Twitter can help to remove negative content from search results. If there is negative content about you that comes up when your name is searched, a strong Twitter account could help push that content lower on Google and Bing. Many individuals, small businesses and reputation agencies don’t do a good job of optimizing Twitter profiles. This makes it hard for people to find the information they need. Read on for my tricks for Twitter SEO!
If you want your Twitter account to appear on the first page of a search engine, you need to optimize it. For example, Coca-Cola’s main Twitter account is just below the corporation’s listing for their official website.
When you search for “Trump” on either Google or Bing, President Trump’s Twitter account is usually one of the first few results that come up. If you search Google for other well-known names, you will find that their Twitter accounts usually rank highly as well.
Google has found that tweets by Elon Musk are relevant to searches for his name and has created a carousel of them that appears in the search results below his Twitter account listing.
These Twitter accounts are extremely popular among celebrities and strong brands that have social media management that is very advanced. You can still get on the first page of search engines, even if you have a less well-known name. If you have a good presence on the first page of a search engine, you can use your Twitter account to combat any negative information about you that appears on that page.
This cannot happen unless the Twitter account is optimized. Here are some tips to make your Twitter profile more powerful.
Optimize your Twitter handle!
One of the most important things you can do to improve your Twitter account is to pay attention to the number of people who follow you. Your handle appears next to your real name on your profile and in your Tweets Your handle (username) is used by Twitter in your profile URLs and page titles. It appears next to your real name on your profile and in your Tweets. Your profile’s visibility can be increased by appearing multiple times in the text, links, and titles.
To ensure that your name is ranked highly when people search for it, you should spell your handle as closely as possible to the version of your name that people are likely to search for. Many people who are unaware of how search engines work tend to make the same mistakes. Here are some tips on crafting good names:
- Again, imitate the version of your name that people use to search for you. (People often leave off words like “Inc.” and “Company” when searching.) The ideal naming convention is to spell out your name, leaving out any spaces. The closer you match your spelling, the more search engines are likely to evaluate the handle to be highly relevant for your searches (e.g., @chrissmith).
- If your ideal name configuration is unavailable, which is more likely the more common your name is, then you will have to craft a variation on it. Try to choose an abbreviation that’s as close to the original name as possible. The higher the degree of similarity, the more relevant the search engines will consider the name compared with your actual name. Craft a name that may look like yours if read rapidly, and then test it by using that name to search in Google. If Google automatically associates the alternate version with your website and other online identity materials, then chances are good that you’re on the right track.
- If your name is longer than the 15 characters allotted by Twitter — which happens ALL the time — you will obviously have to abbreviate it. Again, craft this abbreviated name carefully and test it in Google. For instance, if I tried to use my full name without spaces, it would be: @chrissilversmith. At 16 characters, it’s one character too long to be accepted by Twitter. Instead, I might choose to use @chrissilversmth or @chrissilvrsmith.
- People love to generate “cute” Twitter handles that may not even closely resemble their actual names, and they can still rank in search (if other factors and the popularity of the profile are sufficient). You can see my Twitter handle of “Si1very” for an example of this — by the time I joined Twitter, it was difficult to get precise matches for common combos of names like “Chris,” and “Smith.” My Twitter profile is otherwise fairly well-optimized, so I can get away with this. But if you’re working hard to get your profile to rank well in Google, DO NOT USE CUTE TWITTER HANDLES that don’t closely match your name!
- Do not add emojis to your username. It may look fun, but the added characters could cause your name to appear to be a less relevant keyword match when people search for you online. If you want to experiment with this later on, after you’ve solved your reputation issues, go for it. But, it could otherwise be sand-bagging your efforts.
- It’s tempting to use underscores for multi-word names to take the place of spaces (e.g., @chris_silver). Avoid doing this because Google does not treat the underscore as a “white space” character like spaces, periods, dashes and so on. It’s unfortunate that Twitter does not allow one to use dashes. In rare cases where it may be the best option available, you may use the underscore, but be aware that it only provides a fuzzy match relevancy that can be very weak — so, you need to focus on shoring up all other factors to ensure the page ranks well for your name searches.
Optimize your full name
On the web and in most apps, the Full Name appears just above the Username. In addition to the Username field, Twitter provides a “Full Name” field that appears just above the Username. Your full name appears at the top of your profile below your profile picture, and also appears with your profile picture on all of your tweets.
The Full Name is quite important for a few reasons, including: 1) the name becomes incorporated into the profile page’s Title text, along with the username; 2) it’s displayed in larger text near the top of the page within an
headline tag; and 3) it appears with all of your tweets, and this text is anchor text everywhere your tweets may appear, linking back directly to your profile page.
So, the full name helps the search engines know what your name is and which keywords the page should be most relevant for. One is limited to 20 characters in the password field, though this is longer than the username limit.
