Here’s a quick exercise for business owners: Tell us what your company is, what it does, and what value it offers to the consumer. And oh yeah: Keep it to 160 characters or less.
Of course, this exercise is not at all hypothetical. It’s the very real challenge that faces business owners as they strive to write perfectly pithy, powerful Twitter bios. When someone stumbles across your Twitter page, or you come up in a Twitter search, your bio is what’s going to pull them in, what’s going to convey your company’s vision and values, and what’s ultimately going to establish what your Twitter feed is all about.
That’s a tall order for just 160 characters.
Yet, coming up with a powerful Twitter bio is not an impossible task. Here are a few tips for making the most out of those scant 160 characters.
- Focus on the nuts and bolts—on memorable and specific nouns and verbs. You don’t want to waste time with connecting words or prepositions if you don’t have to. For example, don’t say something like Ace Plumbing is a full-service plumbing and drain cleaning company. Make it more like this: Ace Plumbing: Plumbing. Drain Cleaning. Emergency Services. Septic Services. And so on.
- Make sure the bio aligns with your posts. If yours is an HOA management company but you’re using your tweets to share basic homeowner tips, your bio should reflect that. Make it something about how you try to make things easier for homeowners and communities.
- If at all possible, use your Twitter bio to link to other relevant content. What does somebody do if they want to read more about you? Hopefully, they can click over to your blog, company website, or About Us page to get more than 160 characters of information!
- Use the full space you’re allotted. Brevity is nice, but if you’re only using 35 characters then you’re simply giving up prime online real estate.
- Make sure to incorporate some basic keywords and phrases that relate to your industry. What are the primary search terms people use to find your company website? Those are likely good phrases to include in the bio.
- Remember that your Twitter bio is not meant to be static! Spruce it up from time to time. Play with different wordings. Change the bio every few months.
Sure: Your Twitter bio is just going to be a line or two. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make those lines count.
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