John Sparks | Twitter | Social Media
Today I welcome to the show John Sparks from IamJohnSparks.com. John is Top 100 Social Media Power Influencer and one of the Top 50 Most Valuable Social Media Influencer for 2015.
He is Social Media Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur, Coach & Trainer. John teaches Online Journalism at The University of North Texas where he is Adjunct Professor.
John is the author of the Best-selling book - “365 Ideas To Go From Good To Great On TWITTER!”
When getting started with John coaches his clients to pay attention to the following “Big 5” of Twitter branding.
1 - Name: Just like it sounds the name is your name or your company’s name. If you use your name make sure to use both your first and last name.
2 - Twitter Handle - This is your @ handle. When someone mentions you and uses your handle on Twitter it shows up in your notifications. And yes, WingDings are acceptable to use in your handle.
3 - Bio: You can use 160 characters in your bio. John recommends as a starting point using your headline on LinkedIn. Other suggestions are making sure to include keywords, think about how would you describe yourself, and finally consider how do you want to be found by others.
4 - Bio Picture
John suggests the picture you use really depends on your purpose for using Twitter but he does advocate aligning your image across all your social media platforms.
He even advocates using the same picture on your business cards. Another tip is to rename your images using your first and last name before uploading them to Twitter. Do not use the default name your camera assigns to your pictures such as DCS789543.
5 - Header Image
The header image is not your bio picture rather it’s the large image at the top of your page. You can use this image to communicate the types of tweets follower can expect to see or to advertise your book or other body of work.
Once you’ve gotten your account set up you’ll want to start tweeting. You only get 140 characters in a tweet. This includes any hashtags (#) as well as the twitter handle of the person you may include in your tweet.
In order to accommodate for re-tweets and mentions of other people John recommends keeping your tweets to 120 characters or less.
John challenges that less is more so we need to be bold and be brief with our tweets. We need to include a Call to action in our tweets. John suggests using “Please Retweet” as the call to action for the tweet.
WRAP
The best way to get in touch with John or pick up a copy of his book are listed below.
Twitter: @iamjohnsparks
