Put your Twitter profile text to work for you

When promoting your book, Twitter no doubt will be among the social media you use. One often overlooked aspect of tweeting is your Twitter profile text.

The profile text consists of the 160 characters that appear below your name. Whenever anyone looks up exactly who you are on Twitter, those 160 characters will appear with your name and the icon that represents you (which usually is your face or your book cover).

A lot of authors try to be witty and clever in their profile. This probably isn’t the best use of those 160 characters, however. Instead, you want to use words that quickly identify who you are, Remember, Twitter users by nature scan all the tweets and profiles they encounter.

Who you are primarily consists of two parts – your occupation (i.e. Writer, Author, Novelist) and your genre (i.e. science fiction, romance, hiking guidebook). Hence, you might write something like:

Jane Johnson
Romance and Mystery Writer

Along with your genre, you may want to include the title of your book or the series you write. For example:

Rob Bignell
Author of “Hittin’ the Trail” and “Headin’ to the Cabin” hiking guidebook series

This approach also will make you easier to find. Regarding the latter, when people search for Twitter users who talk about or hold specific subjects, the wording in the profile text is what most often shows up in their search results.

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