How To Create Interest Lists in Facebook [Tutorial]

March 13, 2012 By Glenn Gabe

Last week Facebook rolled out interest lists, which is a Twitter-like way to keep up with specific groups of pages, people, or subscriptions. Remember, you can subscribe to someone’s public feed in Facebook without being “friends” with them. It’s definitely an effort to keep people on Facebook longer, versus jumping out to check Twitter, RSS feeds, etc. In addition, it’s a powerful way for Facebook to learn even more about you, which can help fuel their advertising platform. Remember, marketers can target you via interest-based targeting, based on your activity on the social network.

I’ve been testing interest lists since they launched and have found them to be a pretty good way to organize feeds by category. They definitely aren’t keeping me away from Twitter, Google+, RSS, etc., but it’s a good way to view the latest updates for a certain category within Facebook. Organizing interest lists can absolutely save you time, and can help keep you informed. In this post, I’ll walk you through the process of creating and accessing interest lists in Facebook.

How To Create an Interest List in 4 Steps:

1. Access Interest Lists
Log into Facebook and find “Interests” in the left sidebar.

2. Click the link for “Add Interests”

3. Add an Interest List
Facebook has already organized interest lists by category (if you don’t want to create one yourself). This is the quickest way to add an interest list. You’ll see prepopulated lists organized by category like Art, Books, Business, Technology, etc. You can click the “Subscribe” button next to each list to add them as interests. Once you do, the new interest list will show up in the left sidebar under “Interests”.

4. Create Your Own Interest Lists
Prepopulated lists are fine, but the true power of interest lists comes from organizing your own, based on pages, people, or subscriptions you like. Click “Create List”, and Facebook will bring up a dialog box with all of the pages you like, the subscriptions you have, and friends you are connected with. You will also see categories on the left side, which when clicked, will reveal pages to add or people to subscribe to.

At this point, click each of the pages or people you want to add to your new interest list and then click the “Next” button. You will be prompted to name your list and then choose its privacy setting. You can choose “Public” where anyone can see your list, “Friends” where friends can view and subscribe to the list, and then “Only Me”, which means only you will be able to view the list. Click “Done” after you’ve named the list and selected its privacy setting.

That’s it! Congratulations, you’ve just created an interest list. Facebook will automatically show you the feed after completing the setup. To access other interest lists you’ve created, simply click the interest list name in the left sidebar under “Interests”. To return to your standard news feed, simply click the Facebook logo in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

Summary – Organize Your Interests
Interest lists can be a strong way to keep up with the latest news and updates from specific pages, subscriptions, and friends (and all by category). Again, interests provide a Twitter-like feel to Facebook and is definitely an attempt to keep you on the site longer, versus relying on other services for updates. In addition, and this is extremely important for Facebook, interests provide a great way for the social network to understand more about you. This can help fuel their advertising product, which enables marketers to reach you via interest-based targeting. So if you’re ok with giving Facebook more information about you, then go ahead and set up some interest lists today.

Welcome to the Jungle, I Mean Boardroom – Presenting The True Return on Investment (ROI) of Social Media Marketing

October 27, 2010 By Glenn Gabe

Last Wednesday, I presented at Trenton Small Business Week on behalf of the Princeton Chamber of Commerce. The topic of my presentation was, “Understanding the True Return on Investment (ROI) of Social Media Marketing”. It’s one of my favorite subjects since it combines two topics that I’m extremely passionate about, Social Media and Analytics. Actually, it combines much more than just those two subjects, which comes across as I take people through the 53 slide presentation.

Although Social has gotten a lot of coverage in digital marketing, it’s clear that business owners are still wondering what the return will be. As I explain during the presentation, there unfortunately isn’t an easy formula for calculating ROI when it comes to Social Media. One of the core reasons ROI is tough to calculate is because Social Media impacts so many other channels and efforts, that it would be hard to run a straight formula. In addition, I’ve found that most companies completely underestimate the time and resources needed to effectively drive a Social strategy. And time and resources can quickly be seen in your costs. So, the combination of not understanding the ways Social is helping your company mixed with easily seeing the costs involved makes for a lethal combination from an executive viewpoint.

