Up until last week, I followed back anyone who followed me on Twitter. Using Social Oomph, it was done all automatically without me having to do anything. If you followed me, minutes later I would automatically follow you back.

I started doing this for two main reasons. First, I wanted to follow back everyone as a courtesy. If you made the effort of following me and listening to what I had to say, then I considered following you back was the polite thing to do.

Second, I wanted to follow back everyone because I assumed that it would get me more followers (a lot of people are following you hoping that you will follow them back, thus increasing their followers count).

After a short while this became completely unmanageable. There was only one solution: mass unfollow everyone and start from scratch!

Why I Unfollowed Everyone

Twitter had lost all its sense to me. Sure I was using lists (and thank god for those) to help me categorize my Twitter buddies and follow what they had to say but this wasn’t convenient.

I ended up following 37,752 people while I had over 40,000 following me. Everytime I would look at my Twitter timeline, I would see tons of spam, porn, tweets about people sharing how good their meal was and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t care less about. Finding good quality content on Twitter had been made impossible.

I started missing the days when I was following a couple hundred people. Those were people I had chosen to follow and was genuinely interested in listening and sharing with. There really was no other solution but unfollow everyone and start fresh.

How I Unfollowed Everyone

It took me a while to make up my mind. Should I do it? Should I not do it? I was worried that I would lose tons of followers in the process but I soon realized that those people that are really interested in me would not unfollow me. Really, I had nothing to lose.

Once I made the decision to unfollow everyone, I had yet to figure out a way to do it. I started searching online for services that could do that for me as I was not going to unfollow 37,752 people manually. I ran into a few sites that helped me unfollow a few hundred people at a time, but clearly that wasn’t the solution.

I finally remembered a website called SocialToo that offered similar services a year or so ago. I went to the site and was glad to see they were still offering this mass unfollow service. They charge $35 for doing a mass unfollow of your account but to me it was well worth it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous before clicking the “run the script” button on SocialToo.

Building Up Relationships One Follow at a Time

It took about 12-14 hours for SocialToo to unfollow everyone I was following. I then looked at my timeline: it was blank. Nothing! It felt peaceful.

Now that my Twitter account was a clean slate, I started following people one by one. I started with people that were in my lists and added a few others along the way. It took me a couple hours to do that, but again, it was time well spent.

I did lose a few followers in the process but I don’t really care about that. The most important thing is that I fell in love with Twitter all over again and that I can finally look at my timeline without being overwhelmed by twam (Twitter spam).

Do you automatically follow everyone back on Twitter? Or do you hand pick those you want to follow back?

A couple of months ago I wrote about how Google killed my online business, taking a big chunk out of my monthly revenues, but today I have good news. I have very good news! My Adwords account has been reinstated!

For those of you who didn’t read my previous article about my experience being kicked out of Adwords, let me recap for you. Basically Google suspended my Adwords account because it was violating their landing page guidelines policy. After many email exchanges, Google pretty much told me to F off and that they were done with me, banning my account. Forever.

My Life Without Adwords

For someone who makes money online, being banned from Adwords sucks. I was completely desperate for a few weeks. I had a hard time getting over it as I was trying to deal without it.

I tried MicroSoft Adcenter. The interface is awesome, but the results are very poor. While it does bring a bit of traffic, it just doesn’t compete with Adwords at all.

After a few weeks though, I realized that I didn’t really need Adwords per say. Sure, it really sucked that I couldn’t advertise my sites as much as I wanted to, but I still had my affiliates promoting my sites for me, so I was still making money.

My rough estimate is that without Adwords, I would generate about $3,000/month. Cost of traffic: $0 since it’s all affiliate driven.

With Adwords, I would generate up to $8,000/month. The downside is that I would have to pay $2,000+ in advertising cost. So basically, Adwords just brought in $6,000/month NET.

It’s clear that using Adwords generated more sales and more income but one of the “pervert effect” of using Adwords is that I have to monitor it. I have to look at my clicks, impressions, costs, and everything. This is stressful!

