Part Two: Setting Up and Optimizing Your Profile

Step 2: Personalize Your Profile

Now that you have your account, you need to personalize it. It is important that you personalize your
account before you begin interacting and following people. Before you add information, your account
looks boring. If you start following people without a personalized profile, it is less likely that person will
follow you back. You may even be mistaken for a spammer. Your profile is where you can reference your company, your blog, talk about your interests and list your location. Click the Settings Button at the top right corner of your screen.

The first item in your profile is your name. Always list your real name when using Twitter for business.
You wouldn’t introduce yourself with a fake name at a tradeshow. Why should you do it here?
For your URL, or web address, it’s best practice always to include a link. Put a link to your:

• Company website
• Blog
• Personal website
• LinkedIn Profile

In the “One Line Bio” section, be as descriptive as possible. This is your elevator pitch—your opportunity
to convince people to follow you back. Consider it a snapshot of your background. You can include:

• Your company
• Your position
• Your hobbies/interests
• Your specializations
• Your recent projects

Also make sure to list your location. Many people follow back those located in their geographic area to expand their local network. Put it in standard City, State format so it can be picked up by lists for your
area. Don’t lose out on this opportunity. The last option in profile settings is the “Protect my updates” box. By clicking this, your Twitter stream
will be private, and no one will be able to see your updates without following you. We do not
recommend clicking this to protect your updates. Many people judge whether to follow someone back
through the type of information they tweet. You are as valuable as your updates; don’t keep people
from getting a peek!
If you’re worried about random people or strangers seeing your updates, remember that you are in complete control over what you say. But feel comfortable being yourself. After you fill out your profile information, it’s time to add a picture of you, also called your avatar. It’s important to put a face to your name. For this step, visit the Picture Tab. Then pick a nice, smiley photo to represent you. (If you’re creating a company account, use your logo.)


Step 3: Start Tweeting

Even before finding people to follow, we recommend tweeting a few things that will give people an idea
of the type of content you will be tweeting. Your most valuable asset is the information you provide.
So what can you tweet about?

Types of tweets:

1) An observation: Tweet about what you’re doing, thinking or feeling
2) What you’re reading: Post a link to an interesting blog post or news article
3) What you’re watching: Post a link to a cool video from Hulu or YouTube
4) What events you’re going to: Share a link to the next conference you plan to attend
5) Promote your content: Post a link to your most recent company or personal blog article
6) Promote someone else’s content: Post a link to someone else’s blog article as a helpful resource
7) Chat with someone: Send messages using an @ sign (to be explained later)
8) Retweet what someone else has said: Retweet (using RT or Retweet in the beginning of the
message) to repeat what someone else has said

If your profile is all set up, click here for a great first tweet about what you are reading right now!
(http://hub.tm/?WPXOU)

Remember that everything you say is public! Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say at a networking
event. Even if you delete a tweet, it might still be archived on the Internet and could be found.


Step 4: Find People to Follow

Building your network is the most challenging and time‐consuming part of using Twitter. Expanding your
network doesn’t happen immediately; you need to commit and take the time to use Twitter effectively.
By following people, you will receive their updates on a regular basis in your Twitter stream. This is your
chance to learn about their lives, check out the blog posts they are reading and meet the people they
interact with. Following a good‐sized community can be valuable and fun!
But where can you find people you would want to follow?