The Digital Ecosystem and Tracking
During my presentation, I first want to make sure the audience has a solid understanding of the digital ecosystem, including how all the various parts can work together (and often do). After that, I try and explain the various ways that Social Media can impact the bottom line. That includes impacting both revenue and costs. And weaved throughout the presentation is an extreme focus on tracking and analytics, with the core point being that if you’re not tracking your digital marketing efforts on a granular basis, you’re essentially flying blind. And if you need to make a case for your Social Media efforts to your boss or executive team, then flying blind won’t turn out very well for you. If you are only armed with opinion, you might be kissing your budget goodbye. In my experience, you can debate opinion until the cows come home, while data is hard to ignore. Always come armed with data.

You’re On in 5 Minutes. And Don’t Waste My Time Mr. Social Media Hot Shot
After I go through numerous examples of how Social can impact a business, the presentation culminates with one slide that hits home for many marketers. It hits home because it puts the audience in the role of having to present to an executive team that wants to know how the company’s Social efforts are impacting the business. The slide presents a long list of possible answers to that question (based on the tracking you will hopefully have in place). So, I’ve decided to provide that list here in this blog post. It is by no means complete, but I think it gives you a quick understanding of the types of data that can be presented to make your case.

Before you view the list, here are a few important notes:
1. Every point in the following list will not tie to your own business. I’m simply providing possible answers to questions about Social Media ROI based on what I have seen first-hand. Also, I have been on both sides of the presentation. I have led presentations like this, but I have also helped executives understand the ROI of their social efforts (as a consultant).

2. In order to provide answers like what’s listed below, you must fully understand the various ways that your specific business can be impacted from a cost and revenue standpoint. Every business is unique. Don’t jump in without fully understanding the specific nuances of your own business.

3. You must have a solid strategy in place for Social Media Marketing. That’s not simply setting up a Twitter account and creating your Facebook Page. If you blindly jump in, I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that you will fail. And many companies are failing when it comes to Social Media Marketing. My presentation covers the core reasons why this is the case (but that’s for another blog post).

4. You must have tracking in place. As mentioned earlier, do not fly blind. Map out an analytics strategy in order to track both on-site and off-site metrics. Track as many KPI’s that make sense for your business and have a mechanism in place for tracking and trending that data. Note, you should track both quantitative and qualitative data. Remember, we are talking about “Social”, so some of your data will include actual correspondence (emails, tweets, messages, comments, etc.)

Setting The Stage – Welcome to the Jungle
As you step into the boardroom, you notice that the room goes silent. The CEO gives you a minute to hook up your laptop and then says, “OK, I gave you a budget last year to launch our Social Media efforts. We want to know today how that’s doing. So, what’s the ROI of Social Media FOR US?

{So, if you’ve mapped out a solid strategy, executed at a very high level, have tracking in place, and understand all the ways that Social can impact your business, your answer might look like the following.}

Well, I can’t give you a hard ROI number today. {3 members of the executive team gasp while the CFO snickers.}

But, I do have a number of data points to present.
{Remember, data is good, opinion is bad.}

Since we started our Social Media Marketing efforts 12 months ago…

Overall site traffic levels have increased by x%.

Traffic from Social Media sites has increased by y% (as you show trending graphs for each).

Overall revenue has gone up by x% since we launched our Social efforts…

And revenue directly from Social Media sites has increased by y%, but this doesn’t tell the whole story. More on that shortly. {BTW, to show revenue from Social, you set up an advanced segment to only show data from all Social sites.}

Overall support costs went down by x% as we were able to handle y# of customer issues via Twitter and Facebook.

Further, according to a post on Bitcoin Era Erfahrungen, based on using Social Media to nip support problems in the bud, we saved x # of customers that were ready to leave us. Our typical response time was y minutes from the time of the first sign of a problem (via monitoring real-time updates.)

Here is a document containing all customer and prospective customer correspondence via Social Media for the past year. {Document is so long is rolls out onto the floor.}

Since we know how much it costs to acquire a customer and how long it takes for a customer to become profitable, our Social efforts have saved the company $x in cost (by decreasing the Quit Rate of customers and not having to make up for those lost customers).

Our Social efforts also drove y # of new customer sign-ups, with the strongest number of sign-ups coming from blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Trending shows an increase in new customer sign-ups 4 months after our Social efforts launched, while maintaining higher levels of sign-ups throughout the year. (The black hole of Social Media was 4 months for our company.)

We increased our in-house email list by x number of subscribers…

With a majority of new sign-ups coming from organic search, blog posts, and referrals from both Twitter and Facebook. More on how Social impacts SEO soon.

And our in-house email list drives y% of revenue for the site (our second largest driver of revenue for the site.) Each subscriber accounts for $z per year.

