Twitter has become an important place to be when you’re building and managing your online personal brand identity by optimizing its user profile title tags.
My own Twitter profile title tag now reads, “Meg Guiseppi (megguiseppi) on Twitter”, where it used to read, “Twitter / megguiseppi”.
Doesn’t look like much of a change, does it?
But it means that your public Twitter profile, even if you don’t actively tweet, will likely show up on the first page of results when people Google “your name”. It could even become your number one search result, making Twitter a high-impact SEO tool and an instantaneous, potent personal branding tool. That’s a pretty big deal.
When I Googled my name today, my Twitter profile landed at the top of the second page. About a week ago, it was on the fourth page. I can only assume it will inch its way up with this tweak to the way Twitter is presenting title tags.
Another thing to consider is that most of your 160-character Twitter bio – your concise personal brand message – lands in the search result description, which may be the very first thing people see about you when they’re searching your name.
According to Robin Wauters at TechCrunch,
Being the top result for a name search means business, just ask all those venture-backed startups building people search engines who are vying for the sweet spots on the first page. Consider the fact that Facebook is changing its profile URLs to better carry a person’s name for their profiles.
This is all popping up at a time when the startup’s [Twitter’s] business model is becoming more and more apparent, its momentum is going through the roof and much larger companies are turning their heads to see what all that noise is about.
Your takeaway:
Even if you don’t have the time or inclination to be active on Twitter, claim your name with a public Twitter profile and pop in your branded mini-bio for a compelling, top-landing Google search result for your name.
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Thanks for commenting, Johanne.
Well said. If politicians embrace Twitter, then there must be great value in it.
-Meg
Well, if more and more politicians are using twitter, it must be a really powerful “branding recognition” tool
Thanks for commenting, Ryan.
I’ve heard that recruiters are gaining tremendous benefits from Twitter. This new tweak makes it even more valuable.
-Meg
Great posting. Twitter really is a great tool and leveraged properly will help to get you the info you need. It’s not an end all, but I can surely gather a great group of people and make some great connections as a recruiter… Follow me: @ryanleary for social media and recruiting tips.