“Critique My Profile” Episode 2: Are you on the right lists?

by Marian Schembari on June 23, 2010

This week’s episode of Critique My Profile features Jeffrey Pia (@JeffreyPia), a star web designer and developer extraordinaire. Check out the video and my tips for Jeffrey below:

Some actionable tasks for Jeffrey:

Bio

  • Super great example of someone with a passionate, informative and compelling bio.
  • To make it more accessible to non-techies, maybe change the w3c thing? Or not.
  • What’s with the Facebook link? Change so it’s your LinkedIn profile, personal website, or…?? Company? AMatchMadeInHalo.com? FB is touchy for some people (including myself), so it might not be the best place to send potential followers.

Background:

  • Pretty background, but what is the logo for? Unclear what you’re brand is.
  • Use your background to make it super clear who you are and what you do.

Followers:

  • Being on other people’s lists is important as it shows other people find you interesting. While you can’t control what lists you’re on, go through relevant lists of other web designers and follow the people that make those lists. Everybody wins!
  • Here are some great lists online of web designers using Twitter. Have a poke around their feed (that sounds dirty, sorry) and see what they’re talking about:
  1. 100 Web Designers to Follow on Twitter
  2. 50+ Designers to Follow on Twitter
  3. 30 Top Web Designers On Twitter

Tweets:

  • You spend time connecting with people and answering questions, this is great!
  • HOWEVER. People will follow you for your knowledge and not just your social chit-chat. Find a way to be valuable to everyone.
  • Split your tweets (roughly) into thirds: One-third is conversation with people, one-third is retweets, one-third is your stuff. “Your stuff” can be blog posts, info about your business, talking about your day, anything! People worry about being shameless self-promoters, forgetting that people follow them for a reason!
  • Try out a daily or weekly “feature”. For example, feature a website every week that you think is really well done, or give a “web design tip of the day”. Add value and get people to come back.

Alright guys, what do you think? Did you find this video helpful? Do you have more ideas for Jeffrey ? Leave your comments below! And if you want me to critique your profile, leave your Twitter handle in the comments.

If you’re interested in more video shenanigans, sign up for the Pajama Job Hunt! A 3-part video tutorial on using Twitter as the ULTIMATE job hunting tool. Click here for more info.

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  • Marian Schembari

    {latest post} "Critique My Profile" Episode 2: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ (featuring @JeffreyPia)

  • http://twitter.com/jeffreypia/status/16855784114 Jeffrey Pia

    RT @marianschembari: {latest post} "Critique My Profile" Episode 2: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ (featuring @JeffreyPia)

  • http://twitter.com/jerryzurek/status/16856353321 Jerry Zurek

    Def watch these critiques RT @marianschembari: "Critique My Profile" Episode 2: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ #fb

  • http://twitter.com/jerryzurek/status/16859781257 Jerry Zurek

    Def watch these profile critiques RT @marianschembari: "Critique My Profile" Episode 2: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ #fb

  • http://twitter.com/jerryzurek/status/16859807982 Jerry Zurek

    Def watch these profile critiques RT @marianschembari: "Critique My Profile" Episode 2: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ

  • http://twitter.com/marianschembari/status/16861256707 Marian Schembari

    Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ

  • http://twitter.com/MarianSchembari/status/16861256707 Cassie Armstrong

    RT @marianschembari: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ

  • http://twitter.com/rachevincent/status/16866946701 Rachel Vincent

    Twitter "Critique My Profile" series by @marianschembari Episode 2: Are you on the right lists? http://ow.ly/22m73

  • http://twitter.com/alljessilicious/status/16869153422 Jess Webb

    Great tips for your Twitter profile! RT @marianschembari: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ

  • http://www.jessilicious.com Jess Webb

    Wow, these are great tips! Love the Twitter profile critiques! :) Feel free to review mine at @alljessilicious! ;)

    Going to go and check out the first one now – since somehow I missed it. :)

  • http://twitter.com/alljessilicious/status/16869153422 Formulists

    RT @alljessilicious: Great tips for your Twitter profile! RT @marianschembari: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ

  • http://www.tanushrishukla.com tanushri

    Good, smart, common sense advice as always Marian. Would love to know what you think of my profile @dramaqueen82 [gulp!]

  • http://twitter.com/thomasmcmillan/status/16888795828 thomasmcmillan

    RT @marianschembari: "Critique My Profile" Episode 2: Are you on the right lists? http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ

  • http://twitter.com/JeffreyPia Jeffrey Pia

    Awesome, thanks SO MUCH for taking the time to do this! Great tips… I'm doing a re-design my site at the moment, but I'll get a link to that back up there ASAP. I'll also change up my background to show my FB, LI, etc profile links. I'm not as sensitive about my FB profile, so I don't mind putting that out there. I'll definitely work on getting the attention of folks that make those lists and start posting more of my own relevant content.