We now have x Twitter followers and y FB fans.

These two assets enable us to engage our customers on a regular basis…

Which leads to powerful insights regarding our company and products, like… (add qualitative data here…) As a specific example, we launched the new version of Product X in March, only to find out via Twitter that many customers were experiencing problems with Y feature. We worked quickly and resolved the issue and formed even a stronger bond with many of those customers. Some of those customers ended up backing us up when other unhappy customers started attacking our company. The resulting positive word of mouth marketing about how we handled the situation resulted in x number of articles written about our company, which led to y number of new visitors to the site, which resulted in x number of new blog subscribers, y number of email subscribers, and z number of FB fans.

Trending shows spikes in traffic, orders, and revenue each time we share special offers, discounts, and exclusive deals via Twitter and Facebook. Here are the spikes I am referring to (showing trending graph with revenue overlaid).

Our blog now has x subscribers…

And our blog has helped us boost our website’s SEO power, which has led to an increase in natural search rankings…

And SEO accounts for x% of revenue on the site. It is currently the top driver of revenue.

Further, our blog accounts for most of our website’s inbound links (the valuable links anyway). These inbound links have a direct correlation to the trending you are seeing in this graph. {showing trending again} We’ve seen an increase in rankings, organic search traffic, and revenue from organic search. And there is no advertising spend for organic search traffic (while showing budgets for paid efforts).

Our increased natural search rankings led to a decrease in paid search spend, which we then reallocated to our Social efforts (to drive more of what I am presenting here).

Our blog also led to guest posts on highly influential blogs and sites. Those posts helped us gain incredible exposure in our industry…

Which led to x # of visitors back to our blog.

Which led to an increase in email subscribers, Twitter followers, and Facebook fans. As presented above, these three assets led to $x in combined revenue.

{Your CEO cuts in: Can you start over? I want to take notes.
The CFO is already through his second pencil, he’s been writing so fast.
Your CMO: {on phone with executive assistant to set up personal Twitter account.}

And after all of this planning, tracking, execution, and presenting, you might just have a new seat in the boardroom (see below). :)

Can You Make A Case Like This?
As you can see, data can be your best friend. You might not be able to easily show the hard ROI from Social Media, but you sure can have a lot of data backing your efforts. In closing, have a strategy in place, understand the black hole of Social Media, track everything you can, trend changes over time, and document both quantitative and qualitative data. This is the type of information that your boss will love (and his boss too). Become obsessed with data. You won’t regret it.

Google Instant, The Importance of Your Twitter Account, and The Danger of Not Being Found

September 20, 2010 By Glenn Gabe

I’m going to introduce a few topics before getting into the heart of this post. As you might know already, Google released a major update to its search experience a few weeks ago, called Google Instant. With Instant, Google now changes the search results as you type your query (on the fly). That includes changing the sponsored results (paid search ads), Universal Search (blended search results), etc. This post isn’t necessarily about the changes involved with Instant, but more of a side effect of the changes.

Google suggests queries (via predicted searches) as you type your query in the search box. This is based on Google’s autocomplete algorithm. So if you started to type “Apple”, you would see suggestions like “store, vacations, trailers, and iphone.” As part of Google Instant, you can select a predicted query and Google will dynamically change the search results to match that query. This works for any query you start to type, including searching for people. Yes, that’s a little foreshadowing. :)

A Twitter handle is basically the username that you select for your Twitter account. For example, my Twitter handle is glenngabe. You don’t have to use your actual name as your handle, although it could very well help you (again, more foreshadowing).

The Increasing Trend of Searching for Twitter Handles
If you follow me on Twitter, then you probably know that I’m a big believer in the service (and I’m a very active user). When I’m in the process of checking my feeds, reading new posts and articles, and posting updates on Twitter, I always try and give authors credit for their work (by referencing their Twitter accounts in my tweets). That’s one of the reasons I firmly believe that you should provide a prominent link to your Twitter account from your website template, blog template, etc. Let’s face it, you should make it easy for people who are trying to help you. But I still find many bloggers or writers that don’t provide an easy way to find their Twitter handles. In addition, some people may have heard about you from friends or colleagues. Since they’re not on your website when they hear about you, those people might simply search for your Twitter handle. That’s where Google comes into play.

