Hello everyone! Welcome back to my continuing series on The Lazy Way to 100,000 Twitter Followers and please remember you may purchase the book right here and learn all these secrets tonight!
Back to work...
And please, whatever you do, don't just leave the egg on your profile. That is one of the dumbest moves anyone can make on Twitter. It tells anyone who looks at your page that you just don't care enough to make the effort and upload a picture. Like I said, it doesn’t have to be a picture of you. Lots of people are ugly. I realize that since I'm one of them. I refuse to have mirrors in my house so I don't accidentally scare myself to death. Still, do like I did and put that big old ugly mug of yours up there for the world to see and be proud of it.
Hey Dan... do I need a header photo too? I noticed that Twitter filled it in with cool colors and my mamma says it looks good to her. Yes, you absolutely need a header photo too. Again, think of it as another way of branding yourself. Some people use a collage of their artwork or book covers. Other people use a photo related in some way to the merchandise they are tweeting about. Either way, pick a header photo that works for you and leave it alone.
Hey Dan... I just use one of the ready-made Twitter backgrounds on my page and my mamma says it looks fine. No, it doesn’t. It looks like you just used one of the ready-made Twitter backgrounds. Your mamma loves you and she isn’t going to always tell you the truth. I am. Take some time and make up your own. Use one of your book covers, or a graphic that you made up using some of the free photo and image editing tools on the web like GIMP.
Your profile description is of paramount importance too. I see countless people on Twitter with no profile at all. What's with that? Are they some kind of secret agents hiding from us all? No, they are just stupid. It is only later that I finally discover they are artists like me. This is your chance to tell the world who you are and what you do. And you're going to leave it all blank? Why? That simply doesn’t make any sense.
You are original. Out of the 6,000,000,000,000,000 plus people (okay, so maybe I added a few zeros for emphasis) on the planet there is no one else like you. Be proud of that. So what if you scrub toilets and lick boots for a living. Everyone craps and no one else ever wants to clean it up. Be proud!
Tell people about yourself. I realize you only have so many characters to work with and like me your life sucks so it might be difficult. You can do it though. If you look at my profile you'll see I list a few of my book titles there. I figure most people are smart enough to figure out that I wrote them without telling everyone that I am an author. If not, they can always write to me and ask and I will gladly respond.
Should you tell people where you live? No, I wouldn’t advise that. Tell them in rough terms, as I do... north-central Illinois. Well, only tell them that if you live in north-central Illinois... otherwise give them a general impression like L.A. or Egypt. And don't worry... if anyone desires to mail me money they can always write me via email and I will gladly give them my post office box number and the town where I live. That will work for you too.
Another great tool is your own website. If at all possible, get one with your name. Mine is danglover.com. I wrote the HTML myself. It is a simple site with the covers of all my books linked to Amazon where with one click anyone who desires can view them and better yet buy them. At the top of my website I list 'about me,' my blog, my work in progress, and a way to contact me easily. I include links back to Twitter as well just in case anyone wants to follow me.
Now, I realize there are lots of places out there that offer free websites and blogs. The only problem with that is a lot of those freebies are only free because they are loaded with junk that most people don’t care about like spam and botware. I highly advise you not to go that route. You'll only end up looking like an amateur in a world full of professionals when it doesn’t cost much at all to host your own website.
If you are serious about your work, make no mistake... you have to have your own website. Twitter advertises your site right on your profile for free so you'd be a fool not to take advantage of it. Personally, I use GoDaddy to host my site but there are lots of others out there. First of all, I had a thing for Danica Patrick (well, truth be told I still do but she's not the spokesperson any longer from what I understand) and second of all, their prices are reasonable and the tools they offer are easy to use. I pay less than $10 a month for my hosting and domain name.
Okay, let's pretend you've written a great description about yourself, uploaded both a fantastic headshot as well as a perfect for you background photo, and you have an up and running website with your own name on it. Please, don't advertise your website while it is still under construction. You'll only look like a loser. Anyway, if you’ve followed my advice you've done more than 90% of your competitors out there so you have a great chance at standing out.
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