Twitter is constantly growing, and it is getting noisier than ever. In addition, many people have been on Twitter for over a year. There are even people who have been on Twitter for almost an entire decade. That is impressive, but as Twitter continues to get older, and you continue to live your life, some of the things going on in your life will probably be completely different from what they were a year ago.
Few people follow the routine of checking their Twitter accounts to make sure everything is up to date. There are some people who entered their information but never bothered to check on it. Outdated information is a problem that plagues many Twitter users. To make sure your information is up to date, here are the five things that you need to do right now:
#1: Check your bio.
There may be information on your bio that no longer applies or has been changed significantly. Many people write their bios, but those bios do not get updated for weeks, months, and in some cases, years. Chances are many things have happened from the time you created your bio to now.
I like to promote my Twitter account on my other social networks, and in one of my social media accounts, I mentioned that I have 10,000 Twitter followers. I had to squeeze in that extra 0 to make the information accurate. In addition, I completely forgot to mention I was an author because when I created some of these social media accounts, I was not an author at the time. I had to change my bio to let people know that I an author so my bio would be more up to date and more people would buy my books.
#2: Ask yourself if you need a new avatar.
Some people look completely different from they did a year ago. Although that mostly applies to kids growing up, it is possible you now go by a new haircut style.
What is more likely of the two scenarios is that a better picture of you or your company’s logo was taken this year than the one you have in your avatar. If you change your avatar on Twitter, be sure to change the avatar for all of your social networks, blogs, and guest blog pages.
If your avatar is of a cartoon character, nature, or anything similar, put a picture of yourself as the avatar instead. We know who the cartoon characters are. We want to know who you are.
#3: Check the link in your bio.
There are many people who create multiple blogs before they ended up creating the main blog that they continuously update for many years to come. The people who took this approach may have a link in their bio that does not reflect their main blog.
That was the case for me, and as a result, I had to repeatedly change the link in my Twitter bio. I went from a Red Sox blog to a Yugioh blog to a Lego blog to this one. Now that I finally have this blog, I have been able to keep the link in my bio.
Another thing you want to do with your link is to make sure it still works. There are many reasons why a link would not work such as…
- You may have accidentally misspelled it
- There may be a problem on Twitter’s end
- You may have recently changed the URL
These three reasons may sound silly, but it is always good to double-check your link just to make sure it works. It is better to be safe than sorry.
#4: Check your header picture.
Your header picture needs to emphasize your expertise, an event, or a product. It is important to avoid using a default header that Twitter provides or to get a picture from the internet just for the sake of having a header.
There needs to be a reason behind the picture, and that reason should match up with expertise, an event, a product, or a combination of the three. You may have a better header picture to choose from than the one you are currently using.
#5: Make all of your social media bios as close to identical as possible.
I use the same avatar and nearly identical bios for all of my social media profiles. The reason I do this is because you’ll know it is me when you see my profile on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social network as well. I always mention my main credentials as well as my hobbies.
You should check your bios and avatars on your other social networks to make sure they match up with your Twitter bio and avatar. See what you can do to make all of your social media profiles match so people know it’s you when they see you on a different social network.
In Conclusion
Those are the five things you need to do on Twitter before doing anything else. It is amazing how quickly certain information becomes outdated on the web, but by double checking your information, you will prevent your information from staying outdated for long.
What were your thoughts on double checking your information on Twitter? Do you have a 6th thing that you believe people need to do on Twitter as soon as possible? Please share your thoughts and advice below.
Rodney Robinson says
Great advice, Marc. This stuff is the often overlooked and hardly ever talked about guidance for social media. Thanks.
Marc Guberti says
My pleasure Rodney. Some people focus on their vision and trying new things to the point where they forget to go back to the basics. While I believe in having visions and trying new things (I do both), there is no point if the foundation is weak, or in this case, inaccurate.
mataebartee says
Another solid blog Marc, thank you and keep up the good work!
Marc Guberti says
Thank you Matae. I am happy to hear that you enjoyed the article.