7 Steps To Successfully Launch A Twitter Profile

Twitter has long been accepted as one of the very best ways to quickly launch and grow an online brand. It is fast and fluid, and great fun too. If you haven’t yet set up a Twitter account for your brand, fear not.

We have put together a quick and easy guide for you to use that will help you get up and running at speed. And we will also help you avoid those classic mistakes that so many brands make.

Tell the world you’re here

Your first job is to set up your bio. This is really important and should not be ignored. The bio on your Twitter account is seen more than anything else (even if you’ve got rockstar tweets), so you need to make sure it is the very best face you can show on the Twittersphere.

Getting the bio right is possibly the most important aspect of starting your Twitter account successfully. Fill it out fully, ensuring that you have a very short and clear tagline that truly encapsulates what you do and how your brand helps people/changes the world. Make It attractive, with lots of keywords in it that will help people find you on Twitter search.

And then focus on ensuring that you pop in during the months ahead to change it up now and then. Like we said, it’s the most visited part of your profile. It has to be engaging.

Header photo and profile picture

These two are crucial to get right, and nearly as important as that bio. Your profile picture is the small one that you see underneath the frankly quite large header photo. When you first join Twitter, you basically have a bird egg for a profile picture (get it?), so you need to change this into something that links to your public image.

It can’t be too big, but it has to be simple and clear enough to be noticed when it is shrunk down to size to fit the Twitter profile picture dimensions. Take your time here. If you have a very simple brand logo that looks good anywhere, you’re in luck. It shouldn’t suffer too much from the shrink. However, if you have a busy one, consider using something else, simple and easy, that will still suggest your brand.

The header photo is the sexy part. This is large and takes over the top of anyone’s screen. The very best companies in the world always have incredibly well-produced header photos. You should be no different.

Spend some money, and grab a header photo that you know will get the attention of the people you want to get to know and eventually market to. Check out some good examples and choose the photo wisely. It will make all the difference. Whatever you do, don’t choose some cheap photo. It has to be high quality, or you shouldn’t bother doing it at all.

Tweet sensibly

It is absolutely understandable (simply because it is so much fun) that some brands tweet like crazy for the first couple of days. But Twitter has always been about consistency. The brands that stick around and continue to tweet on a solid level are the brands that gain engagement on the channel.

For your first week, tweet 2-4 times a day. Make the tweets relevant to the people you want to reach, and ensure that you don’t tweet any more than this. For example, some brands see the ease of use as a reason to shoot off hundreds of tweets in the first week. This gets you nowhere and leads to burnout.

Instead, take a couple of tweets a day as your aim, and make sure you do this consistently for the first week. This builds up a nice and solid ‘first page’ of tweets, and shows your audience that you’re not just some fly by night outfit. You’re putting the effort in, and you’re not just tweeting for the hell of it. It pays to build up that slow, consistent and most of all professional image.

Follow and listen

While you have those tweets going out during that first week, it is your job to listen to everyone else. Follow a few people everyday. People that you would like to buy your products or services basically, and listen to what they are talking about.

Spend the time getting to know what is being discussed among your audience base, and be ready to put some points forward yourself in the not too distant future.

This period of time is the point where you just need to be aware of what is going on and develop a feel for what Twitter is like in your arena. The more you listen to people and keep a handle on their conversations and their tweeting, the more natural you will sound when you really start to make headway into the whole Twitter thing.

It is also worth looking at the tweets of the people and the brands you actually admire. See what they are tweeting about and see what style they are tweeting in. If you are trying to emulate their success, now is the time to do your homework and understand what works on the platform.

Follow back, again and again

This is a crucial piece of information for anyone who is looking to launch on Twitter. As you watch your follower count grow, you should always follow people back if they followed you first. This is because following people back works. It, first of all, keeps those people as followers because no one really wants to follow someone without getting that reciprocal thing in return.

Also, people who follow back are generally well respected on Twitter. By being one of those people who do this, you will see more and more people coming your way. It just makes good sense to follow back because it shows that you respect the people who have followed you, and that is a big part of your image on Twitter.

Don’t fall into the trap of trying to have much more followers than ‘following’ going on. This only makes you look selfish, and the only people who can get away with it generally are rock stars or movie stars. Return the favour and follow back, it will build up a huge amount of goodwill in the months to come.

Tweet when your followers are awake, and tweet right

Now you’re up and running, it pays to tweet when the people you are in front of will actually be around. Take a look at your analytics and work out when the right people will be around to read your tweets.

Or better yet, just find the most opportune time for you to tweet and stick to it.

Make sure your very best tweets are happening when the audience is there. It also pays to make sure that engagement is generally high by focusing on tweets that your audience likes. If your audience wants videos, then tweet video (or at least retweet it).

Again, taking a look at your analytics should help in this regard.

Set aside time, and stick to it

It’s tempting to be on Twitter all hours of the day but this will get you nowhere. It isn’t that big a thing, and should only be a part of a larger strategy anyway. Your aim should be to get on for around twenty minutes a day, reply to people who reply to you, retweet the stuff you like, and generally follow people of interest. This small amount of activity every day is healthy, and will gain results.

But the real killer here is consistency. Find a time to slot those twenty minutes in and make sure you stick to that time every day. Developing a habit in this way means that you should be able to build a very strong brand profile.

You’ll be tweeting regularly, following the right people and ensuring that your tweets are being sent out at the right time of the day. Take the opportunity to also check your analytics every day during this period. It will help keep you in the loop and will ensure you don’t miss anything important.

The above ideas should help you launch your brand on Twitter effectively. It’s important to get it right, and to ensure that you treat the platform with respect. Taking your time and making sure your brand looks right on the platform will only pay off hugely as things progress.

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