It is stressful on some days when you see you spent $100 in advertising and you sold products for only $50. It was stressful when this situation happened several days in a row and when I was actually losing more money than I was making.

After being banned from Adwords for a while, I didn’t stress about these numbers anymore. If the money was coming in, great. If it wasn’t, well at least I hadn’t spent any. And THAT was the good thing about being banned.

How I Got My Account Reinstated

I owe everything to Twitter. Or I guess I owe everything to how I use Twitter and the connections I made on it.

When I first found out my Adwords account was banned, I tried to figure out if I knew someone at Google. I don’t. Then I thought that maybe I knew someone who knew someone at Google. I sent a tweet asking for help and a few peeps were kind enough to tell me they would pass on my info to their “friend at Google”.

Then I remembered that the Editor for one of the top SEO blogs was following me (mind you, I’m one of the few 600 he follows). I will not give his name here because he might not want to have such requests every day.

So anyways, I DM this person and asked him kindly if he would be able to help me out since he probably knew a lot of people at Google. He replied to me saying that he would do his best to pass the information to someone. A few weeks passed and it seemed my savior had forgotten about it. Then 2 days ago, he emails me saying that he finally sent my info to his contact at Google. Great!

Two days later, I get this email from Google Adwords:

Hello Sebastien,

Thank you for your patience. I wanted to let you know that your AdWords
account and website were escalated for review as requested in your
previous emails. Per our investigation, your account was disabled for the
following Landing Page and Site Quality violation:

Customer ID: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Example URL: xxxxxxxxxxxx.com
LPQ Violation: Webmaster Guideline Violation

To learn more about Webmaster Guideline Violations, please visit
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guidelines.cs&answer=73762&adtype=text.

Upon re-reviewing your account, we discovered that the violation was
removed. Given this, we were able to re-enable your site
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx and your account, Customer ID xxx-xxx-xxxx.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Sincerely,

I like the “re-reviewing” part!

Really, if I hadn’t made this connection on Twitter in the first place, I would still be banned from Adwords.

What Now?

When I got this email from Adwords this morning, I literally woke my fiancee up to let her know. She was still sleepy but I could tell that she was very happy to see me happy about it. A few minutes later, after really waking up she asked me “what are you gonna do now?”

I told her that maybe I didn’t need Adwords after all and that we’ve been doing pretty well even without it (the blog for example has been generating great money lately).

Then of course I realized that this was stupid of me to pass on an extra $3,000/month. I don’t mind having the stress of spending money in Adwords if that means I can increase my revenues by 100%.

*Sigh*. I wish I didn’t have to be so dependent on Google.

Being on Twitter is like being at a cocktail party. Would you go to a cocktail party wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sandals? Of course not. You want to look presentable on Twitter. Even better, you want to look good and sexy.

While Twitter is not a beauty pageant, having a nice and attracting profile page will draw interest and trust in you, ultimately helping you build a follower base. Just like a beautiful woman attracts all the guys and is the talk of all women at a party, we’re going to do just that with you Twitter page.

Your Username

Your username tells a lot about you and it is a key element of your personal branding on Twitter. There are two schools on how to handle the username dilemma on Twitter:

1. There are those who think you should use your name (ie. @SebastienPage)
2. There are those who think you should use a nickname (ie. @Dudeman718)

I personally think using your real name is a better way to go about but let’s see the pros of each option.

Why Use Your Real Name

1. It reinforces your name as a personal brand.
2. It will attract more followers (people prefer following a real person that a brand).
3. You don’t want people to squat your name on Twitter.
4. People will easily be able to locate your in the “Find People” search tool.

Why Use A Username

1. You’re already known online as BigTimeBlogger (or whatever your nickname is). That’s your own brand. Keep it!
2. Your boss really wants you to use the company name.
3. You have things to hide and would rather not “be the real you” on Twitter.