Your full name should be as close to the name people search for as possible. Hopefully 20 characters will be enough to hold your full name. If you cannot abbreviate the text, then you will need to find a way to shorten it.
Searching the name variations will show how Google associates the name with your existing online identity materials. If so, that’s a very good sign.
Set Up Customer Service
One of the best things about Twitter is that it can be used as a customer service channel. It’s also a great way to improve your reputation. Having your DMs open and responding to them actively can make you seem like a helpful person. Make sure you have a dedicated team or representative who is responsible for monitoring your Twitter account and addressing any issues that come up. Fast response time and satisfactory resolutions are important here.
It’s important to have people, not machines, monitor and respond to customer inquiries. If you don’t want issues like Amazon’s recent bot swarm replying to every mention about mistreated employees, or even company bots responding to jokes as if they were real, you need to be careful.
Your customer service team should have the authority to resolve customer issues. If you are only using Twitter as a way for your support team to answer questions, you are not using it effectively and it is not a viable customer service channel.
There are two ways to perform reputation management and customer service on Twitter: waiting for people to come to you and actively seeking out people who have problems. Social listening can help you not only monitor your reputation, but also find people who have problems but don’t want to reach out to you directly. Some people will be resistant to assistance while others will be receptive. If you can contact your customers and resolve their issues, you can gain a positive reputation as a company that cares about that kind of thing.
Keep on Top of Damage Control
Sooner or later, something is going to go wrong. Every company will, sooner or later, have to deal with a scandal involving an executive, an intern saying something bad on video, a product launch going poorly, or a service outage. The way you manage a crisis situation is the most important part of reputation management.
The two most important things to do when facing a crisis are to be prepared for it and to limit the amount of damage it causes. It is wise to have a contingency plan to fall back on in the event of a reputation disaster, in the same way that you would have a disaster recovery plan in place for a physical catastrophe. To be a successful trial lawyer, you should learn how to prepare statements, investigate thoroughly before making any judgements, and have a plan for what the next steps should be. The better your response will be, the more you anticipate.
Verify Facts Before Tweeting
There is a lot of fake news in the world, and it is likely to get worse. As more people blindly trust so-called authorities and technology for deep-fakes becomes more realistic, it becomes harder to believe what you see.
There are a lot of people who try to damage the reputation of others by making false claims. You should be neutral when accusations are made public until an investigation is complete, and then take appropriate action.
This is also true when the news isn’t about you. A company should be careful about issuing tributes to people who are not actually dead. Make sure that the event you are tweeting about is factually accurate before you share it. A few days’ delay in making a decision is better than making a hasty decision that turns out to be wrong.
Avoid Irreverent Newsjacking
The act of newsjacking is when you piggyback on the news to promote yourself.
An example of this is when Duracell sets up power stations in areas affected by disasters to help people charge their electronic devices. This is something that is provided without any cost and is not well-known, but it is something that is done regularly.
“In case of a power outage, be sure to visit Sears for all your generator needs!” Making money from a disaster is considered to be in bad taste. For more information on what makes a good or bad example, click here.
Don’t try to copy what’s trending in the news if you’re unsure you can do it correctly. Twitter can be valuable even if you’re not always up-to-date on the latest news, but it also has the potential to go very wrong.
Avoid Political Discussions
If you’re looking to ruin your Twitter career, one of the best things you can do is share your political opinions. Nowadays, almost everything appears to have a political aspect to it. There is always some level of noise or uncertainty surrounding every opinion or fact expressed on Twitter. You need to learn to discern when it is worth your time to engage with that noise, and when it is better to just ignore it.
Twitter should be used for marketing, customer service, and outreach purposes. Using it to express opinions is asking for backlash. This isn’t the best place to have a discussion about anything controversial. You should keep your company out of any political or social controversies and let people discover your company’s stance on these issues from the actions you take. The way that really matters is by taking action to support green energy, not just tweeting about it. If you donate money to oil companies, people can find out through disclosure forms.
There is a general belief that social media is not important work. The intern’s job is to manage your social media. Managing social media accounts requires skill and experience. The people in this department are responsible for the public image of your company. It seems that every month there is a new story about a social media manager who is unhappy with something they are doing. Don’t be one of those people. When hiring social media managers, it is important to carefully screen them to make sure they are aligned with your company’s values. Additionally, it is necessary to monitor their activity to ensure they are representing your brand well. If they’re not treated well, they have a lot of power to do a lot of damage.
Wrapping Up
Twitter can be a useful tool for managing your reputation, but you need to use it correctly. If you do not have the internal resources to manage your reputation, we suggest you look into hiring a reputation management company. A good reputation management team will handle what you need them to without overstepping their bounds. They can help you with customer service and creating a public persona on social media. How you’re going to go about it is the only question.
Related posts:
