How to attract followers using your twitter bio

If you (or your brand) are desperately trying to attract followers on the social media giant twitter, then it is absolutely vital that you make sure you look the part. You may think it’s petty, but you will be very surprised with the results you get.

The first step involves your twitter bio. Your bio is one of the first places a user checks when seeing your profile for the first time. So it is very important that you load it with relevant information that doesn’t go over the top.

The impression a user gets from seeing your profile for the first time is the most important, and in theory it can be the difference between somebody following you or clicking off your profile and moving on with their lives.

Putting up a bio without any true conviction, or a bio that lacks confidence is just as bad or in some cases worse, than not having a bio at all, it’s a big risk to take. Keeping that in mind, I will be taking you through the ways in which you can make the best bio possible for your brand.

What do you insert to your twitter profile?

Name & username

The most important part of your profile is choosing the right name, simply because this is how people who use twitter will know you.

It’s a good idea to use your business name, but keep in mind you should try not to abbreviate your business name (unless the business name is long) as it can affect the way your followers may search for you in a search engine.

This may be appropriate in some cases, for example many companies have customer support profiles on twitter meaning they have a number of different accounts that serve different causes, all differentiated by abbreviations.

As-well as this, companies that are reaching out to different countries may need multiple profiles to support each region they are in.

Keep in mind:

Your twitter name i.e. @username, has a limit for the number of characters you may use, if you are adding something like a location, just remember to keep it under 15 characters.

The bio

This section, is the single most important part of your twitter profile, so you should put as much thought into it as is possible. This is because it is the first place people judge what your profile has to offer.

Another important factor you should take into consideration is that when people hover over your twitter name, your bio shows up, so keep in mind how many people may accidently view your bio, its vital that it is up to scratch.

Location

If you are a business that has some type of reputation in your local area, why not add in your geographical location, this allows anybody that is looking on your profile to find out where it is you are tweeting from.

Website

Did you know?

Social media generates over 30% of all traffic to websites. So of course, it can turn out to be very beneficial to insert your URL into your twitter bio.

There are many ways you can do this, if you just want the consumer to visit your website then by all means entering the URL will do the job.

But if for example you are trying to promote just one factor of what your business has to offer, then why not enter a link that will send the consumer to a page that will help promote this.

However I do recommend that you use a link that is trackable, this will allow you to keep tabs on how much traffic you are generating from your twitter profile.

You can use services such as goog.gl to track the amount of clicks, these services will also shorten your URL which also allows you to insert more information into your bio.

Formatting your bio

Your twitter bio represents you and your business. It is an introduction for possible clients.

A good twitter bio will include:

• A brief, but accurate description of who you are and what industry you are in.
• Should target the ideal followers for your industry
• Most importantly it should represent your brand

The most irritating thing about all this. You have 160 characters to do it in. As you can imagine, there is a bunch of information to fit in to such a small space. Twitter does not allow customized formatting, for example the “centre” feature.

However, you can make slight differences to formatting by using hashtags, hashtags are clickable and they bring up any tweets that are on the same topic.

The small amount of formatting options can really limit the amount of personalisation you can bring to your bio, but for what you lack in visuals, you can make up for verbally.

Below are four steps you should take to ensure your bio is the best it can be.

Inform

A large portion of your target audience is made up of your twitter followers. You have one shot at persuading new people to follow your account, and that comes in the shape of your bio, so make sure it’s accurate.

You should explain exactly what it is that you do and who you are, look at it as a way to show the world why you are the cut above the rest in your industry.

You should take this opportunity to INFORM people of your opening hours, the channel for your customer support and your location (you don’t want to attract customers from France or the U.S if you have no way of supporting that type of audience).

Keep the interest

Twitter users do not want to wait for content, they like to be updated as soon as possible as news travels very fast on social media. Users want to know that your profile is being managed by a human and not a robot.

The best way to show this is to list the twitter handle of the person who manages the business account. This of course may not be suitable for your brand if you have multiple people controlling the main account.

If this isn’t the way you wish to go, then why not be you. Let your brands personality rise through your bio, show all the users your businesses culture, nobody wants to be reading a boring bio.

Your bio should have the reader wanting to find out more, give them enough information (but not too much). By peaking the interest of twitter users, they will follow to gain as much content from you, especially if your brand is in the entertainment industry.

Strategy

You should always remember your target audience, it is a vital part of using social media to your advantage, targeting should not be narrowed down to just your tweets and your twitter adverts. Every single aspect of your profile should revolve around your followers or your audience, especially your bio.

Take action

Every part of your twitter profile plays its own part in attracting people to your brand. A well-constructed twitter bio should do much more than just explaining who you are and what you represent. It can actually get your followers to support the cause and help your campaign success by hash-tagging and retweeting your content.

To conclude, the twitter bio holds the key to unlocking more followers which is hugely helpful to building your brand. Think carefully about the content you put into your bio. Why not look at some big companies to get inspiration on how to get the most out of your twitter bio.