Chapter 4

Secrets of a Great Twitter Profile

“You are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your place and person.”

Merry Wives of Windsor

It all starts with your profile picture, the one that says, “This is what I’m all about.”

It’s the first thing your potential followers will see, so it needs to have a serious wow factor but not necessarily big-bucks investment. Some of the best profile shots happen by accident; in fact you may already have the perfect profile picture on your hard disk. It’s the one that instantly says all it needs to about your personal brand.

Thinking Outside the Box

This chapter isn’t about giving you a photography lesson; it’s all about making you think outside the box about how you present your brand to others. I was chatting with a photographer recently who told me about a personal brand portrait shoot he had done with a businessman at his home. He had taken many head and shoulder shots — shots at the client’s desk, shots in front of framed degrees, and other corporate-type images. They had all turned out fairly standard — none really stood out from the crowd.

The photographer and the subject agreed that there were plenty of usable shots but they wanted to create something special and out of the box. The photographer suggested they try some jumping shots. The subject was hesitant at first but stepped out of his comfort zone and, dressed in his suit and tie, started jumping! The shots were amazing, surprising, and quite funny. The shoot culminated with the subject jumping in his pool for one last image!

Although this might all sound a little silly, the shots ended up being featured in a magazine spread about the businessman. It was the series of out-of-the-box images that convinced the magazine he was someone that it would want to feature.

Try playing around with some of the great free photo-editing resources available today on a good-quality shot of yourself and see how altering focus, color, or other effects can change the statement of a bland head-and-shoulders shot, as Figure 4-1 shows.

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Trick

Once you’ve chosen your picture, there’s a clever trick you can use to ensure that your photo is optimized for maximum recognition. I’m talking about a unique search engine optimization (SEO) trick that not many people are aware of. It’s simple: Although you can’t add tags to your photo, you can rename it before you upload, using keywords that will help identify your brand to others and draw people toward you. Doing that means that when your photo appears in the URL, it will contain the keywords you selected. A word of warning: Don’t use spaces when adding your keywords as they will make the link more difficult to translate, and it may not show up easily during a search.

The Power of First Impressions

People don’t merely form first impressions; they become attached to them. Social scientists have given this phenomenon a name: the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). It is a term that gives credence to the cliché “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” and it stems from the fact that people are complex. To simplify this complexity, we have a tendency to pigeonhole one another into specific categories after only the briefest of interactions. For example, someone who observes an athlete signing autographs on one occasion will probably assume the athlete is a nice person. In reality, there are many other aspects to that athlete’s personality. But to make life simpler, we tend to conclude that she is a nice person.

This internal categorization has its positives and negatives. On the positive side, if you really wow enough people with your first impression, you can coast on the momentum of that powerful first impression for a long, long time.

But the principle of FAE can also prove to be fatal. Suppose someone catches you on a bad day. If you are not careful, your personal brand could be severely marred. How many actors and athletes have been branded as arrogant because they preferred not to sign an autograph in a restaurant while eating with their family?

It is an unavoidable reality that we make snap judgments about others based on a fraction of the relevant information. Building a great personal brand ensures you make the principle of FAE work for you, rather than against you.

Getting a Handle on Your Handle

In terms of your personal brand, clearly your best possible Twitter account handle is your own name. However, if you have a common name, such as Smith or Jones, you may find it has already been taken. Try different variations, or adding a middle initial if you have one.

You can also separate parts of your name with an underscore, for example, Anna Louise Smith could become the Twitter handle @AnnaSmith, @AnnaLouiseSmith, or @AnnaLSmith, or it could be broken up using the underscore to make the handles @Anna_Smith, @Anna_L_Smith, or even @AnnaSmith_.

Alternatively, and here’s where you need to get creative, you can choose to experiment with alternatives that incorporate your name and personal brand statement. For example, if Anna Smith is an artist, she could use the handle @AnnaSmithArtist or even @AnnaLovesArt.

When Marcella Selbach started her Independent Movies Promotional Services, she wanted her Twitter handle to immediately portray what she was all about to her followers. The name @movieangel was the perfect choice and is synonymous with support and help for independent movies makers around the globe. She also used the name in her website (www.movieangel.net) and chose a golden roll of film as her profile picture, again strengthening her brand message. She then chose to feature herself in the background image to illustrate her personal passion for movies and to humanize her profile page further, as Figure 4-2 shows.

Deciding to use the name @movieangel was a clever move as it also incorporates the keyword that Marcella wanted to rank highly in. In other words, when people search the word “movie” in Twitter, @movieangel will be in the results. There are many possible Twitter handle combinations, so it’s important to take some time in choosing the right one for you.

One thing to bear in mind in this process is the 140-character limit that Twitter imposes. If you choose a long Twitter handle, you leave less room for message content and replies. Twitter currently limits usernames to 15 characters or less for this very reason.

Trust Your Instincts

My Twitter handle, @grattongirl (see Figure 4-3), came about as a result of wanting to showcase my personal brand through Twitter without using my full name, which would have been way too long. As a writer, having my surname as part of my handle was important to me, so I played around with various alternatives and @grattongirl just felt right. Don’t be afraid to use your instincts and choose a name that speaks to you internally.

Soon afterwards, my husband, Dean Anthony Gratton, joined Twitter as @grattonboy. Our husband-and-wife profiles worked in harmony to promote our individual brands as well as inadvertently creating a further brand, #teamgratton, which I explain more about in Chapter 10.

Bring on the Bio

The good news is that your bio is already 90 percent written in the form of your personal brand statement, which I showed you how to put together in Chapter 3. All you need to add now is your website’s URL to draw people even closer into brand “you.” Thus, it’s worth taking the time to make sure your website lives up to your brand’s message and audience expectations.

You can also add your location if what you are offering is area-specific (see Figure 4-4).

With this in mind, do ensure that your Twitter settings reflect a true impression of where you are based by logging into your Twitter account, clicking Settings, and checking out your bio information.

Branding Your Background

A background image is yet another great way to visually express your personal brand. Plan it with your personal brand statement as your guiding light. Although the Twitter background themes are easy to use and may be what you think you need, by using one of the provided images you are branding yourself with the same background as thousands of other Twitter users. The key to creating a great Twitter profile is to set you apart. It’s the difference between wearing the same outfit as others and having a suit made especially for you.

By far the easiest way to ensure your profile is unique is to upload your own background image. Simply go to the Settings pane and then click on the Design tab, which will take you to the option to change the background image (see Figure 4-5).

If you are familiar with photo-editing tools such as Adobe Photoshop, you may want to produce something creative that immediately familiarizes potential followers with the essence of brand “you.” If you don’t have the skills for photo editing, you can simply upload a photograph you’ve taken and play around with the tiled and nontiled options in Twitter (see Figure 4-6) to see what works best aesthetically.

If you want your photo to fill the entire background, the image size and positioning are incredibly important as you don’t want to lose your head, so to speak, when the timeline box appears in your profile page. Your image size should be at least 1280 by 1024 pixels. I typically use 1600 by 1200 and even 2048 by 1600 for the background. It’s not likely that people with huge monitors will stretch their browsers to fill the entire screen, but you never know, so it’s best to have a profile that will accommodate all possible viewing arrangements.

Size matters and color counts

You also need to carefully consider file size when creating your background image. Twitter limits the file size to 800K, but I strongly recommend a smaller file size to avoid your background image taking an eternity to load. I prefer to keep the file size under 200K to ensure that loading is never an issue.

Once you’ve selected your background, you may want to change the colors of the sidebar background and border to complement the overall background image. Don’t pick a dark color; otherwise your text may be hard to read. Readability is important to keep in mind as you make your color choices. Your Twitter background can actually work as a virtual business card or brochure if you use the space on the left. You can also use the area at the top to further promote your personal brand message.

Tiled background tricks

Another option is to locate an image that will work in a tiled effect. Simply search for “tile background” in Google to find thousands of patterns available free or at a low cost. Be sure to adhere to all copyright restrictions and to give credit where credit is due for any work you use as a background tile. If you want to turn one of your own images into a unique background pattern for tiling, there are free tutorials that a quick Google search will take you straight to. Dean Anthony Gratton achieved a great effect by using a tiled image of his books to promote his personal (@grattonboy) brand as a bestselling author and columnist (see Figure 4-7).

Once you have accessed or created the tile selection you want to use as your background image, simply upload it as your Twitter background. Be sure to click the Tile Background option before you save.

Other background options

If your budget allows, by all means use the services of a specialist designer to put together a custom background for your personal brand. Make sure you view the candidate designers’ portfolios to ensure that their methodology best suits the look and feel you are seeking. Like everything else in life, each designer has his or her own individual style that may or may not suit you, so take your time in selecting someone who will work in sync with your brand message.

If, on the other hand, you’re restricted by budget but don’t want to use one of the Twitter options for your profile background, there’s a huge selection of design sites that will provide you with the tools you need to easily create a background on a low-cost or even free basis, depending on the templates your choose. A few of my favorites are Twitrbackgrounds (www.twitrbackgrounds.com), TwitBacks (www.twitbacks.com), shown in Figure 4-8, and Free Twitter Designer (www.freetwitterdesigner.com).

What’s Next?

Your killer profile is now armed with the wow factor it needs to attract those all-important followers but, before you step onto the Twitter stage, you need to know how to ensure that your content builds a strong and trusted dialog for your brand. The next chapter reveals the four types of tweets you need to quickly build your popularity and influence across the Twitterverse.