Googling Your Twitter Handle
If I can’t easily find someone’s Twitter handle on the post or site in question, I quickly visit Google and enter their name along with the keyword “Twitter”. The query looks like this:

{first-name last-name twitter}
i.e. glenn gabe twitter

And many other people are doing the same thing. I know this because Google’s autocomplete algorithm shows this type of query via its predicted searches functionality (see screenshot below). You can see this in action now by searching Google for a name of someone you want to follow and then reviewing the search suggestions. For some people, you’ll see Google recommend their name and the keyword “Twitter”. For others, you’ll need to start typing “Twitter” after their name and Google Instant will start showing the results for that query. This is where it gets interesting (or not if you aren’t active on Twitter.)

Google’s Predicted Searches Shows The Popularity of a Twitter Search:

Fortunately, or unfortunately, what shows up in the search results is what people are going to check out. There are times that I end up finding the people I’m searching for. But there are times I can’t find the person I’m looking for, which often shocks me considering how Twitter has surged and how important Social Media has become. Even worse than not finding someone is seeing a Twitter account that looks like their account, but it ends up being either a squatter or some impostor. Then of course, there are people with the same name that have Twitter accounts, which can also be problematic in certain situations (if your account is not there). For example, what if they have weak profiles, no avatars (or risky avatars), questionable tweets, etc. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a Twitter account is the one you are looking for. And what if people searching for you actually think one of those questionable accounts is yours?

Google Instant makes this process even more in-your-face, since the search results dynamically change to show you what ranks for the person you are searching for. If your Twitter account isn’t there, then the person searching for you is seeing someone else or a random search result. Needless to say, this can be problematic for you, and I cover some of the dangers below of not showing up when others search for your Twitter account.

An Example of a Search for a Person’s Twitter Account:

To demonstrate what can happen when you don’t show up for searches, I’ll use a celebrity so it’s overly obvious the problems that this can cause:

Yes, it’s crazy that Ben Affleck isn’t on Twitter, but think about how this applies to people you know (or yourself) versus a celebrity. By the way, check out how Ben’s fake Twitter account has gained over 4,600 followers. This could happen to you too (maybe not on the scale that it happened to Ben, but people searching for you could be tricked into thinking that it’s your real profile). And for the record, Ben’s PR Agency needs to get with it and secure his handle. Whoever owns the current @BenAffleck account could tweet whatever they want… That could be quite embarrassing for Ben.

The Danger of Not Being There (and Not Being Found)
Now that we’ve covered the trend of people searching for Twitter profiles, let’s explore some of the dangers of not being listed when people search for you.

1. Lack of Credibility
If someone is searching for your Twitter profile and cannot find it (or the right account), then you risk losing some credibility. For example, maybe they heard about you from a friend or colleague or maybe they just read an article or blog post of yours. Imagine they are excited to follow your updates on Twitter and then find out you’re not even there. Or they simply cannot find your account. Don’t risk losing credibility by not being on Twitter. It’s not a scary place. It’s a huge opportunity for you professionally (covered below).

2. Squatters, Impostors, and Your Reputation
This bullet could be the most dangerous for you. Reputation management has become a very hot topic in the age of Google. When people want to learn about you, they Google you. Period. So, it shouldn’t be a shock to know that some people will try and register your handle in order to control that account. They might end up doing nothing with the account, but they could end up tweeting “on your behalf.” And worse, people searching for your Twitter account will find that hijacked profile and not your own (because you’re not active on Twitter). Don’t let this happen to you. The people that contact me about Reputation Management almost always contact me after the fact. Be proactive and participate on Twitter today. You can check out my post about Twitter profile reviews to learn more about how to set up a solid profile.

3. Missed Exposure and Traffic
Let’s face it, there’s a good chance that you impressed someone if they are trying to find your Twitter account. Why make it hard for them to follow you, help you, and connect with you? That person could very well end up bringing you business, helping you personally, tweeting your articles or posts, and recommending you to friends, family, and coworkers. Don’t miss out on exposure, traffic, and recognition because you’re not active on Twitter. Register your handle, start following and connecting with people today, and post valuable updates on a regular basis. You won’t regret it. Also, learn more about the black hole of blogging and twitter before you start. This will give you realistic expectations about how the first few months will go.

4. Missed Followers
If you start on Twitter, you will inevitably want to build your follower count (the right way). You’ll quickly find out that there are quality followers and then zombie followers (or followers that aren’t active on Twitter or that don’t care about your updates). If someone is actively searching for your handle, they just might end up being a quality follower. That’s not always the case, but at least that person is showing initiative versus following hundreds or thousands of people with no specific reason for doing so (other than hoping some of those people follow them back). Don’t miss out on building your following because you’re simply not there.

