If your brand wants to attract followers on social media, it’s important to put your best face forward. That starts with writing a compelling bio. This first impression can make or break your brand, helping people decide whether to follow or click away. That could also mean the difference between gaining and losing a customer.
Publishing a lackluster bio, or not including one at all, is too big a risk to take. So, with that in mind, let’s look at some of the ways you can create an outstanding bio. (We’re focusing on Twitter here because its 160-character limit makes writing a good bio particularly challenging.)
What Goes Into Your Twitter Profile?
Your Name & Username
Your Twitter Profile should include your name since this is how people on Twitter will know you. You will most likely use the name of your business, unless you use something different on other social networks. Avoid using unnecessary abbreviations or alternate versions of your company name if you can help it.
An exception would be if you use multiple Twitter accounts to meet business needs. For example, many companies employ separate handles for customer support. In this case, your support handle will vary slightly from your brand handle. Another example would be if you have multiple locations and want to segment your Twitter presence for targeting purposes.
Remember: Your @username has a character limit as well. If you’re adding details to your brand name—such as location (i.e., BizABC_Chicago)—make sure you can do so in 15 characters or fewer. Your real name can be 20 characters long.
Your Bio
This section deserves the most attention because it’s often the first thing people see when searching for your brand or after tapping on your @username if you were mentioned in someone else’s Tweet. In fact, your bio appears even when someone just hovers over your @username on Twitter. It also appears in search results whenever someone looks for your name on Google. We discuss some Twitter bio ideas a bit later in the article.
Your Location
If your business has a local presence or identity, it’s a good idea to include your geographic location. Right away, anyone looking at your profile will know where you’re Tweeting from. It can also help provide context for some of your followers, especially if you tend to reference other local businesses or use regional terminology.
Your Website
Social media drives 31% of all website referral traffic, so it’s beneficial to include a URL in your Twitter profile. It can be a link to your website, or you can make it campaign based and feature different products or event landing pages.
We recommend using a trackable link so that you can keep an eye on traffic that comes from Twitter. Services like Bitly or goog.gl track clicks while shortening your URL, making it more aesthetically pleasing to viewers.
Your Birthday
Although this isn’t really an important profile feature for businesses to fill out, we wanted to call attention to it because it can benefit you in other ways. For instance, alcohol marketers must ensure a 21-plus audience in order to promote their products. If people fill out this optional portion on their profiles, it will impact how Twitter delivers your ads.
Formatting Your Twitter Bio
Your Twitter bio serves as an introduction to new viewers and determines whether someone follows you or clicks on your link. If you remember from our Instagram bios for businesses article, a good bio will:
- Accurately explain who you are and what you do.
- Personify your brand.
- Target ideal followers.
This has to be achieved in 160 characters or fewer. It’s a tall order, but it’s definitely achievable. We’ll look at some businesses that have done so successfully in just a minute.
Unlike Instagram bios, Twitter unfortunately doesn’t support customized formatting, such as vertical spacing and centering. You can, however, add slight variations to formatting by including hashtags, @usernames and links—all of which are clickable and appear in a different color.
4 Successful Twitter Bio Ideas
While scarce formatting options limits your personalization, what you lack visually you can make up verbally. Here are four Twitter bio ideas inspired by businesses that have incorporated them successfully.
1. Be Informative
Your Twitter followers make up an engaged portion of your overall target audience. If your bio is what persuades them to follow you, then it had better be accurate. Don’t write that you’re the best coffee shop in Chicago if your specialty is really smoothies.
Accurately explain who you are and what you do. Think of this as an opportunity to tout what sets you apart from your competitors.
This is also an opportunity for businesses to highlight important aspects of their social presence, such as your customer support channel or, for local businesses, your hours of operation.
Target’s Twitter offers a perfect example of how a bio can be used to inform viewers. In 160 characters, you know what sort of content you’ll find by following @Target and where to go if you need assistance.
2. Be Personable
People don’t want to follow robots. They what to know that, when they contact a brand, they’re actually reaching a human being. One way of doing this is by listing the Twitter handle of the person who runs your Twitter account. This might not work if your social team is managed by multiple people.
If listing individual handles isn’t an option, try keeping your bio lighthearted and fun. Highlight your company culture, and let your personality shine through. No one wants to read a dry or dull bio—even if it only is 160 characters. Your bio should leave viewers wanting more so that they’ll follow you for additional content.
Helper excels at this. The 44-year-old brand maintains a playful, cheeky tone that appeals to many of today’s Twitter users, especially millennials. The tone established in its bio sets realistic expectations for the type of content you’ll find in its Tweets.
I wanted my new tagline to be “The Dinner that Slaps.” Now I’m not invited to meetings anymore.
— Helper (@helper) June 15, 2015
3. Be Strategic
Targeting is a big part of any social media strategy and shouldn’t be reserved for just your Tweets and Twitter Ads. Everything about your social profile should be designed around your target audience, including your bio.
Remember: Twitter bios are searchable. A search for “social media management” on Twitter will very likely return Sprout Social since our bio includes those keywords.
Don’t waste time with buzzwords. Instead, think about what your target audience is searching for, and include those keywords in your Twitter bio. Don’t just tack on keywords at the end either; work them in seamlessly for an authentic feel.
GoldieBlox gets right to the point in its bio, which includes details about its mission, how it plans to achieve it and what you’ll get if you follow the company. Its bio also includes some keywords: girls, toys and STEM.
4. Be Action Oriented
Your Tweets aren’t the only part of your Twitter Profile that can support your marketing campaign. Everything from your header image to URL to bio can help drive a campaign forward.
A well-planned Twitter bio, such as Hotwire’s, can do more than just explain who you are. It can motivate followers to take action and help you meet your business objectives.
Despite the character limit constraint, Hotwire was able to squeeze a lot of information into its bio:
- Its motto
- Its branded hashtag
- A call to action
- Customer support information
Looking for user-generated content and want to encourage followers to use your branded hashtag? Be sure to add it to your bio. The hashtag can be updated at any time, so use this space to give a boost to your time-sensitive campaigns.
Set a Good Example
These are just a handful of the creative ways brands are choosing to describe themselves on the social network. For more inspiration, search for some of your favorite brands to see what they’re up to. Keep these ideas in mind when crafting your Twitter bio, and you might even inspire other businesses who look to you for inspiration too.
The post Twitter Bio Ideas That Attract Followers appeared first on Sprout Social.
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