Twitter allows you just 160 characters in your bio to tell the world who you are.
Granted, it’s not easy to pack everything you feel people need to know about you into such a small package. Carefully craft what you put there to resonate with the people you want to attract.
First, define your purpose for tweeting. Are you just interested in idle chatter – sharing and discussing what you do for fun, music you like, favorite foods, restaurants and vacation spots, etc.? Then it’s okay for your bio to be light and reinforce that purpose.
But if you’re an executive job seeker and you want to leverage Twitter to expand your network, connect with your target employers’ hiring decision makers, gather market intelligence, and learn about job openings, your Twitter bio should reflect that purpose.
Understand that this is your pitch – whatever is in your bio may be the first impression people will have of you. They will use it to assess whether to follow you, connect with you, and/or consider hiring or doing business with you.
Take advantage of what you can do with 160 characters to brand your unique promise of value to hiring decision makers and potential employers.
If you’ve already gone through a branding process and created your brand positioning statement, you’re most of the way there. All you have to do is cut it down to fit.
If not, it will take some work to draft the right kind of statement. Meantime, by all means devote time to defining your brand. See my 10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand, and get busy.
As you’re composing your bio, or improving your existing bio, ask yourself these questions:
- Is it free of typos? Is it grammatically correct? Is it free of Twitter/texting shorthand and confusing abbreviations?
- Does it contain your most important keywords?
- Does it include some of your brand positioning statement, if you have one?
- Does it clearly differentiate the value you offer potential employers?
- Will it generate chemistry and resonate with your target audience?
- Will it compel others within your niche, or those you want to attract, to want to follow you, listen to you, and retweet you?
It’s all about career marketing through precision, short-form writing. Ruthlessly edit and pare down . . . consult a thesaurus to pinpoint the right words . . . say just enough to capture attention.
Here’s an example of one I wrote for a senior real estate executive:
Acquisitions, Business Development, Retail, Project Management ~ Physically & Economically Maximizing Tenant Retail and Mixed Use Real Estate Development
Related posts:
Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility
Twitter Personal Branding Strategy — The Beauty of a Re-Tweet
Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on LinkedIn and Twitter
14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter [Revisited]
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