About Company Usernames

As I said above, if your boss doesn’t understand that Twitter is all about people talking to other people, and not companies talking to potential customers, then he might want you to use the company name as your username.

An alternative would be to do like Dell does with its employees: @RichardATDell, @Kara_atDell, etc… This helps put a human face on a corporate account.

Quick Notes About Usernames

You may change your Twitter username at any time in the settings without losing your followers or having to start all over again. Changing your username may confuse your followers at first so make sure you let them know about it.

If you tweet for your company, make sure to figure out sooner rather than later what will happen to your username should you leave the company.

Your Profile Picture

If a picture is worth a thousand words, your profile picture on Twitter is probably worth an encyclopedia.

Instead of using the default icon that comes with your Twitter account, or instead of using a funny/stupid/cute icon, I would suggest you upload a real picture of you. It’s about personal branding. You are the brand!

You don’t need to have your picture taken by a professional photograph for the occasion but having a real picture of you will entice trust and will most likely increase your “follow rate”.

Your profile picture is one of the things people will see first while visiting your page, but most importantly, it is what they will see in their streamline if they follow you.

Here are a few advice to have an attractive profile picture on Twitter and build your personal brand:

• Don’t use a logo – Twitter is not about companies, it’s about people! Potential followers are more likely to follow a real person that a company.
• Smile – it seems like an easy one but many people don’t smile on their profile picture
• Be consistent – use the same profile picture as you use on other social sites to build continuity. This helps you solidify your personal brand.
• Be consistent (again) – do not change your profile picture every week. Your followers will be used to seeing your face and they might be confused if you change your avatar all the time.

Show Off With A Slick Background Image

This is the very first thing potential followers are going to see, so don’t hesitate to show off! If you’re serious about your personal branding, you should really consider getting a good Twitter background.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a graphic artist; there are many sites out there that allow you to create Twitter backgrounds in less than 2 minutes:

• www.TwitBackgroundImages.com ( I own this site)
• www.TwitrBackgrounds.com
• www.TwitBacks.com
• etc… Google it for more options…

If you’re really serious about it, I suggest you get a custom background designed for you or your company. I partnered with an amazing designer to offer custom Twitter backgrounds for less than $70. You can find more information about it here if you’re interested.

Your Bio Is A Mini Resume

Think of your bio as your resume in just 160 characters. You should give a good description of who you are and what you do by trying to be as descriptive as you can.

The bio is one of the few things I really pay attention to when I look at someone’s profile because I know it gives me a pretty good impression of who this person really is, and what I can expect from him/her.

This is my bio. It tells everything I want people to know about me:

Founder of the iPhone Download Blog, and serial tweeter with a healthy addiction for blogging, SEO, surfing, and traveling.

Warning: stay away from these words: guru, social media, expert. Gurus and experts don’t call themselves as such. Let other people call you this. Besides, social media doesn’t mean much these days.

Link to A Personalized Page On Your Site

Most people will link to their homepage. That’s fine. A better way to do it is to create a personalized page on your site to welcome your Twitter friends who click on the link on your profile. From there, you can introduce yourself in more than 160 characters and most importantly, you can set some expectations for your future followers.

I had a very good feedback from people by implementing such a landing page.

Warning: Do not link a sales page or anything pushy. Doing so is the best way to scare people away and miss out on a potential follower.

Location

You don’t want to lie or make up a funny location. I’m from San Diego, and that’s what my profile shows (unless I am traveling). Don’t write something such as “everywhere” or “universe”. This is stupid and might do more harm than good to your follow rate.

Showing your real location is an important point as it might help you meet or get in touch with people in your area.

What Says You?

Obviously there is no right way to go about it. You are free to do whatever you want with your Twitter profile page. I just think these are “best practices” that might make you look more presentable on Twitter.

What do you think?

I sometimes look at how people interact with Twitter and it surprises me to see how few understand take advantage of the “instantaneousity” of this tool.