1) Twitter Grader (http://Twitter.Grader.com): This is a free resource offered by HubSpot. You can use it to discover the “Twitter Elite” of your city and search for people with interesting information in their profile. For example, find people who list “software development,” a specific company or a location in their Twitter profile.
2) Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com): This free resource—previously called Summize—is a search function that helps you find people who are tweeting about specific words. For example, you can find people who have tweeted about “public relations.” Follow people talking about the topics you enjoy. Also, use Twitter Search to see who has tweeted about your company.
3) Follow People Your Followers are Following: Once you begin receiving updates from a
handful of people, watch to see whom those people chat with using an @reply. Maybe that
person would be fun to follow as well!
4) Follow Thought Leaders and Bloggers: See if any of your favorite bloggers are on Twitter.
Many bloggers include a link to their Twitter account in their sidebar or personal info section on their website.
5) Collect People’s Twitter Names at Events: Like we said before, many social media‐savvy people will include their Twitter handle on their nametag at an event. Write down their names and follow them later. You can find their Twitter account by adding their handle to the end of http://twitter.com/USERNAME. For example if someone tells you to “follow HubSpot,” you can type http://twitter.com/HubSpot in your browser’s navigation bar to find us. If you are not sure if someone you just met is on Twitter, ask!
6) Follow Hashtags (#) at Events: At many events, the organizer will establish a hashtag (Ex: #IMS08 was the 2008 Inbound Marketing Summit), so anyone tweeting at the event can include the hashtag (#) in their Tweet. Follow those people who are at the same event as you who you may not have met in person yet. (This is a bit more advanced, and hashtags will be explained in more detail later in this eBook.)

Following Don’ts:

• Don’t follow too many people at once: Best practice is to follow no more than 25‐50 people a day, because there will be a time gap between following people and having them follow you back. If your profile says you are following 2,000 people and only 30 followers have followed you back so far, it appears that 1970 of those who you followed chose not to follow you back. This unfavorable ratio makes you look like a bad person to add to one’s network. Wait a little bit to give people the chance to follow you back before
finding a new batch of people to add to your network.
• Don’t follow hundreds of people at once and remove all who don’t follow you back: Although
many people do this in order to have a “valuable ratio” (or more followers than people you’re
following), it is artificial network building and not a best practice.

Step 5: Get People to Follow You

Following people and receiving their updates is great, but in order to have valuable two‐way conversations, you need people to follow you back and receive your updates too. This is why it is so important to get your profile fully set up before reaching out for new connections. If you follow someone who doesn’t already know you, you need to have sufficient information about you in your profile so that person can make the decision whether to follow you back or not. Having followers is important, because they are your network who will see your tweets. Think of your total number of followers as your Twitter reach.

1) Make your company’s Twitter usernames easy to find. Create a page that lists all the Twitter handles of the people in your company. By giving your customers an easy way to interact with individual people, it helps them get to know the type of people who work at your company. It also gives insight to your brand!


2) Make your tweets useful resources so people need you. You are what you tweet. People will want to follow you if they think they will get value from your content. You want to avoid making your Twitter account purely a promotional tool. Would you subscribe to a newsletter if it didn’t have anything useful to say? What specialty knowledge do you have that you can share?


3) Interact with those people you follow who don’t follow you back yet. Make sure to monitor
your Twitter stream, and comment on what people are saying. Give feedback; compliment
people. The key is to engage.



Step 6: Engage With Your Network

How do you tweet at a specific person?
In order to send a message to another person on Twitter, you need to use an @ before the person’s
name. Think of it as the “address” of tweet. Remember that this type of message is still public, viewable
by anyone in the world.
Here is an example of how you would send a tweet to HubSpot.

Example: @HubSpot What’s up?
By putting @USERNAME at the beginning of your tweet, Twitter knows who to send it to. This type of
tweet is also called a reply or @reply (Pronounced “at reply”). All of the @replies you receive will go
into your @Replies Tab.

If you don’t put @USERNAME at the very beginning of your tweet, it will not go to that person’s replies.
Example: “The other day I checked out Twitter Grader by @HubSpot”

The above tweet would not go into HubSpot’s Reply Tab. Also note, anytime you put an @ in front of
someone’s username, it automatically becomes a link to that person’s profile. This feature makes it easy
for you to check out those people’s profiles and engage with them as well.

It is also possible to send someone a private message on Twitter. These are called direct messages or
DMs. Send a direct message by either going to that person’s profile or clicking the “message” link on the
right hand side of the person’s profile or by tweeting D USERNAME and then your message
Example: D HubSpot Do you want to meet tomorrow? This will be a private message that won’t go into
the public Twitter stream. You will receive an email with the direct message, and it will also go into your Direct Messages Tab. However, you can only DM people if you follow them and they follow you back.


Part Three: Using Twitter for Business- Coming Up NEXT...