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Oprah, here are 5 ways to improve your Twitter bio

4/19/2009 By 7 Comments
oprahtwitterdog5 oprahtwitterbio4

Dear Oprah:

Welcome to the Twittersphere.

The 324,821 followers you’ve managed to amass in two days put to shame the measly 6,572 I’ve attracted in about a year.

But I can’t help myself. Please, please, do something a little more creative with your bio! ”Live your best life” is fine. Unlike the 140-character limit for tweets, however, Twitter gives you 160 characters for your bio.

Use them. Your Twitter followers, me included, are dying to know more about you.

I was hoping to give you a good example of a clever bio written by somebody you’re following. But I checked out the bios for Ellen DeGeneres, George Stephanopolous and Ashton Kutcher and couldn’t find much. The best was Shaq’s description of himself as “Very quotatious, I perform random acts of Shaqness.”

Here are three examples of bios I love, written by people I’m following:

@JudySL, aka Judy Lederman, whose bio I wrote about here. Check out her “location.”

judylederman

@whatsnext, aka BL Ochman:

blochmantwitterbio

@ShermanHu, aka Sherman Hu:

shermanhutwitterbio

See what I mean? Here are five ideas for dressing up your bio:

1. Who’s the cute dog in the photo? Tell us its name and the breed.

2. Food might be a sore subject. Like you, I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. But consider sharing your can’t-do-without comfort food.

3. What’s your favorite music genre, singer or group?

4. Who are your favorite leading ladies or men, or favorite movie?

5. How do you unwind?

The very best resource I’ve found for learning everything about Twitter is The Twitter Handbook by @WarrenWhitlock, aka Warren Whitlock, and @CoachDeb, aka Deborah Micek.

In the meantime, I’m asking my Twitter followers to use the comments section below to pass along their best how-to-Twitter-better tips and their favorite Twitter resources, like the Massive Twitter Directory I wrote about here.

Have fun on twittering, Oprah.

Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound

Filed Under: Celebrity tie-ins, Photos & Graphics, Social networking, Twitter

Am I stingy by not answering a LinkedIn question? You decide

4/16/2009 By 21 Comments

linkedinlogoWhen I checked my email this morning, somebody who I know invited me to answer a question she had posted at LinkedIn. She was asking for suggestions on how to promote something.

Just as I started to answer it, I noticed that she was asking for a private answer, not a public one. I stopped in mid-sentence, left the site and started doing something else.

Here’s why:

Social networking can eat up hours of time, and I must must make the best use of every minute I spend making connections, answering questions, offering helpful tips and building relationships. I answer questions on LinkedIn for two reasons:

First, it promotes my expertise.

Second, I’m trying to accumulate as many “best answer” designations as possible. During the teleseminar I hosted with Scott Allen last year on How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully, Scott mentioned that this is one of the most powerful ways to enhance my expertise.

Had I spent 10 minutes answering her question this morning, nobody else would have been able to read it. So why bother? She already knows I’m a publicity expert and, I reasoned, my 10 minutes wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere.

I’d much rather spend that time responding to my Twitter followers, retweeting, or responding to LinkedIn questions that ask for public answers everyone can see.

Am I being stingy?

Filed Under: Business Promotion, LinkedIn, Social networking

WomensMedia.com needs promotion/media kit ideas

4/14/2009 By 7 Comments

Karen Kalisek of Escondido, Calif. writes:

“WomensMedia.com a seven-year-old website that has undergone a major overhaul and is in the process of relaunching.

“We pride ourselves in offering ‘expert advice for working women.’ Currently, we have 30,000 unique website followers each month (20% of those are overseas), 10,000 follow the blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, and, 1,000 listen to our podcast, Working in Heels.

“We don’t male bash, but do offer realistic advice concerning being a working woman.  We also have a library with over 200 articles written by people such as Madeline Albright, Suze Orman, and many other notables.  We also are proud of our Google ranking of 5.

“We have done all this with no advertising or sponsorship. With the new ‘look’ we want to increase our followers, create revenue channels, offer classes, provide speakers and build relationships.  Where do we start getting the word out that we exist?  Any suggestions for a media kit, PR kit, etc. would be greatly appreciated.  We have no money, but we have a great message with a proven history.”

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Media Kits

Financial advisors, use WJS section to market yourself

4/14/2009 By Leave a Comment

I passed along this tip to my financial adviser today and she loved it.

“If I were you,” I said, “I’d grab the Wealth Manager special section inside Monday’s (April 13, 2009) Wall Street Journal. There’s a cover story on Seven Questions to Ask When Picking a Financial Advisor. Buy several issues and when meeting with prospective clients, show them the section, and encourage them to ask you those questions.”

The questions are:

1. What’s in the adviser’s background?

2.  What do the adviser’s clients say?

3. How does the adviser get paid?

4. Where are the adviser’s checks and balances?

5. What’s the adviser’s track record?

6. Can the adviser put it in writing?

7. What do other pros think?

You can also create a video encouraging people to ask you those questions, and upload it to the video-sharing sites. If you’re seeking mostly local clients, use geographic tags.

On Twitter, tweet about the videos or the questions and link to the article. Likewise on Facebook.

What other creative ways can you use that section?

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Facebook, Social media marketing, Social networking, Twitter, Video, YouTube

Hate Twitter? Claim your username to protect your brand

4/13/2009 By Leave a Comment

If you hate Twitter or refuse to Twitter, do just one thing that will take no more than a minute. It will save you aggravation later if you change your mind and decide to join the millions of smart Publicity Hounds who are twittering.

Go to Twitter right now and claim your username so no one else can grab it—even if you doubt you’ll ever use it. If you’re lucky, nobody else has it. Here are three reasons why choosing your username right now is smart:

—Even if you never Twitter, it will protect someone else from stealing your brand. I’ve spent a long time building The Publicity Hound brand. Had I not grabbed the username @PublicityHound when I started tweeting about a year ago, anyone else could have claimed it. If that person had chosen an indistinguishable avatar and then started posting inane tweets, guess who would have looked bad?

—It lets you prevent others from claiming your name. I post all but a few tweets under my first account, @PublicityHound. I also claimed @JoanStewart even though I have only a few posts there. I don’t want other Joan Stewart claiming that as her Twitter name. And I might decide later, for whatever reason, to start posting to that account more often.

Don’t claim your name(s) now and you may end up with the same frustrating situation as Target, Ikea and Sony.

targettwitter1

All three companies apparently failed to claim their own Twitter names, and the people who HAVE claimed them all have inactive accounts. At one time, Twitter released usernames if the accounts were inactive, but no more. 

Before claiming your names, check out these eight Twitter username tips.

Here’s another valuable tip from Warren Whitlock, my guest expert during the teleseminar on “How to Use Twitter to Amass an Army of Followers, Customers & Valuable Contacts—and Promote.” Warren said that when choosing your name, @JoanStewart is better than @Joan_Stewart because  it’s difficult for people with mobile phones to type the underscore symbol. 

Add this to your to-do list right now.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Photos & Graphics, Social media marketing, Social networking, Twitter
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