Let’s take my fiancée for example. She rarely goes on Twitter and when she does she usually spends 5 minutes scrolling down to see what the 5 people she follows were saying up to 10 days ago. That is not the way Twitter was intended to be.

Twitter is a tool designed to capture the present, not the past.

Don’t bother looking back at what happened on Twitter hours or days ago because it is obsolete. Focus on what’s happening now!

Of course one can argue that you can do whatever you want on Twitter and that is your right to look at what people were tweeting last month. Sure it is, but how relevant is this information now?

How do you use Twitter?

I wanted to start a personal blog like you have done about business, life, health, politics, history.  Here’s the issue.  If I use my real name, and then connect it with my username and then link it to a blog with that same username, my real name would be exposed.  Do you think it’s a liability for an entrepreneur to have his personal and political views so openly espoused?  I have a business partner, employers, vendors, sales prospects that assuredly do Google searches on me before doing business with me…Do I run the risk of jeopardizing business because of my personal views?  And at what point does transparency become too much?  I figure that I can write in a sterile business like fashion, but that’s not me.  I’d love your insight.

You Are What You Say Online

Whatever you say or write online is a liability. There are many reasons why you wouldn’t want people to find out about your true identity. Eric’s problem is that he doesn’t want to associate his name with his political views, etc…

If you work for an employer and if you’re going to blog about hot topics (politics, religion, sex, etc…), make sure you don’t mind losing this job because it might get back at you faster than you think.

As Eric mentioned, people search more and more for names on Google. I do! When I meet someone I will potentially work or deal with, I Google them. That’s my way to do a quick informal background check.

This being said, if you work for the man and want to start your own blog about a hot topic, I suggest using a strong username.

A Username Can Be A Brand

A username for an online service or for a blog domain name doesn’t have to be something meaningless like “Eric1983″. If you want to hide your online identity behind a username, I suggest you choose one that may translate into a brand.

There are many examples of strong and smart usernames/URL that become their own brands: CopyBlogger, ProBlogger, TechCrunch, etc…

These guys chose to reveal their real identity but they didn’t have to. They could have chose to hide behind their usernames.

The Problem With Hiding Your Identity

There is a downside to hiding your identity and not being willing to reveal it. When I created my first website, I didn’t want my boss to find out what I was doing. The website, a franchise directory, was directly competing with the company who was employing me.

The problem is that the site started gaining popularity in the industry and people soon started offering me money to advertise on the site. I hadn’t created a legal entity and was just charging people with PayPal, which made it mandatory to reveal my identity, at least to the people who were paying me.

It became a little awkward when I once had to call a person on behalf of my employer and the guy on the other end of the line thought I was calling on behalf of my website.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s really hard to hide behind a username and things may really well catch up with you one day or the other.

Real Name Vs Username

In the end, it all depends on your needs and goals. In the case of Eric, I’d recommend using a username. That will prevent people from linking him to content he wouldn’t want to be associated with.

If you’re going to write a blog about the iPhone for example, then it’s no use hiding your identity. In this case, using your real name is the way to go as it will most likely help you build your personal brand.

Do you use your real name or a username online? Why? I am curious to read what you think about this.

I feel honored that Attila came to me thinking I am a famous online figure. Compared to other guys like John Chow (he’s a total douche) and Shoemoney, I’m still a noobie though.

Attila is a gamer. He used to be an editor on some well-known site in Hungary but the site kinda died after seeing increased competition from better sites and online communities. Now Attila wants to do stuff online but he doesn’t know where to start. It seems he has huge ambitions too as he’s already looking into hiring writers and developers.

So how would I go about this? Very simple, very inexpensive!

Choose A Topic

Ideally, you shouldn’t have to look for a topic. You should know what you want to talk about online. You have to be passionate about it and be quite knowledgeable. You are an expert at baking marijuana cakes? Talk about it! You know everything about shoes? Write about it!

There are no limits to what you can talk about. If you are passionate about it, chances are there are plenty of other people like you, and these people can be your audience.

