” someone.  That means you follow someone, not something.  Make sure your photo says what you want it to say.  Be careful of a photo that shows you in a revealing dress.  Twitter is full of porno sites.  Don’t let people mistake you for a porno site because you like that picture of you in the skimpy dress. 
• Describe who you are and the benefits of knowing you.  On Twitter you have very few words for describing yourself.  Imagine creating your 10-second elevator speech.  That’s what you are doing on Twitter.  You must reveal what it is about you that makes you interesting enough to follow.  
• Keep your profile up-to-date.  If things change, make sure you update your profile.  For example, when I published my second book, I changed my 10-second to read: “Say It Just Right Master, communications coach, author and speaker.”
• Make sure you put your company web sites on your profile.  Twitter allows you to put your web site on your headline page.  If people like what they see, it’s the first place they will go.
• Brand yourself with your background.  Twitter gives you an opportunity to create your own background colors and logo.  If you take a look at people’s Twitter pages, you’ll see all kinds of interesting, colorful backgrounds.  It’s better to put your own logo up in the background, using the company colors than to use one of the default selections Twitter offers.  Even photos of you placed in an interesting way can attract people to your site.  Remember, Twitter is about branding. 
• The most prominent things you’ll see on the Twitter profile are your Tweets.  If you are constantly “in your face” with Tweets that sell, sell, sell, that will turn people off.  Most people look for a variety of Tweets.  They look for @ symbols that suggest that you are interacting with people.  They look for RTs that suggest that you read other people’s Tweets.  They look for links that suggest that you share stuff.  And they look for questions, suggesting that you don’t know all the answers.
• Know your audience.  Tweets give you a great indication of what your audience is interested in.  You can learn not only what your target market is interested in but also what your competitors are up to.  In a blog, “Social Media and Twitter: 10 Principles for Getting Started,” the author encourages Tweeters to use this information to figure out what to share with people.  A large company, for example, like Dell, has several Twitter accounts, each Tweeting about different things.  By the way, where did I find this blog post?  On Twitter, of course.

These are my tips, what are some of yours?