How to Optimise Your Twitter Profile
On the Internet, you have mere seconds to grab someone’s attention and make an impression. Being a ‘micro-blogging’ platform, Twitter condenses your entire business profile into a mere 160 characters. Fortunately, there are a few other elements that you can use to advantage. 
So before you waste another second, consider how you can pull them all together and create an optimised Twitter profile that can beat your competitors’, grow your audience and translate your tweets into paying clients.
This article will deal with Twitter profiles for micro and small businesses. In big business, one-on-one interaction is rarely possible nor is it expected. Not so at the little end of town.
WHY optimise your Twitter profile?
- To obtain more followers, ideally authentic ones who are truly interested in what you have to say in your tweets.
- To reach your audience more effectively. Those looking for the products or services you provide will find you more easily.
- To make it clearer to potential clients what you do once they reach your Twitter profile.
- A poorly put-together Twitter profile is a waste of prime online real estate.
These are the elements you need to optimise in your Twitter profile.
Profile picture
The generic ‘egg’ graphic of new Twitter users must be replaced immediately! You could use your logo as your profile picture but a photograph of yourself is far preferable. People want to deal with other people, not logos and certainly not nondescript graphics.
Twitter name
You have just 15 characters for your Twitter name. If the name you want is unavailable, try to avoid making it hard to understand with missing letters. You may like to create a profile name that incorporates keywords, the same way as you would create a keyword-rich domain name, e.g. www.websitedesigner .com.au. You might use @websitedesigner (15 characters).
Real name
Anonymity on the Internet is so 1990s! A carefully crafted online presence will bode well for your business. Would you hand out a business card that has a ‘nick’ on it instead of your real name? By the way, you get 20 characters for your real name whether or not your name fits so you may need to use an abbreviation.
Location
Depending on the kind of business you own, your location could mean everything to a potential follower or client! And even if you do offer worldwide services, listing your geographical location makes you more human, less like a generic bot.
URL
Here you can place a link to your website, your blog or another social network profile such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Never use URL shorteners to condense the length of the link as people want to be able to read where they’re going. Consider creating a special landing page on your website for Twitter click-throughs. This will enable you to speak exclusively to your Twitter followers and perhaps offer them something special for taking that leap of faith and clicking through to your site.
Providing a new page to visit acts as an extension of your Twitter profile. First you catch their interest, then you give them more of what they’re looking for.
Bio
You have just 160 characters to express what your business is about. Don’t waste a single letter or punctuation mark! Remember that your Twitter profile page is no different to any other web page. It comprises a title (your profile name), a meta description (your bio) and content (your tweets). Keyword incorporation will do wonders for optimising your Twitter profile.
The following example from @BayBeans shows just how much value can be fit into 160 characters.
Caffeinated aromatherapy: the sensory pleasures of expertly roasted coffee beans. Our VIP club rewards you for your good taste. Order online or ph 02 8208 3477.
It contains the business’s tagline: “caffeinated aromatherapy”; a lifestyle prompt and outline of what the business offers, and how well it offers it: “the sensory pleasures of expertly roasted coffee beans”; positions the business at the high end of affordability: “rewards you for your good taste”; entices readers to find out more: “VIP club”; includes a call to action: “order online or ph” and makes it easy for readers to know how to reach the company with the inclusion of their phone number. It also includes the key phrases “roasted coffee beans” and “order online”. All in exactly 160 characters and without hard to read abbreviations!
By optimising your Twitter profile, you maximise your reach, spell out your offering and build a loyal, listening audience. If you’d like your Twitter profile professionally written, contact me.