    Few follow-up questions for you (or anyone else who would like to chime in):
    - Regarding w3c: it is an industry-recognized term, but I'm torn between targeting folks who'd recognize it and may hire me because I theoretically know what I'm talking about, or targeting non-web savvy folks who may hire me because they know nothing about the web but still want a website. Do you think it confuses people or detracts too much from the rest of my content?
    - Regarding my logo: It was my attempt at turning my initials “JP” into an ambigram which looks the same upside-down. It is be my personal brand logo which I use on my business cards, etc. Does the upper-case J look too much like a lower-case d, and if so do you think there is anything I can do to reinforce it w/o doing a complete re-design?
    - The daily/weekly feature sounds pretty cool! What would the best time be to send that out so as to not get lost in the flood of other tweets?

    I think that's about it. Thanks again for your help!!

  • Marian Schembari

    Have you check out episode 2 of Critique My Profile yet? Watch it here: http://bit.ly/aUyHLJ

  • http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari

    You are so welcome! In response to your questions:

    1. This is a VERY good question, and that's something you need to think about. I honesty don't think the w3c thing is that big of a deal and don't think it will change the minds of non-tech people who may want to hire you. If it is important to what you do, leave it. If there's an easier way to put it, change it. Either way, it's not a big enough issue to stress about. Looking back on my tips, I'd say that's definitely the least important. Plus, when it comes to web stuff, you know better than anyone that I have no idea what I'm talking about ;-)

    2. Oooohh, it's a J!!! Lol. No, I don't think it's clear at all. Because a J *doesn't* look like a P upside down…. I don't want to be a buzz kill, but it just doesn't look like your initials. That said, it's an easy fix. Maybe it would be an ambigram, but just change the J to look like more of a J and less of a lowercase d. If you want to make it really clear, write “Jeffrey Pia” underneath. Then it will be really obvious they're your initials.

    3. There is so much info out there regarding the best time to tweet. The general consensus is early afternoon (around 1-2pm) or around 4 or 5. Some “studies”:
    http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/best-time-tw…
    http://www.garymccaffrey.com/blog/2009/03/19/wh…

    I post my tips at 5pm, when some of the traffic has died down a bit. But when I write my blog posts I like to get them out around 10am and then tweet the link again around 1 or 2.

    Glad to help! And please don't hesitate to email or post any more comments with your questions. I'm here to help! (and you're a total rockstar)

  • http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari

    Thank you so much! You are now officially on my list ;-)

  • http://twitter.com/paulocamposink/status/16957499740 Paulo Campos

    Twitter Profile Critique: how to use lists. @marianschembari gives advice to @JeffreyPia http://ow.ly/22RC7

  • http://twitter.com/JeffreyPia Jeffrey Pia

    After much thought, I have to respectfully disagree with is applying the 1/3 rule to conversational tweets. I think engaging the people you follow, and perhaps more importantly the people who follow you, is the core of social media and much more important that simply broadcasting content. Applying the 1/3 rule to this would mean either reducing the conversation or increasing the content. While I wish I could do the latter, I just don't have that kind of volume.

    I definitely see your perspective in that going to someone's page and seeing nothing but @ replies or you having to really dig around to find the good content does not give you much value. But on the flip side, I think the people receiving the @ replies may find it very valuable, and the other people following you get all that filtered out so they only see your content and RT's, which hopefully they find valuable.

    So basically I agree w/ splitting up my tweets into 1/3 RT's and 1/3 my own relevant stuff, but I think conversational tweets should be exempt and the other 1/3 should maybe applied to personal, non-content-related posts like what you're doing, where you're going, how you're feeling, etc. If anything, I wish Twitter would provide a mechanism for filtering @ replies out of a person's page so you can see what their stream would look like as if you were already following them. Makes sense in my head anyway. :-)

  • http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari

    Hey man, agree to disagree. Wile I'm pretty much the smartest person in the world, none of my tips are gonna work unless you're comfortable with them ;-)

    In all sincerity, I totally hear you. You gave INCREDIBLE value to me, and now we've developed this kick ass online relationship – so you can't argue with the results. My “advice” (which you should probably take with a grain of salt) just stems from my personal experience with Twitter. And in my experience, I decide to not follow many people because I could give less of a shit what they say to everyone else.

    That said, last night I took part in a Twitter discussion (#u30pro) and clogged up my stream for that hour with @replies and convos that none of my other followers cared about. I bet some people unfollowed me that night. But it doesn't matter because I developed some awesome relationships with people and learned a lot. So while the first impression of your profile may a list of @replies, if you're one of those people being replied to, I guarantee they'll follow you anyway ;-)

    Thanks for the reminder!

  • sharita

    Thank you great post. I immediately used some of your advice to Jeffrey.
    I liked your common sense way of looking. so you say you make websites, but where is yours.

    @sharita21

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