Get A Good Domain Name

First thing I would do is buy a good domain name related to your topic. When buying a domain name, it’s always good to opt for the .com extension. Avoid the .net and .info as they are often seen as spam by search engines. Also avoid numbers and hyphens in your domain name. For example, www.Worst-Domain-1.info is as bad as it can get.

A domain name is about $10/year and it is very crucial as it is going to be your branding for the years to come.

Try to insert some of your main keywords in your domain name. For example, my iPhone blog domain name is www.iPhoneDownloadBlog.com. Those are 3 important keywords. Now when you look for “iPhone blog” on Google, I show up number 2-3, depending on the days.

Get Good Hosting

Good and reliable hosting is hard to come by. I personally use DreamHost. The service costs me about $130/year for unlimited sites hosted and tons of bandwidth and RAM (more than I can use). Their customer service is not outstanding but it usually is fast and good enough.

When looking for a hosting company, it’s important you choose one in your country. For example, in the case of Attila, he should look for a hosting company in Hungary. Now if he wants his site to be global and reach people all over the world, then I would go for a hosting company in the US.

The localization of your hosting company is important because search engines (which get you most of your traffic) look at where your site is hosted and give a lot of importance to this when displaying search results. If you are searching for something in Google Hungary, Google will mostly give you results from sites hosted in Hungary. If you’re in the US, Google will mostly give you search results with websites hosted in the US. You get the idea…

Set Up A Blog

The best way to start an online venture is to create a WordPress blog. WordPress is a free software that you can easily install automatically (depending on your hosting company). WordPress is highly customizable and simple, and it is used by the largest sites out there such as TechCrunch and Mashable (that’s clearly a sign).

I always recommend people to start a blog because it is inexpensive, and low maintenance.

Don’t Invest Too Much

A big mistake people often do when starting something online is that they want to invest too much time and money into it. Some people want to have a great looking site, with awesome features, and tons of useless crap. I say DON’T! Go with the simple basic stuff at first. You won’t have readers or visitors for a while, so why waste time and money on something no one will notice.

Besides, it’s good not to invest in your site at first because chances are you will blog for a week or so and you will give up. Sorry but that’s the reality. I think 99% of people who start a blog give it up within just a few weeks.

Don’t Expect Too Much

This point is related to the paragraph above. When you start a blog, don’t expect to get tons of visitors. People who start a website always think that they are going to drive thousands of visits overnight. Reality is that it will take you months if not years to get decent amount of traffic.

My iPhone blog gets between 15,000 – 20,000 visitors per day, just after a year of being online. This is really rare and it is the result of hard work. I was lucky to write a few good articles that got me some attention but don’t expect to get similar results as quickly as I did.

Content Is King

As I just said above, I was lucky to write a few articles that got me lots of attention and visits, and that is the whole point of blogging. Content is king! People will come to your site for your good content. People will return to your site for the same reason. People could leave your site and never come back for that exact same reason too.

Write compelling and unique content. Google and other search engines like unique content. Don’t copy/paste other people’s articles. Don’t become a news site! Get your own voice! My iPhone blog is everything but a news blog. All other blogs out there (except a few) are just about iPhone news.

Why would people come to your blog to read the exact same things as they can read on 2,000 other sites? People come to my iPhone blog because they know I am an Apple hater and that I like to talk about hacking the iPhone. That’s my voice. I don’t always rant about Apple or write about hacking, but it is my main topic and it is what I am known for.

Be Social

Getting your name and content out is great. There are many ways to do this. You can use sites like Digg, Facebook, etc… Personally, I am social on one and one place only: Twitter. I am on Twitter all day, sharing content, talking to people, and helping other people out. By doing so, I am now being seen as an expert in everything related to the iPhone. People come to me to ask my advice. People recommend me to their friends. I even have famous people like Dog the Bounty Hunter and Alyssa Milano recommend me or share my content!