5. Lost Business Opportunities
Yes, you can lose opportunities to build business, get a new job, and increase your personal brand by not being active on Twitter (and making it easy for other people to find you). By being active on Twitter, you can land new clients, connect with people in your industry, find influencers, and build your personal brand. If you want to prove how good you are, then let other people find you on Twitter and then earn their respect. Great things can happen when you do.

Help Them Find You
Whether you like it or not, there are people searching for your Twitter account. Either they’ll find your account and follow you, or they will find someone or something else. That something else could be another person with your name, a random search result unrelated to you or your business, or worse, an impostor. As Twitter surges and new technology like Google Instant makes it easier to find answers, you should make it as easy as possible for other people to find your profile. If you don’t, you could be losing credibility, losing business, and losing control of your reputation. Is that scary? Yes. But can you impact the result? Absolutely.

Facebook Censorship, When Social Networks Block the Sharing of Links (or Worse)

July 21, 2010 By Glenn Gabe

Social networking is booming and millions of people have signed up for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc. Using those services, people are continually posting updates, tweeting, liking, checking in, and {enter new buzz term here.} It makes sense. Social networks provide an incredible way to connect with family, friends, colleagues, and others in your industry.

When used correctly, social media can definitely give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. But when you take a deeper look, are the social networks really that nice? Who is really in control of your accounts, what are the social networks monitoring, and can you potentially lose the accounts that you’ve worked so hard to build?

-What can happen to your digital equity? –

Facebook Censored a Link I Was Trying to Share
If you follow me on Twitter, then you know that I like to share links to valuable articles and posts. For example, I often tweet about the latest news in Search, Social Media, Analytics, Technology, etc. A few weeks ago, one such link came across Tweetdeck. It was about Facebook apparently shutting down a page that had built up 47,000 fans. The problem had to do with the page in question using a vanity URL with the word Realtor in it (SocialRealtors), which is trademarked by The National Association of Realtors. Jonathan Rivera, the person that had set up the page, obviously worked his tail off building up a following (47K strong), and in the blink of an eye, the page was shut down. That’s disturbing enough, but what happened next is equally as disturbing to me.

Note: The page was finally reinstated and now uses a vanity URL that doesn’t cause any problems trademark-wise. That said, it’s still shocking to know that a social network could crush everything you’ve built up in mere seconds.

On July 15th, I tweeted the article on Twitter and then headed to Facebook to share the link with my friends. I don’t share all of the links on Facebook that I tweet, but this one seemed important. I think too many people frolic around Facebook without understanding the privacy issues involved, the targeting capabilities of Facebook Ads, the ownership of what’s posted, etc. So, I opened up Facebook like I typically do, and started to post my update. I clicked “Attach: Link” and then pasted the link to the post I just read on techsavvyagent.com. When I clicked “Apply”, an error message popped up saying that “Something went wrong. We’re working on getting it fixed as soon as we can.”

OK, I was cool with that. Technology can be glitchy sometimes. So, I waited a few minutes and then tried again. The same message popped up. Huh? So, I took another URL unrelated to the Facebook page that was removed and it went through just fine. Then I immediately tried to share the original article again (about Facebook shutting down the page), and once again, the error message popped up.

Facebook, are you serious? Are you censoring the links I share and trying to make it look like there’s an error? I’d respect Facebook more if it just said, “That link has been flagged as inappropriate based on an internal investigation of the page in question.” At least that would be partly true. To be clear, I totally understand that in certain situations, Facebook should take action. For example, if someone is breaking the law, attacking another user, or someone’s updates are completely offensive. But the idea that Facebook might be censoring links because it doesn’t want certain articles to be shared is ridiculous. By the way, I also asked my wife to try and post the link, and she couldn’t either. I wanted to make sure this was more than an isolated issue.

For almost an entire week, I could not post the link. The error message was coming up as recently as yesterday morning. Today, however, I could post the link. It’s the first time since July 15th that I’ve been able to share that post on Facebook. Why did this happen, how come I can now post the link, why did it take almost exactly one week? I have no idea, but I’m still not happy that Facebook was stopping the link from being shared…

How Widespread Is Facebook Censoring?
So of course the next question that came to mind was, “How widespread is the censoring of links or other activities on Facebook?” And to take it even further, is Facebook using “error messages” as a tactic for making users believe that they aren’t being censored? Unfortunately, I don’t have answers to these questions (yet). A quick search on Google for Facebook censorship yields many articles about Facebook censoring links or groups or updates, so this is nothing new for the social network with close to 500 million members.

