In this episode of Marketing Distilled, I’d like to talk about the six things we should consider to build a dynamite Twitter profile. These considerations are crucial for Twitter, but what you learn here can also be applied to other social media networks.
What follows is what I’ve learned from attending and participating in a Twitter Space hosted by Madalyn Sklar, where she and her fellow co-hosts audit Twitter Profiles that are submitted to her every Saturday at 1:00 pm EST. This framework is also what I think about the social media profile. I hope that you’ll enjoy this episode!
Audio Episode
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But first, let’s hear a word from our sponsor: Evernote
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I. Determine your Purpose for Twitter
One thing I have learned in my studies and something I have validated in my work with brands is that marketers need to be thoughtful about what they add or use in their marketing mix and how they contribute to the overall business goals. When you completely understand what your business goals are and your North Star, then your social media strategy is much easier to define.
What I see is that many people join Twitter without really understanding their overall purpose. Therefore, this is the first thing you should do when you are looking to make your Twitter profile (or any other social media profile) dynamite.
Possible reasons include:
- Twitter will help me get in front of my ideal customer or persona
- Twitter will help me grow my network with fellow professionals or the industry
- Twitter will help me establish my brand with my ideal audience member
- Twitter will help me share the message I have to share
With some of these questions (and more if you come up with them), you’ll have a bigger picture view of how Twitter will fit into your purpose for marketing. If you’ve been able to successfully figure out how your Twitter profile will fit into your marketing strategy, now you can move forward with the next step in the social media process.
II. Create compelling pictures and photography
The old saying is true, that a picture is worth 1000 words. Well, Twitter (and other social media profiles) give you the opportunity for 2000 words because many social media accounts have two photos for your account; your profile picture and a cover or banner photo.
Let’s talk about that profile picture. There are really two rules about your profile picture. If you are a personality or an individual, you should use a photo of yourself (a headshot), which reflects your personality, your smile, and your brand if you are developing one.
The second rule is that if you are using Twitter for your business or organization, then you should use your company’s logo. A word about your logo. Lots of logos are designed to fit into a square or rectangle or odd shape. All profile pictures are usually shown as a circle. It’s important that you work with your designers to make sure that your logo is designed so it fits really well within a circle.
Many businesses’ logos don’t look good in a circle from what I’ve seen. Lots of logos have text with the business name, slogan, and more. It’s probably better to design a logo that doesn’t include text, rather, just graphic elements. This strategy might elevate your brand a bit more! Link about Apple, Nike, McDonald’s, and more.
Let’s look now at your cover photo. I think it’s safe to say that the cover photo is akin to the billboard that you will see on the side of interstates and highways. What makes a good billboard? It’s pretty simple. A good billboard has good imagery to capture someone’s attention, very little text (because people don’t like to read a lot), and one call to action.
Consider too, the various places your graphic would appear and how to best design the graphic. For instance, the iPhone has a “notch” that might present a challenge. Other concerns are how big pictures display on small screens, like tablets and smartphones.
III. Write and craft your Twitter profile copy elements.
There are a few elements of your Twitter profile: your Twitter Handle or name, your bio or introduction, a website address, and location (if that’s relevant to you).
This is where you get the opportunity to describe your business, share your brand’s promise, establish your authority, share why you’re unique and preferred among others who do the same thing you do and call them to action.
And you get to do this in 160 characters! You might use this real estate to highlight hashtags that are relevant to your business, brand, or organization. A hashtag is a keyword that has the number sign in front of it. It’s a way to highlight the term and make it searchable on Twitter.
You might also include the Twitter handles of relevant accounts that you’d like to highlight.
Next, you can insert an important URL in your Twitter bio. Pretty straightforward here but be creative. Ideally, you would put the URL of your company’s website, but what else could you use the URL for? Let’s think!
- If you’re in sales, why not include a link to sign up for a white paper for your lead generation?
- If you’re in customer service, perhaps a link to start a ticket for customer support
- If you’re into business generation, then perhaps a link to start an order for delivery
You get the idea. Take the URL and make it more meaningful to your audience or the people you’re trying to connect with.
Let’s take a short break to hear from our sponsor, Agorapulse
This episode of Marketing Distilled is brought to you by Agorapulse. As a marketer you may very well be overwhelmed managing your social media, from creating content consistently, responding to comments and your audience, and figuring out what is working and what isn’t in your business. Meet Agorapulse. Agorapulse helps you stay organized and save time with Agorapulse’s Social Media Inbox, publishing, reporting, and monitoring tools. Plus, if you have a large team Agorapulse has collaboration, moderation, and editing tools built right in.
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Now, let’s get back to creating a dynamite Twitter profile!
IV. Create a compelling Pinned Tweet
As of 2022 Twitter is set up so that you can compose a Tweet and “pin” it to the top of your Twitter profile. This is a great opportunity to extend your real estate to provide further information, biographical materials, promotions, collaborations, news information, and more! You can use this tweet with a video, photo, and a link to further encourage another call to action or engagement.
Perhaps use this technique to feature items, specials, or different promotions your business is running. Again use your creativity here like your URL! If you’re a restaurant, feature your weekly menu. Bookstore? Bestseller list. You get the idea!
V. Pursue Verification
Depending on where you are in your Twitter usage and what business you are in, you can possibly pursue verification on Twitter. We see that Twitter gives certain accounts verified status indicated by a blue badge with a checkmark. This indicates that the account is authentic and who it purports to be. Twitter has some categories of accounts that they are looking for that they deem worthy or ideal for verification. I’m not going to delve into it in great detail here but I will say that if you can go through the steps to do so, it is something to pursue.
VI. Finally, deliver on your promise
Now that we have done all the work on to think through our business goals and how those goals translate to social media goals, it’s time to deliver on our brand’s promise in a way that makes sense on your Twitter account. For most of us, that means delivering the value that your brand seeks to provide, further enhancing or illustrating how your brand is the better choice for consumers when they think of buying their next product.
Mostly, it’s now time for your brand to interact, entertain, and inspire your followers toward taking action with your brand and business.
We’ll be back with a word from our sponsor, Asana
This episode of Marketing Distilled is brought to you by Asana Partners. Great marketing programs are driven by teams with smart marketing strategies. Unfortunately, coordinating work across a fragmented mix of spreadsheets, emails, and shared calendars can result in teams losing sight of their strategy, misaligning on goals, and duplicating work. According to the Anatomy of Work Index, marketers spend as much as 60% of their time on work about work like reporting status updates and chasing approvals. On top of that, 26% of all deadlines are missed each week due to an increased lack of clarity.
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Conclusion
Thanks again for tuning into the Marketing Distilled podcast. As we close down the bar and put the bottles back on the shelf let’s recap today’s episode on distilling a dynamite Twitter profile:
- You’ll want to determine your purpose and business goals and how Twitter can help you reach them.
- You’ll want to create compelling photography and imagery
- Write and craft your profile copy elements
- Create a compelling pinned tweet
- Pursue verification if you like
- Deliver on your promise
I hope this episode has been helpful to you. You can use these tips not just for Twitter, but for any other social media profiles you have, or would wish to start. Don’t forget to rate and review the Marketing Distilled Podcast and feel free to email me at contact@jonathangaby.com if you have suggestions, questions, or feedback on this episode or future episodes as well.