Another thing to do is to connect with other bloggers. Go to their sites, leave comments, touch base with them. If they notice you, they might start talking about you too. It’s not because they are “competition” that you can’t work with them. I share stuff from other iPhone blogs several times a day. I am not just out there to advertise myself. I advertise myself as an expert that can get people the best information, even if that means sending people to my competition’s websites.

Learn SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is easy. No matter what these SEO experts are trying to tell you, SEO is dead simple. The problem is that it’s very time consuming. Learning, understanding and applying the basics of SEO is very simple and you can self-educate you. Subscribe to a few SEO blogs (like SEO Book, SEOmoz) and get familiar with the terms and all the tricks and tips.

Here is a great SEO guide for beginners. Read everything and learn. Once you know more about SEO, you can apply it to your articles to get extra love from search engines.

Conclusion

Blogging is a great way to start sharing your expertise with others and can hopefully lead to generate substantial income. But it’s not easy and it takes time. Most people who start a blog today will give it up tomorrow but it can be very rewarding to those of us who understand it takes time to create a follower base and be seen as an expert. Good luck.

If you’ve been on planet Earth within the last 6 months or so, you most likely heard about Twitter.

I’m not going to go into details about why you need to be on Twitter but just let me ask you these few questions:
- do you think email is useful to your business?
- do you think a website is useful to your business?
- do you think social media is useful to your business?
- do you think blogging is useful to your business?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, well, I have to be a little bit in your face and tell you that your business is going to fail. If you don’t take advantage of these tools right now, your competition will, and they will win!

Let’s go back to Twitter… You might not understand Twitter yet. But that’s fine, right now, I’m not asking you to understand it, I’m just asking you to create an account and start using Twitter, just a couple minutes everyday.

It is important you create a Twitter account now so you can register your brand/name before someone else does! Twitter URLs will soon be as valuable as a website URL!!!

It took me a couple months to understand Twitter and really enjoy it and use it as you’re supposed too. These days, I spend hours on Twitter everyday. Yes, hours! Twitter is a great way for me to generate revenues simply by talking to people, and sharing information.

I have about 14,000 people that follow me on Twitter. At any given time, when I say something on Twitter, I can direct about 200 of these people to any website I want. Isn’t that just amazing?

Anyways, I guess the goal of this post was to briefly introduce you to Twitter.

If you have any question or any doubt about Twitter, just ask me and I will do my best to help you out.

If you’re already on Twitter, please follow me http://twitter.com/SebastienPage

Tweet you later ;)

Adding these 1001 Twitter users who will auto-follow or follow you back will not do you much good because they are not genuinely interested in your tweets. Like you, they mostly want to collect massive amounts of followers.

Social News Watch‘s post about the “top 237 Twitter users who will follow you back” inspired me to create this list and to take the things a little further than they did.

You’re obviously free to do whatever you want with this list but you will hopefully not use it to twamm (Twitter spam) people. I guess Twitter users are smart enough to recognize twammers and block them anyways…

How to get more Twitter followers? Start following these people!

Do You Want to Be Added to This List?

Because I’m receiving so many emails asking me to add people to this list, I decided to make this a paid service. If you want to be added to this list, PayPal me $10 and I will add you to the top of the list. This list gets hundreds of visits a day so if you want to get a bunch of new followers for cheap, that is your best bet!

Show Off With Your Background Image

This is the very first thing potential followers are going to see, so don’t hesitate to show off! If you’re serious about your personal branding, you should really consider creating a custom Twitter background. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a graphic artist; there are many sites out there that allow you to create Twitter backgrounds in less than 2 minutes. Check out my previous article about Twitter backgrounds resources for a list of websites where you can do that.

You Are What You Tweet

The quality of tweets is one thing I really pay attention to when looking at someone’s profile as it gives me a good idea of what the person is about. Many people think Twitter is similar to the “status update” on FaceBook and that is a big mistake. People are not following you on Twitter to learn about useless details of your life. That means you should avoid such tweets: “going grocery shopping”, or “I just had breakfast and now going to work”. Who cares!?