I think it’s important to address this topic now. As technology advances, we’ll be dealing with more and more connectivity (on both a technology and a personal level.) Layered on top of that connectivity are serious privacy issues, censorship issues, and a growing concern about “what crosses the line?” To me, Facebook is crossing the line if they are censoring links like the one I tried to share.

Digital Equity and Account Ownership
I wrote a post in 2009 that was titled, Lawyers, Guns, and Twitter – Who Owns Your Twitter Account, which addressed the sticky topic of Twitter account ownership. The post seemed to strike a nerve with Twitter users and executives, since there wasn’t a clear answer. One of the comments was by Steve Plunkett, someone I greatly respect in the SEO community. You can read his entire comment on the post itself, but his point was that none of us “own” our social media accounts. The social networks do. I think his point never meant more than the second I realized that Facebook was censoring my links. Steve is right and the situation I experienced supports his view. Not only was Facebook inhibiting me from sharing a link, but that link was about another person whose page of 47K fans was shut down without any notice. So, you had two examples of how a social network had the ultimate control.

This is part of the reason that I explain to new clients that although social media can be incredibly powerful, they should first invest in their own site, blogs, etc. They shouldn’t simply rely on their social media accounts without having a solid strategy for building up power in their own assets. You own your domain name, you own your website, and you own your content and blog posts. In addition, if you do the right things, your assets can build up search power, traffic, subscribers, customers, etc. (AKA digital equity). For the most part, nobody can take that away from you. Of course, Google can strip your SEO power if they believe you broke the rules, but you get the picture. You have much greater control than you do on social networks (where the socnets are clearly in control…more than you think).

Think about this for a second. Imagine you built up 4500 fans on Facebook and 8000 followers on Twitter only to wake up one morning and find out that both social networks shut down your accounts. You would be left with nothing. Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure you also focus on your own assets (your sites, blogs, content, etc.) Stay in control of as many assets as you can, and build your digital equity. Social media will definitely be part of the equation, but don’t let it be the only part. You can ask Jonathan Rivera about how he would do things differently after his page was shut down (even though it has been reinstated).

Final Thoughts About Social Censorship
As you can probably tell, I believe this topic is extremely important. What happened on Facebook that day disturbed me on several levels. First, Facebook shut down a page with 47,000 fans, with no warning. Second, Facebook was censoring my links about that happening. Third, Facebook showed an error message versus telling the truth about what it was doing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like social networks telling me what I can share, while also having the ability to strip away hard-earned digital equity in a flash. That’s part of the reason I’ve been blogging for years.

Think about that the next time you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when sharing the photos of your kids…

The Anatomy of a Twitter Profile Review

June 22, 2010 By Glenn Gabe

When other users receive a notification that you followed them on Twitter, there’s a good chance that they will click through that email to check out your profile. When they hit your profile on Twitter, you have about 10-15 seconds to impress them enough that they will follow you back. Given that you only have a few seconds, are you providing the right information in your profile, is there enough information, is it accurate, and can they get a feel for who you are and what you do? These are all good questions that you should be thinking about.

When I’m helping clients with Twitter marketing, I often get questions about what to tweet, Twitter etiquette, who to follow, how to engage users, etc. However, it’s usually not long before the topic of Twitter profiles come up. For example, what should be included in a solid profile, what should the bio include, what should your avatar look like, should you link to a website, blog, etc? Although profiles on Twitter are relatively simple, they are definitely important. Your profile is often your first impression on Twitter, so it’s important that you put your best foot forward. And that’s especially true when you are first starting out on the microblogging service. In my opinion, you can really shoot yourself in the foot if you don’t understand what other people are looking for on your profile.

The Anatomy of a Twitter Profile Review
Based on what I explained above, I thought it would be a good idea to provide the anatomy of a Twitter profile review. I’ll explain the core elements of your profile that other users are reviewing, provide best practices for fleshing out these elements, and explain how your profile can impact your follower count. If you are new to Twitter, my hope is that you can leave this post and make sure your profile is helping you versus hurting you. Without further ado, let’s dig into Twitter profiles. Note, I’ll simply use screenshots from my own profile in order to highlight each profile element.

