Trying to explain your brand quickly is always a challenge, especially when there’s so much you want to share with your audiences.
Even more challenging is trying to squeeze your brand description, message, goals, voice, and target keywords into only 160 characters.
However, that is the goal of a Twitter bio. Like most social media profiles, there is a lot that needs to be shared in just a short number of words or characters.
And, in addition to communicating information, your bio needs to attract new customers and encourage them to quickly follow your brand.
Thankfully, there are many tips and tricks that you can apply while writing your Twitter bio to ensure that you aren’t wasting your limited character count and are getting the right message across to potential followers.
Let’s take a look at what Twitter bios are, how you create and edit them, tips on how to write good Twitter bios, and take a look at some examples of successful Twitter bios that can help inspire your brand.
What is a Twitter Bio?
A Twitter bio is a biography or summary of your Twitter account, whether it’s a business brand account or a personal account.
It displays on your profile under your profile picture and can only have 160 characters, including written text, hashtags, other Twitter handles, links, or emojis.
Your Twitter bio is the first glimpse that many potential followers will have at your brand, which means that it’s incredibly important for generating new leads as well as communicating information about your brand and your message.
Your bio also allows you to display the unique voice of your brand alongside the tone that makes your brand different from the competition.
Successful Twitter bios tend to be original, creative, and concise. Many don’t even reach the full 160 character limit, although that’s not necessary for success.
Treating your bio like an afterthought or never updating and editing it can have serious negative implications for your brand, including losing potential followers and not giving your current followers the best information about your brand.
How to Write or Edit Your Bio
In order to apply the tips for writing good Twitter bios, you first need to know how to create one.
On your profile, there is an option to “Edit Profile”. Begin by clicking on that button. After you’ve selected to edit your profile, a text box for your bio will appear.
There you can edit the existing text or create a new bio if you’ve just started a Twitter account.
It’s recommended that you update your Twitter bio a few times a year. This keeps things fresh and lets you share more about your brand and the unique characterization of your brand’s voice.
You can also change the bio when special occasions come up, when you are running different social media campaigns, or if there is a viral trend you want to be a part of.
Tips to Write Good Twitter Bios
Writing good Twitter bios requires you to follow a few different best practices as well as injecting your own unique brand voice and character into the message you share.
By taking these tips into consideration and dedicating time to your Twitter bio creation, you can easily meet your goals and create a Twitter bio that gains you more followers.
1. Don’t Be Overly Formal
It’s a common mistake for brands to be overly formal in their Twitter bio.
By trying to fit a big message or summary into just a few characters, brands can become overly edited and appear very uptight rather than fun and approachable.
Make sure your Twitter bio is readable and can appeal to your audiences and potential new followers.
2. Allow Your Brand Voice to Shine
Your brand has likely spent quite a bit of time creating a unique voice that speaks to your brand’s mission and the tone that you want to use while communicating with audiences.
Your Twitter bio is a great place to allow that voice to shine as you try and attract new visitors and inform your current followers.
3. Share the Most Important Information
While you want to keep your Twitter bio light and concise, you also need to communicate key information.
Take some time to go through the different messages you want to share and pick what information is most important for your brand to share and for potential new followers and leads to read when browsing your profile.
4. Use Keywords and Hashtags Sparingly
It can be tempting to stuff your bio with keywords and hashtags, since those are the two main methods of searching on Twitter.
However, just as with many other areas of content, having too many keywords and hashtags not only appears inauthentic to audiences but also can hurt your SEO and position in results.
5. Avoid Too Many Buzzwords
Just as with keywords and hashtags, you can also be tempted to add many buzzwords and catchy phrases to your Twitter bio.
While those buzzwords won’t be used in searches to locate your profile, they can still be too much and make your Twitter bio look overly corporate and inauthentic.
That can turn off potential followers who want to know about your brand itself, not the buzzwords your brand connects with.
6. Include Contact and Location Information
It’s important that any new followers know how to quickly contact or find your brand just from looking at your social profiles.
That means that it’s a best practice across all social media platforms to include contact and location information in the bio.
That allows new followers to quickly navigate to your website or find your location.
7. Introduce Yourself Succinctly
Just because you have the option of 160 characters doesn’t mean you need to use all of them.
By being succinct in your messaging and introducing your brand, message, and voice quickly, you can be more efficient and give a better picture of your company to any potential new followers.
8. Make Sure You Don’t Overdo Humor
While you want to avoid being overly formal, you don’t want to go too far in the opposite direction and end up being overly humorous.
Humor works well in Twitter bios but should be used sparingly.
If your bio is nothing but puns and jokes, it can appear just as inauthentic as it would be if it was strict and formal.
9. Add Links to Other Accounts
As a company, you might have separate Twitter profiles for different brands, locations, or branches.
If so, you should include links to those other Twitter profiles like the main account to help create cohesion among your profiles and help followers find the right account for their needs.
10. Give Next Steps in a CTA
Having next steps is a common best practice for good Twitter bios.
It allows your followers to move further down your pipeline and become leads in your system.
It also provides additional value to your followers when they search and explore your profile. Links to specific website pages, newsletter sign-ups, or campaign landing pages are all great ideas for a bio CTA.
11. Have Fun with Your Bio
The most important tip for creating good Twitter bios is to have fun with them.
Your Twitter bio isn’t a permanent status, so you can always change it up if you feel you aren’t getting the results you’re looking for.
Try different statuses and have fun creating a message that communicates important information, your brand message, and your unique voice.
Twitter Bio Ideas to Inspire Your Brand
Now that you know the best practices and top tips for creating good Twitter bios, let’s take a look at some examples of those practices in play with some of the top brands on Twitter.
These examples can help to inspire your brand and demonstrate how the tips look when applied to real Twitter bios.
Red Lobster
Red Lobster used only a few words to communicate their message of fresh food and clever brand voice, allowing readers to learn what its message is quickly.
Calm
Calm is able to communicate what they are about and their success as the #1 app with just a few words and related emojis.
Merriam-Webster
The dictionary app uses its character count to explain exactly what you can expect from following the account to add value to followers.
Wrap Up
Creating a powerful and effective Twitter bio isn’t as easy as it might sound.
With a 160 character limit and small size, it’s important to create a cohesive and tight message that still communicates what your brand is about and what makes you unique from the competition.
However, by following these tips and using the examples as inspiration, you’ll be able to communicate your message clearly and gain more followers.
And if you want to learn more about attracting users, check out our blog on social media lead generation!
There you’ll learn why social media is an optimal channel for leads, tips on how to gain followers and leads, and the best platforms to implement your social media lead generation strategy.
