How To Create A Twitter Profile That Hooks In Followers

Personal Branding • Social Media Marketing • 8 CommentsJuly 23rd, 2012

The power of twitter is in having a high number of engaged followers ( in other words, they love to hear from and interact with you), but the question is how do we get them to follow us in the first place?

One vital ingredient to help pull in a healthy trail of targeted followers is having a compelling profile that piques their curiosity and makes an impact. Now there’s lots of other factors that come into play when someone decides whether to follow you or not, such as what you’ve been tweeting about, how many followers you have Vs following etc, but your profile is the first thing they see and what they make their initial judgement based on- so it's absolutely crucial you get right.

Here are some top tips to help you create a twitter profile that seduces.....

 

Tip 1: Have An Engaging Profile Photo

One of my pet hates on twitter (second to an automated DM) is twitter profiles with no photos. It sends the message that they’re lazy and who wants to follow someone with no idea as to who they are??- seriously, you’d be better off just not having a twitter account at all. It doesn’t take more than a minute to upload a photo of yourself and it's hardly rocket science.

You can’t go wrong with a head shot that captures you in a bright, positive light- ideally smiling and looking straight into the camera. The idea is to create a connection with you and the potential follower.

Think carefully about the audience you're speaking to and what will resonate with potential followers. For example, if you’re a yoga instructor aiming to build a community of fellow yogis and potential students, you may want to be wearing your yoga gear and doing a yoga posture. If you do lots of motivational speaking and are looking for more speaking gigs you might want to have a photo of you talking into a microphone... you get the picture!

Here’s something to seriously think about. People naturally engage with people more than brand logos and random pictures, especially in social media land which is all about direct, human interaction. It's more about Who you're following as opposed to What you're following. So opt for a photo of yourself instead of your brand logo. You can then make it clear on your bio you are the MD of your business and promote your biz that way, as well as creating a branded wall paper for your twitter background.

 

Tip 2: Cultivate A Catchy Bio

We only have 160 characters for the bio – but there’s still a lot we can do with those words to entice followers in. So many people just assume that 160 characters is nothing so resort to something basic like ‘PR Consultant, London, Loves traveling’ but quite frankly, it’s dull. Let’s swap it for  ‘I’m a PR Consultant that gets a kick out of helping clients become famous, Based in London & a passionate globe trotter. Addicted to cookies & cream icecream”

Can you see how this says the same thing and yet so much more? The trick is to be clear on what you do- but add some descriptive words and a shot of personality to spice it up.

Notice how in the second bio the focus is in what she achieves through her work as a PR consultant: ‘making clients famous’. This is a much stronger hook to potential followers and clients as she's clearly articulating how she can benefit them. Having a clear picture of the value she delivers, followers will be much more inclined to press that follow button.

Try to make sure the benefits you can deliver to your community are clearly communicated. This will seriously up your 'value credentials' and get you hot on the radar of potential Twitter bred customers and clients.

 

Tip 3: Display Your Linky Links

Twitter is such a brilliant way to drive traffic to your website so make sure you clearly have a link to your website, or whatever it is you want to promote clearly in your bio (it could be your LinkedIn profile if you're a freelancer or your portfolio if you're a designer). One of the best time to drive traffic to your site via Twitter is on that initial connection with your new follower- their curiosity is piqued and they're intrigued to find out more (especially if you've taken the advice of Tip 2). You’ve then got a whole lot more than 160 characters to promote what you do and turn your twitter community into subscribers and paying customers/ clients.

 

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