Your Name, Twitter Handle and Avatar (Image or Photo)
When you receive email notifications about new followers, the first thing you’ll see is the person’s name and Twitter handle. It might look like “Glenn Gabe (glenngabe) is now following your tweets on Twitter”. A Twitter handle is essentially your username (in this case glenngabe, all as one word). I highly recommend using a handle that ties directly with your name, brand, or company name. I would not get too creative here… If your first impression with someone is corny, weird, ambiguous, or offensive, then you might kill your chances of a follow back almost immediately. For example, “Money Man Jimmy is now following your tweets on Twitter” (with a handle of @moneymanjim) won’t necessarily be a great move for you. Since there are many spammers on Twitter, I probably wouldn’t even click through to a profile like that. Don’t make the mistake of alienating Twitter users before they even reach your profile.

In addition, you can view their avatar in the notification email (the image that someone uses to represent their account). This too can be a telling story. Is the avatar a headshot of the person, a logo, a funny image, cartoon, celebrity photo, is it blank, or is it something even worse like a risky image? Be careful with the avatar you choose. Again, this is your first impression. Twitter is so much about personal engagement that I almost always recommend using an actual photo, if possible. Remember, you’ll be engaging other people on Twitter, so you typically want to know that an actual person is on the other end.

If you’re a company that’s setting up a company profile, then you can use your official logo (although I’m not a big fan of following logos). If you’re a recognizable brand, then it’s a different story. But most companies aren’t recognizable brands… Also, if the person managing your account is your social media manager, then I have no problem letting that person use their own photo, as long as their bio explains what they do (more on that soon).

My recommendation: Use a descriptive handle (something close to your name if you can get it), use an actual photo of yourself as your avatar, and use your real name as the name on the account. If you do that, other users will know that Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) is now following them (and they can check out an actual photo). You’ll start off the right way, and will give yourself a greater chance of gaining new followers.

Your Bio and Location
When you meet someone for the first time at a meeting or conference, what do you say to them? Do you crack a joke during that first exchange, do you say nothing, or do you succinctly introduce yourself by providing your name and what you do? For most of us, it’s the latter. I believe that it’s extremely important to list your full name in your profile, as well as a thorough bio. “Thorough” is a relative term given you only have 160 characters to play with, but you can still get enough in your bio to clearly state who you are and what you do.

When reviewing someone’s profile, I look to see if the person has their full name listed and if they have created a bio. I typically won’t follow someone back if they just have a partial name listed, along with a thin bio. Let’s face it, if you are looking for a lot of privacy, then Twitter isn’t the place for you. If you check my bio, you can see that I provide my full name, my company name, the areas of online marketing that I focus on, and a link to my blog. More about profile links later. You can quickly get a feel for who I am and what I do. If you leave some of this information out, you risk not being taken seriously. That means you might limit the amount of people that will follow you back. And that’s not good, especially when you’re new on Twitter.

Your Followers to Following Ratio
When you’re just starting out on Twitter, it’s hard not to have follower-envy or a complex about the number of followers you have. Typically, nobody knows who you are, nobody cares, and nobody is chomping at the bit to follow you. You’ll be caught in the black hole of Twitter for a while. During the process of growing your Twitter account, almost everyone ends up following more people than they have followers (and that’s for a while).

So it’s natural that one of the first things you do when someone follows you on Twitter is to check how many followers they have. That’s fine, but what about the number of people they are following? Does the ratio matter? It absolutely does… There’s a natural follower to following ratio that you’ll often end up seeing. For example, 800 followers while following 750 is a normal ratio to see. Then, there are times you see an abnormal ratio, like someone who is following many more people than they have followers. This can be a red flag and could tell you that someone is quickly following a lot of people in order to build up their own follower count. On the flip side, if someone barely follows other people, are they really a good person to follow? It might signal that they don’t engage many users. For example, following only 250 people, but having over 4000 followers. Both scenarios could signal a problem…

A normal follower to following ratio will be closer to 1:1 (for most users). For example, someone might have 1500 followers and they are following 1350. That ratio is much stronger and looks more legitimate than someone following 7500 people with only 1500 followers. As people become more popular on Twitter, they might have more followers than people they follow, but the ratio will often still look normal. For example, someone might have 8000 followers, but they are still following 5000 people. As you get used to Twitter, you can tell pretty easily what’s legitimate and what’s not. If you see someone following the world without many followers, then you might want to explore their profile before deciding what to do. Also, after I check someone’s follower count and follower to following ratio, I often check the number of tweets they have (to see if that number is in line with the number of followers they have). More on that below.

