Social Media Marketing: 5 Best Strategies to Enhance Your Twitter Profile and Get New Followers

Twitter took the world by storm last year. I predict this year many business owners will drop out of the Twitter stream because they're not seeing a valuable ROI for their business in return for the time invested in marketing on Twitter.

This comes, partly, from the fact that Twitter can be a great time-waster. However, I think that it's due, in large part, to not maximizing your Twitter profile when setting up your Twitter account. Because Twitter doesn't offer many options when a user creates a profile, most people put little thought into that process.

Here are 5 strategies you can use today to beef up your Twitter profile:

1. Your Bio: You have only 160 characters to describe yourself, so make those count. Business owners should incorporate their most important keywords in their profile -- keywords by which your target market would use to find you. Also include your business tagline, or provide some information about why others would want to follow you.

2. Your URL: If you have a longer URL, delete the www and just include http://yourwebsite.com. Rather than linking to your business web site, you might try linking to a social network landing page, or aggregator site, that lists the links to your various social networking profiles and to your various web sites. Make the URL memorable so that by itself it entices someone to click on it.

3. Your Photo: To start a visitor on the like, know and trust journey of building a relationship with you, it's important that that person see your smiling face, not an avatar. Use a current photo of you as your Twitter profile photo rather than an avatar, a picture of your pet, or a photo of you as a child. You will want to update your photo periodically to add a bit more interest to your profile.

4. Your Background: A custom Twitter background makes a visitor more likely to follow you. On this background you can note what you do, your free giveaway, and your primary web site URL. Include any info and graphics that your Twitter profile doesn't let you include in the limited profile options. This custom background saves your profile from looking like every other Twitter profile.

5. Your favorites: Whenever you're mentioned in someone's tweet or whenever someone retweets your Tweet, save them in Your Favorites. Simply go to the post that you want to save, and click on the Favorite link unde
eath the Tweet. You can then use a screenshot of this Favorites list anytime that you need a testimonial for a program, product, or service.

Even though you take care to set up a great profile, Twitter is all about networking and providing great content to showcase your expertise, as well as with connecting to your followers.. Without Tweets that are helpful to your target market, a great Twitter profile will wither away. Make sure you stay relevant and useful to your followers by keeping your Tweets current, useful, and engaging.