Profile Best Practices for Twitter

Personal Accounts

•    Select a user name that identifies you as a person not a brand. Ideally, you want to select your actual name. This helps you create a personal brand for yourself.
•    Use an actual picture of yourself for your avatar. People connect best with other people not with your dog, not with Bart Simpson and not with your company logo.
•    Fully fill out your profile. Be sure to include your location so geo-location and mapping applications for Twitter can list you and be sure to add a bio line (Hubspot indicates that Twitter profiles with a bio line are 8 times more likely to be followed than those without)
•    Can Having a Twitter Bio Get You 8 Times as Many Followers?
•    Bio Characteristics of Twitter Power Users
•    Customize your profile by adding a custom background that identifies you. If you are not graphically inclined, try creating one on Twitbacks.com, MyTweetSpace.com, and FreeTwitterDesigner.com.  These services allow you to create numerous templates that you can download for free.
•    This account is where you share information you find across the net, reply to people, make personal insights and stream events in your life.

Hubspot recommends the optimal number of tweets a user should tweet per day is 23 - during the peak hours of the customers you are targeting

Brand and Corporate Accounts

•    Select a user name that identifies your brand or company. Ideally, you want to select the name of your company or brand.
•    Use your logo as your avatar
•    Fully fill out your profile. Be sure to include your location so geo-location and mapping applications for Twitter can list you and be sure to add a bio line about your company or brand (Hubspot indicates that Twitter profiles with a bio line are 8 times more likely to be followed than those without)
•    Customize your profile by adding a custom background that identifies you. If you are not graphically inclined, try creating one on Twitbacks.com, MyTweetSpace.com, and FreeTwitterDesigner.com.  These services allow you to create numerous templates that you can download for free.
•    This account is where you can post corporate blog posts, company press releases, information about your products, services, brands or industry and offer deals and coupons.  Much of what happens on this account can be automated and scheduled through services like www.tweetlater.com