Once you’re ready to commit to Tweeting (and you should be, it’s easy!), you’ll need to setup an account on Twitter.
This process is relatively straightforward, but there are some extra steps you’ll want to do to ensure that your Twitter presence is as complete as possible.
This posting is the first of a 4-part series on how to get your business on Twitter properly. It consists of:
- Setting up a Twitter account for your business
- Completing your Twitter profile and adding a custom background
- Finding friends and others
- Getting followers
Who Are You Going to Be on Twitter?
Before you get started though on Twitter, you’ll need to decide who you’re going to be. Are you going to tweet as an individual or are you going to tweet on behalf of your business? If you don’t yet have a presence on Twitter, I recommend creating an account that has your business as your username. That way you can better represent your message on Twitter from multiple users even when you are not tweeting yourself.
Think about your username a little. There is a 15 character limit so you’ll want to make sure that your business name fits as much as possible. You’ll be able to try different variations once you begin the sign-up process.
Setup a Twitter Account for My Business
The next steps will get you started with the Twitter account creation process:
1) Go to www.twitter.com/signup to access the signup screen.
2) Enter the full name of your business.
3) Enter the 15 character username you will use to represent your business on Twitter. Twitter will tell you whether or not it is available. Keep trying until you come up with a username that is relevant to your business.
4) Enter a password for your Twitter account. Twitter will tell you whether it considers your password weak or strong. The stronger the password, the more secure the account, but usually, the less memorable the password.
4) Enter your email address that you use for business communication. Twitter will send you a confirmation email that you must be able to read in order to activate your account so make sure it is an email address that you can access. For now, uncheck the “Let others find me by my email address” option. This would let others find you by email address on Twitter, but when I try it, it doesn’t really work well.
5) Uncheck the “I want the inside scoop…” option unless you want to receive updates from Twitter.
6) Finally, click the “Create my account” button.
7) You will be asked to complete a form so you can prove to Twitter you’re a human and not a computer. Enter the displayed word(s) and click “Finish”.
Almost There
You’re Twitter account is all set, but there are still a few things Twitter wants you to do before you can start tweeting.
1) Twitter will prompt you to look for people to follow. You can do that later so click “Next step: friends”.
2) We’ll add friends later as well. Click “Next step: others” at the bottom of the page.
3) For now, we’ll skip adding others as well. Click “Next step: You’re done!”, and you’re almost there.
4) The last thing you have to do is check the email address you entered during the account creation process for a confirmation email from Twitter. After you receive it, click on the link in the email, and you will be brought to your Twitter feed page.
Now, you’re done! However, this is just the first step.
The next article will explain how to complete your Twitter profile properly and how to create add a custom background to provide additional information about your business.
