“Critique My Profile” Episode 4: Tweet your personality

by Marian Schembari on July 7, 2010

This week’s episode of Critique My Profile features Shayna Leah (@ShaynaLeahK), a blogger over at Life: Forward. Shayna didn’t give specifics, so I focused on how she can kick some life into her tweets by adding personal touches. Check out the video and my tips for her below:

Some actionable tasks for Shayna:

Bio/Background

  • Short and sweet explanation – good!
  • I’d like to hear more about you. What are your passions? What’s your day job? Your bio has the potential to be a little catchier.

Photo

  • Point deduction on the cartoon avatar! Two things:
    • I can’t tell you what a difference it makes to visualize the person with whom you’re connecting. It goes a long way in maintaining a relationship.
    • If you ever go to events or meet a blog friend in person, you want them to recognize you!

Tweets

  • Cut it out with the obsessive hashtagging. It dilutes the message and looks spammy.
    • Instead of writing “#women #bloggers #marieclaire #whattowear”, write, “I take a look at Marie Claire’s fatshion blogger.” See the difference? You can still include those keywords, but it’s more effective in the form of a sentence.
  • Stop doubling up on tweets!
  • Where are your thoughts? Spew some opinions, baby, your niche totally calls for it.
  • If you’re lost about something to say, take a snippet from a blog post and rewrite it as a tweet. I went through your site and picked out two examples:
    • Only thing scarier than a man spouting reasons why women aren’t entitled to equal opportunities is when those arguments come from a woman.
    • @Newsweek said “There’s something creepy about a made-to-order child. Even a pretty one.” Is that any different than how we already behave?
  • Keep in mind that people do care about your day and tweeting about stuff that seems mundane (i.e. “cleaning out my inbox”) makes you relatable. Don’t do this too often, though.

Alright guys, what do you think? Am I being too harsh on Shayna? Do you have any suggestions for her? Leave your comments below!

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  • http://twitter.com/marianschembari/status/17954350133 Marian Schembari

    {latest post} "Critique My Profile" Episode 4: Tweet your personality http://ow.ly/288HL (featuring @ShaynaLeahK)

  • http://johnpatten.net/ John Patten

    Two new things I learned:

    1. The mundane is okay. I've read so many times, “Nobody wants to know what you're having for breakfast”, and yet I myself don't mind these messages. It makes the tweeter more human.

    2. Snippets from blog posts as tweets. OMG! Why didn't I think of that? I've been trying to think of more personal tweets that aren't just an RT of a social media guru. Diving into my blog now…

  • http://lifeforward.onsugar.com/ Shayna

    Thank you so much!! I will try to kick it into gear :-) I do write anonymously though, so I'm afraid the cartoon is here to stay (or another picture/logo/etc. in its place) —

    The double tweet is a screw up from the blog software — I keep trying to fix it (and obviously failing) –

    Thank you again!!

  • http://lifeforward.onsugar.com/ Shayna

    See, I tend to ignore the mundane tweets — if I've never met you, I'm not particularly inclined to care about your breakfast cereal escapades, so I just assumed everyone else was similarly inclined to ignore them! Which is ridiculous, because if they were, then they wouldn't keep tweeting them (mnetal head slap!)

  • http://www.unculturedcritic.com/ Nicola

    Hello! I've just come across your blog for the first time, and I'm glad I did! This is a great series.

    I'll put myself in the running – my handle is @robotnic. I blog and contribute to a few websites, but I've been taking a break so there aren't a whole lot of tweets linking to those atm. Any suggestions to kick my ass back into gear are welcome, of course, hah.

    Re the mundanity discussion – I think a certain amount of the mundane is always fun, but not necessarily the “what I'm eating” anecdote. I often tweet the name of the book I'm reading or film I'm watching/on my way to the cinema to watch, and those tend to generate replies. Mundane and boring aren't necessarily the same thing, especially if other people can relate to it and say, “me too!” or “let me know how that goes,” and so on.

  • http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari

    Thanks Nicola!!

    You're totally right about mundane vs. boring. While I could care less about what you had for breakfast, I don't usually follow people who tweet about ANY of that stuff. I am, however, sometimes curious about what books people are reading or how they spend their weekends. The occasional (OCCASIONAL) personal tweet is awesome, but I 100% agree with you – it's all about relating to people.

  • http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari

    Yeah, if you're anonymous, I totally get that. It is something to keep in mind though. Anonymous tweeters are never as “successful” as those who are open about who they are. That said, social media is what YOU are comfortable with, so don't let me or anybody else tell you what you should or shouldn't be doing.

    As for the software, I'd uninstall it. Just manually tweet your posts it takes 2 seconds and since you're not posting every day it's not time consuming. Also, that way you can add notes or something if you want :)

  • sharita

    Thank you for this post.

    Snippets from blog posts as tweets. Love it. So creative.

    Please take a look at my account.
    @sharita21

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