Optimizing Your Twitter Profile

Read time: 3 minutes

Last week I talked about developing the right mindset for a social media platform like Twitter. If you missed the post, you can read it here.

Once you have developed the mindset, you can get started on Twitter.

Profile photo

The first thing you should do is to put up a professional headshot with a clean background. You don’t need anything fancy or artsy — just a simple headshot with a warm, smiling face.

Your profile photo is the first anything anyone will see on Twitter and you want to create a nice, decent first impression.

A professional-looking profile photo is one of the easiest ways to build trust and credibility on social media. A potential reader will look at your profile and see that you are a real person and not a bot or a troll.

Your profile photo should be such that if one of your followers meets you in real life they should be able to recognize you.

Twitter Username

Your Twitter username, also called a “handle,” is an most important part of your profile. Ideally, it should be your name or a variation of it. If your name is unavailable, consider adding words like “Prof,” “Dr.,” or “PhD.”

Avoid having a funky-looking or a clever-sounding word as part of your Twitter handle.

When in doubt, always choose clear over clever.

Twitter Bio

Like your profile photo and username, your bio is one of the first things any user coming to your profile will see. You Twitter bio should be “reader-centric” and not “you-centric.”

Your bio should answer the following three questions:

1. Who you are professionally? (professor, PhD candidate, etc.) This will make you credible for your readers.

2. What kind of work do you do? (public policy, neuroscience, etc.) This will show your expertise.

3. What can people expect to learn from you? This is the reason people should follow you.

The answer to all three questions should complement each other.

Avoid putting titles of familial relations (father, husband, mother, sister, etc.) and what animals you like as pets (cat lady, dog dad, etc.) They tell nothing about your work and don’t add any value for your reader.

You only get 160 characters for your bio. Try to make the most of it.

Twitter Banner

Twitter banner is an image that is on top of your profile. Experienced Twitter users with considerable following use it to advertise services and products they offer.

When starting out, you can use a photo of your campus or your bookshelf in your banner.

Your profile photo, username, bio, and banner should all complement each other.

But don’t spend too much time perfecting them.

Optimizing your profile photo, bio, username, and banner is an iterative process and involves trial and error. That’s why don’t worry about perfecting these things.

Your priority should be to do your best as quickly as possible so you can get to the most important part — writing, which I will discuss next week.

Here are a few examples of academics with optimized Twitter profiles:

Betty S. Lai https://twitter.com/BettySLai

Kareem Carr https://twitter.com/kareem_carr

Ethan Mollick https://twitter.com/emollick

Raul Pacheco-Vega https://twitter.com/raulpacheco

Become an Efficient Academic Writer with AI Apps — Webinar, 10 June 2023

Quick reminder that registration for webinar “Become an Efficient Academic Writer with AI Apps” will be closing soon.

Below is a list of the topics I will cover in the webinar:

1. How to brainstorm research questions with (AI-powered app) Elicit

2. How to use AI-powered search engines

3. How to do literature review with (AI-powered app) Research Rabbit (Zotero/Mendeley Integration)

4. Inciteful-Zotero Integration for literature review

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6. How to supercharge your reading with (AI-powered apps) Scholarcy and SciSpace

7. How to take notes with (AI-powered app) Lateral

8. How to write zero drafts and get them "cleaned" with ChatGPT

9. How to use (AI-powered app) Jenni to write your first draft

10. How to edit your first draft with (AI-powered app) Paperpal

11. How to take your research to the next level with (AI-powered app) Scite

12. How to use ChatGPT and Bing Prompts for academic writing and reading

Registration

You can register for the webinar by clicking here.

The registration fee is $108.54. You can use the code “Efficient25“ for a 25% discount.

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