in: Twitter
by: Katie Hellmuth Martin
By most counts, the Twitter bio is your future follower's first introduction to your personal or business Twitter account. Only 160 characters are allowed in this bio. It's not a full fledged professional bio. It's a very small snippet of it. And, depending on your industry, your company's Twitter bio can exude a personality. Twitter is a quirky, witty place. Your Twitter business bio needs to stand out and get to the point fast.
The most important part about the Twitter bio is that it gets emailed to people all of the time, on your behalf. You didn't lift a finger. Twitter is emailing people it thinks may be interested in your brand. How does Twitter know what to say about you? It introduces you using the bio you wrote. So don't write this half-heartidly! Listen to our podcast that covers every detail about the strategy behind writing your Twitter bio. But know this: It's everywhere. Let's focus on when it shows up in people's email inboxes.
EMAIL: FOR SUGGESTED TWITTER ACCOUNTS
Shortly after you follow someone on Twitter, you may get an email from Twitter suggesting other Twitter accounts that may interest you. Reverse that if someone follows an account on Twitter, and Twitter recommends your Twitter handle to that person as a suggested one to follow. Twitter shows the reader your bio, as indicated here by the red arrow. And this is in someone's inbox who has probably never heard of you! Prime email real estate.
EMAIL: WHEN YOU FOLLOW SOMEONE
When you follow someone, Twitter sends an email to that person. Twitter tells them "Hey, so and so followed you." Twitter introduces the person you followed to you using your bio, as indicated here by the red arrows. Once again, prime email real estate in a person's inbox! And Twitter includes the Follow button right under the bio, so that if you do bang-up job on being a must-know to this new person you just followed, then following you back is a click away from their inbox.
EMAIL: FAVORITED
This one is real easy. When you click the star graphic under a tweet, you have marked a tweet as one of your favorites. Twitter refers to this as "Favoriting". I'm pretty sure that's a made up word, but is a real word now.
Are you ready to re-write your Twitter bio? Good. Start here by listening to our podcast with professional copywriter June Eding as she tells us the strategies behind writing an effective Twitter bio that can get your business more followers. When you're ready, click here to go straight to your Twitter bio settings to change it.
DISCLAIMER: Twitter changes thins all of the time. As of 12/11/13, these types of tweets were being delivered via email.
Free Marketing Tips and Advice
Tin Shingle's free newsletter gives you marketing ideas in social networking, SEO and PR, sign up for it here!
Get The Word Out About Your Business
Want smart ideas and strategies for marketing and getting the word out about your business? Tap into Tin Shingle's Membership Program and PR Center, designed for businesses owners, marketers, artists and makers who want more exposure to the awesome brands they have created and need to promote. You need clever social media strategies, PR and validation from magazines and blogs, and a supportive community to be the wind beneath your wings as you constantly put your business out there.
Tap into a membership with Tin Shingle and instantly get these awesome resources:
- Media Contact Lists: Over 3,000 names of people in the media who want to know about your brand and what you offer.
- Training in How to Pitch the Media: Yeah, that's right. You can email magazine editors and TV producers to let them know about your business. There are effective ways of doing this. Tin Shingle trains you in the best approaches. Pitch the media like a pro.
- Hashtag Cheat Sheets: Tin Shingle's super-sleuthers have cultivated a gold mine of popular hashtags you could be using to get more exposure to your posts in Instagram and Twitter.
- More PR and Marketing Tools: Tap into ways to amplify your brand. Learn more about a monthly membership with Tin Shingle here.
