By: Will Lawrence
Edited by: Taylor Campbell
Let’s be honest: 90% of us created a Twitter profile to tweet Drake, enter a contest or to stay in the gossip loop. While many people use it for entertainment, there are millions of people who use Twitter for professional purposes. These include (but are not limited to) personal branding, sales, community development, online publishing and job hunting.
Why should you go from personal to professional? The short answer is to market yourself. Many employers are looking for someone who is able to use social media like a pro, has social influence and has created a strong brand for themselves. Even more so, using Twitter professionally can help you learn more about your interests. By presenting yourself in a professional way, experts in your industry will be more likely to engage with you and share their knowledge. It’s really a win-win.
And don’t worry; there isn’t a sharp tradeoff between fun and professionalism. In fact, the best Twitter users know how to have fun and use their personality on their Twitter page to their advantage.
If you created your profile for social reasons but want to start leveraging Twitter for career purposes, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I will walk you through setting up the perfect professional Twitter profile.
Setting Up Your Profile
Before we can discuss tweeting, it might be a good idea to tweak our profiles. This includes changing Twitter handles and profile pictures, creating clever bios and deleting inappropriate tweets from the past.
- Twitter Handle
This preliminary step is often overlooked. You have probably seen some of your friends have handles like @Stacy_Cupcakes or @MikeLikesBeer. While I’m sure Mike really does like beer, the Twitter handle is often your first impression on people in the Twitterverse. If this is your first handle change since creating your profile, I recommend changing it to something that will be familiar to your existing followers, like your name. If you have a common name like mine, you may need to be more creative and add numbers, additional initials or even location. For example, any of these would be just fine:
- PaulAllen
- Paul_Allen
- PaulAllen3
- PaulAllenLA
- Profile Photo
Lets go beyond the obvious statement “Have an appropriate profile picture.” What does appropriate mean?
- The best picture you can have is a clean headshot of yourself. This means your head, neck and a bit of your shoulders. You don’t need a fancy picture in a suit and tie, but anything in a properly lit setting should be appropriate.
- If this is your first “Pro” profile picture, be sure to smile. You don’t want to go from fun to overly serious as it will alienate your current followers and ruin the vibe of your profile.
- You can be creative here! This photo is generally the only visual on your twitter page, so be sure to make sure it conveys the message you are hoping to convey.
- Bio
This is where it may get trickier. Your bio needs to reflect three things: who you are, what you’re interested in and your personality. Bios like “Dream, laugh, love” or “Started From the Bottom” don’t hit any of those criteria. You only have 160 characters, so you need to make it count! Lets break down those criteria:
- Who you are: This can include your school, communities or companies you belong to, and your general location. If you hold any positions you consider significant, like student council president or writer for a local newspaper, it is a good idea to mention it in your bio. Never include age, address or personal information. Remember people this is the Internet after all.
- What you’re interested in: Similar to a resumé it is always a good idea to mention keywords that you want people to think of when they see your profile. For example, if you want to work in politics, you may want to include “Love reading and discussing politics” or if you want to work at Apple, include “Apple fanboy”. You only need include 1 or 2 interests
- Your personality: After reading the last two steps, you may think I want you to sound like a robot or corporate suit. That’s not the case! It is always a good idea to have a line or two that demonstrates your humanity or personality. This can include “Lover of quinoa”, “#teamblackandblue” or even “Aspiring to be Harvey Specter”.
Some good bio examples are:
@jerryzhang222 – I try crazy stuff and sometimes it works. #TEDx speaker, former @DECAOntario pres. I started Glowstik Social Marketing. @uwaterloo engineering.
@ChrisGrouchy – @QSB Junior. Entrepreneur. Former marketing/strategy @next36. Wondering what makes things tick. I like tech, good design, coffee. National TD Scholar.
@AllenTseng92 – 4th Year undergrad studying Transportation, Logistics & Supply Chain at @UBCSauderSchool . And I watch a lot of MMA. https://blogs.ubc.ca/allentseng/
- Clean your timeline!
The final step to setup your new Twitter profile is going through your past tweets and asking yourself “Is this tweet something I want people who aren’t my friends to see?” These may include tweets with:
- Excessive swearing
- Rude, mean or abusive tones
- Politically incorrect
- Personal information
Technically, you can do this manually, but I recommend using a tool like TweetDeleter to maximize efficiency.
And voila! Your profile is ready to go. Doesn’t it just look nicer?
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