Get More Followers on Twitter - Fill Out You Profile

I am in the process of going through the new followers for my Twitter account - @SMBStrategy - as well some accounts that I monitor for clients and still cannot believe that businesses setup a twitter account and do not fill in the profile. 

I am looking at a car wash/detailing business that is following me to see if I should follow back.  To decide if I want to follow back I go to their twitter page to see their profile, location, and tweets.  They have spent the time to setup a background that looks clean and professional, their tweets are almost all about their services, and their profile is not filled in.  Why spend the time to create a background and not the minute it would take to add a profile?

I will not follow... why?
1.  Their tweets are primarily about their services, so they are not providing me with other valuable information that I want to know.  They do have a couple tweets on salt damage, but that's it.
2.  Issue #1 would not be bad if they were near me and I like getting my car washed, but they have not put their location on their background or profile, so I have no clue where they are.  One can make the argument you can follow one of their tweets to their web site and see where they are, but isn't part of the draw of Tweeter getting info without going to other sources...

Other than my rant, there are other reason to fill out your profile completely.  Your Twitter profile is crawled to deliver search results within Twitter and through 3rd party applications.  This is one of the ways for followers and potential customers to find you.  Also, include you full domain in your profile for SEO purposes, not a shortened redirect link. 

Good luck setting up your account and happy tweeting...

Optimizing Your Twitter Profile and Adding Your Twitter to Directories

Before spending time on directories review your profile. Most directories show your profile in search results and allow one to search on a profile. The same care should be taken when writing your Twitter profile as any web site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) exercise. A good correlation is comparing your Twitter profile to the meta description tag on a web site. Your profile should include your keywords but at the same time look like real English.

Here is what the search results on Twellow look like for my Twitter account - @SMBStrategy. The description is the bio from my twitter account and it includes my full company name, web address, as well as some of my keywords like new jersey, management consulting, and small business.




Most of these directories are pulling data from Twitter so chances are you are already in a directory. My own Twitter account as well as those of my clients were in the directories I tried. In the case of Twellow, it only takes a few minutes to claim your Twitter account and be able to edit the profile. The stress is that some of these directories including Twellow require you to submit your Twitter user/password.

Once you have signed up for a directory there are options to update your profile to improve how your Twitter shows up in search results. Some options include a long profile and adding categories. Just like your Twitter profile, you should treat this as an SEO exercise. What are your most important keywords and is it possible to link back to your site using these keywords. In the long profile for Twellow, I linked back to my site using the management consulting keywords. For WeFollow I choose tags that included my keywords like managementconsulting and businessplan.

For more information on Twitter directories you can view the list i setup in Twitter @SMBStrategy/twitter-directories. Also check out the article "5 Most Popular Twitter Directories That Will Grow Your Personal Brand". The article includes links to the directories and their registration pages.

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