I hope, as a result of reading “HOWTO: Start Using Twitter For Your School,” you began to use Twitter personally in order to better understand this social media channel. Considering that I wrote that post about 5 months ago I'll assume that you have a good number of tweets under your belt and are now your ready to enhance your Twitter profile and take it to the next level. In order to do that follow these 5 ways to enhance your Twitter profile and become a Twitter ninja.
1. Twitter Picture
Nothing screams novice more than the default Twitter egg profile picture. In order become a more accomplished Twitter user upload a picture of yourself. I would recommend that you select a photo and use the same one for all of your social media channels – I think it helps to extend your brand and allows people to connect more confidently with you on those other channels. I use the same photo for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Gravatar, and SchneiderB.com. My hope is that people will know that when they find my other social media accounts they will instantly recognize the account as mine.
2. Customize Your Twitter Background
Having a custom Twitter background was a bigger deal before the advent of tools to manage Twitter like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck – these tools “pull” your Twitter feeds into one combined dashboard which keeps your Twitter background unseen. With that said however, I still think it's important to create a custom Twitter background to help people find out a little more about you and where else they can connect with you. I've customized my background with my Twitter Picture and all of my social media accounts.
Even if you're not comfortable using an image editor there are a number of free sites that will help you easily enhance your Twitter profile and customize your background. Simply search Google for “Free Twitter Backgrounds” to get started.
3. Use A Custom Profile For Your Web Link
As you customize and enhance your Twitter profile you'll be allowed to include a link to a web site. While a lot of people use this link to drive people to their blog or personal website, I encourage you to sign up for a Custom Personal Profile and use that web address. A Custom Personal Profile allows you to list all of your social media channels and help you to extend your personal brand. By posting the same picture as your Twitter picture, which I've done, or by posting another picture that is meaningful to you, you'll allow users to get to know you a little more and make it easier to connect.
The three most poplar tools that allow you to make a Custom Personal Profile are:
4. Use Your Bio To Describe What You Tweet
Twitter allows you to use 160 characters to describe yourself – make sure you use them. While I've seen people use this space to say and write just about everything I would encourage you to use this space to describe how and what you tweet. While I do find it interesting that you are a father, son, friend, etc… unless that is what you tweet about on a regular basis please be more specific. I think it's important that you let users know what information you're going to tweet about in order to help them determine whether they should follow you. My bio simply states, “Discussing social media, technology, inbound marketing and branding for schools at SchneiderB.com. Contributor at edSocialMedia.com.” If you follow my Twitter account, @SchneiderB, you know that I tweet about social media, technology, inbound marketing, and branding for schools. I think it's important to be straight forward.
5. Utilize Topify To Determine Who To Follow
Topify is a web application that iLove for 3 reasons. Simply put, anytime someone follows my Twitter account I receive an email that includes the person's Twitter picture, Twitter Bio, Weblink, Follower Count, Following Count, Updates, Location, How long they've been on Twitter, and their last 5 tweets. By quickly scanning this information I can determine whether this person looks interesting enough to follow. I can't underestimate how much time and energy Topify saves me and I hope you'll check it out.
You're now ready to take your Twitter use to the next level and by following these 5 simple steps you too can enhance your Twitter profile and become a Twitter ninja.
What would you add? Please let me know in the comments section below.
Originally published June 21, 2011, 04:00 AM, updated February 16, 2022
