From the Archives: 5 Twitter Duh’s and No Brainers….


Since it’s a hectic month of planning for the Blue Gypsy Bluesfest and I’m sure there’s lots that I can tell you about that and it’s connection with social media moving it forward, right now….I’m pulling some oldies but goodies from the archives.

Here are just a few things to think about as you get up to speed with your twitter account.

1) If you have multiple twitter accounts (And I mean like 3,4 or more) Don’t send the SAME update from all of them….especially if you are using hashtags then there is a long stream of the same update and to be honest you aren’t helping yourself, you’re looking like spam.

2) Don’t use the bird…if you are ready to set up a twitter account, you MUST have a picture, logo, or jpeg of interest on your computer. Even if that is temporary it’s better than the birdie! (And if you are one of those above who have multiple accounts and they are ALL birdies…oh how spammy you look! Fastest way to get unfollowed (or never followed in my book)

3) Take a moment to create a bio. Don’t make people guess at who you are, if you are truly on twitter to interact and create a community and interact with people then tell them a bit about who you are. twitter doesn’t give you room for a book, how hard is it to come up with a couple of lines to sum yourself up so we can see if we want to follow you!

4) If you have a website, a blog, a facebook fan page or any type of contact where people can find out a bit more about who you are and what you do…then put that link in there! It’s only going to grow your business, your online presence, and your brand when you link it to your twitter profile, so why wouldn’t you take a moment to do it?

5) Take a second to put up a background it’s not hard and there are a lot of third party tools out there to help you create a background even twitter itself will at least allow you to customize a bit. Here’s a great Mashable post from Ben Parr on HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds.

While each and every one of these five thoughts should illicit a “Duh” from most people, the number of people out there who don’t do these 5 things is astounding. When setting up a twitter account ask yourself a few questions. Why are you on twitter? What’s your purpose? Why wouldn’t these be quick easy ways to increase your impact and grow within the twitter community?