How Many Tweets Do You Have?
One profile element that I often look at is the pure number of tweets that a user has. The reason is simple. It should make sense, given the number of followers they have (and is hard to game). For example, if someone has over 2000 followers and only 25 tweets, something isn’t right. That’s unless they are famous. Unfortunately, some people game Twitter followers in order to inflate their follower count. Checking their pure number of tweets is a great way to identify people trying to game the system. Most people that have built up a decent amount of followers have tweeted often. For example, I have almost 5000 followers and I have over 13,000 tweets. That makes sense and you can tell I’m on Twitter often. If I had 100 tweets and 5000 followers, then you should probably run from my profile, and not walk. :)

Your Profile Link – The Link to Your Website, Blog, or Profile
On Twitter, you have the ability to provide a link in your profile. I believe it’s important to include a link to build more credibility. For example, many people link to their website or blog. You can also point to your LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile, etc. On Twitter, it’s not unusual for someone to check out your profile and then click through the link you provide to see what you’re all about. I see many visits from Twitter to my website. Again, think about meeting someone for the first time. If you didn’t tell someone where you were from and what you do (with some backing), you would have a hard time building up credibility. I highly recommend providing a link and making the destination something that helps you build credibility.

Shortened URL’s in Your Profile:
Some people use shortened URL’s in their profile, such as using a bit.ly link. I’m not a big fan of doing this, since you don’t know where the link is taking you. There are a lot of scammers and spammers on Twitter and links can potentially take you to malware, scams, etc. Therefore, I recommend providing a full link to your blog or website (something people can clearly see). If you go to my profile, you’ll see a raw link to my blog (using my domain name). Again, you want to make it easy for people to learn about you. Don’t make them think too much. You could end up losing potential followers.

Are You Listed?
Lists on Twitter enable you to organize certain users into categories. Typically, you only list someone if you think highly of them. For example, if you were a PR executive, you might list several thought leaders in a list titled “PR-Leaders”. So, the number of times that users have been listed is a metric that some users look at to see what other people on Twitter think of them. To me, that number doesn’t have to be incredibly high, but should make sense given the other elements I’ve listed in this post. If you see that someone has been listed even 5 or 10 times, that might be fine. If you see a very low “listed count”, then you should understand the context before making any judgments. For example, are they brand new on Twitter? If so, then it makes sense that they haven’t been listed much. If they have 2000 followers and haven’t been listed once, then that might be a red flag. You will naturally be listed over time if you are doing the right things on Twitter, but that’s for another post.

What Are Your Last 20 Tweets?
This is where the rubber meets the road. Similar to reviewing the blog posts of a blogger, checking the tweets of a Twitter user can speak volumes for the quality of that user. When you visit someone’s profile, you get to see their last twenty tweets. You might find a great list of valuable tweets to outstanding content, several retweets, conversations, etc. That’s all good to see. But, you might also find random thoughts, profanity, a lack of valuable content, no retweets, no conversations, affiliate links, etc. This is why it’s important to consistently and continually provide high quality content via your Twitter stream. Twitter is a “show me” medium. If you can show other users how valuable your tweets are, you’ll give yourself a much better shot of gaining new followers. So, when someone checks out your latest tweets, do you want them to see low value updates or great content? Think about this the next time you’re about to tweet something. :)

When Is the Last Time You Tweeted?
When you check the last twenty tweets from a user, you can also check the last time they tweeted. That’s important, since you might see that their last tweet was over a month ago (or worse). In a perfect world, you would see that someone last tweeted less than 24 hours ago. Even better, you would see some tweets from just a few minutes or hours ago. You don’t want to end up following a lot of people that don’t post updates! That’s the antithesis of a good Twitter user and a waste of time for you… This is also why I recommend that you tweet daily. Not doing so can result in losing potential followers. I never like seeing that a user hasn’t tweeted in days (or longer).

Summary – Do You Need To Tweak Your Profile Now?
If you’re new to Twitter, you might be surprised to learn that a Twitter profile review is not so simple! As you spend more time on Twitter, you’ll understand more about the importance of each element listed above. When you break it down, Twitter users don’t want to get gamed, they don’t want to follow spammers, and they don’t want to bog down their accounts by following zombie users . That’s why you should spend some time and make sure you are providing the right information in order to make a great first impression on Twitter. Remember, you will have potential new followers checking out your profile on a regular basis. You just need to make sure you can convert them to followers. Unfortunately, many people are not doing a great job at this. My hope is that you can.