You must provide value to your followers by pointing them to interesting articles in order to build your credibility and influence on Twitter. Pointing your followers to quality and relevant information will undoubtedly help build your personal branding as followers will start seeing you as an expert in your field.

Your Bio Is A Mini Resume

Think of your bio as your resume in just 160 characters. You should give a good description of who you are and what you do by trying to be as descriptive as you can. The bio is one of the few things I really pay attention to when I look at someone’s profile because I know it gives me a pretty good impression of who this person really is. For example, if I see something like “I’m the best designer in the world”, I might think this guy has a big mouth. If I see something such as “Taking it easy”, I might think this guy is just a lazy ass.

Put A Real Picture Of You

Instead of using the default icon that comes with your Twitter account, or instead of using a funny/stupid/cute icon, I would suggest you upload a real picture of you. Remember, it’s about personal branding. You are the brand! You don’t need to have your picture taken by a professional photograph for the occasion but having a real picture of you will build more trust and will most likely increase your “follow rate”.

If you’re going to be on many social networking sites, I think the best thing to do is to use the same picture across all your profiles. This will create consistency and it will help people identify you quicker and easier should they visit your various profiles.

Use Your Real Name

I wrote a full article on this topic so I’m just going to sum up why you should use your real name on Twitter. Don’t use a stupid username such as CrazyBee or something along these lines. Letting people know who you really are is very important for your personal branding. It will help you attract more followers because people can relate to a real person easier than they can relate to a brand or a silly nickname. My Twitter username is @sebastienpage, which is my real name.

Like your profile picture, I recommend you use the same username across all social networking sites.

Add A Link To Your Website

This is your chance to promote your website or blog. I decided to have www.SebastienPage.com show on my Twitter profile even though I have several blogs and websites, most of them being money makers. Assume people want to know about you. They don’t want to know about what you’re trying to sell.

Under the pressure of Google, Twitter added a nofollow attribute to links in bios but it’s still a great way to get free traffic to your site.

Location Location Location

Again, you don’t want to lie or show a funny location. I’m from San Diego, and that’s what my profile shows. Don’t write something such as “everywhere” or “universe”. This is stupid and might do more harm than good to your follow rate.

Showing your real location is an important point as it might help you meet or get in touch with people in your area.

Don’t Protect Your Updates

One big mistake you could make is protecting your updates. You’re on Twitter to get the word out (whatever word) so make yourself available to everyone.

One Last Thing…

Twitter is not a marketplace! You are not on Twitter to sell your products or services; you are on Twitter to connect, share, and make friends, ultimately building your personal branding. While it is a common practice to link to your latest blog post or article, you don’t want to promote your site all the time. The community is smart and will unfollow you as easily as it followed you in the first place.

I think that’s about it. I would love to read your comments about this article as I am sure you have great ideas on how to improve you personal branding on Twitter too. As usual, if you like this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter.

When I saw that, I couldn’t help sending her an email explaining why she’d rather go with @debicarlston. She heard me and changed her username right away. Now here is a more developed version of what I told Debi and why I think using your real name on Twitter establishes you as a social personality that is connected and approachable.

1. You will attract more followers

Using a company name or brand as a username is probably the biggest mistake people do (I did it too when I started on Twitter) but the fact is that people will most likely follow a person rather than a brand.

Which one would you follow: @billgates or @microsoft? Yes, you’d rather find out what’s inside Bill Gates’ head rather than receive special offers about Windows Vista. Your potential followers are the same. They don’t care what you sell, they want to reach you on a personal level. They want to know more about what YOU think, not what you’re trying to sell.

2. You will establish yourself as a professional

Whatever you talk about on Twitter, using your real name will differentiate yourself and establish you as a professional in your field. As I told Debi, in the real life, she is not Director Of Marketing for CrownAir; she is a sharp business woman who happens to do marketing at an aviation company. In the same way, I am not iPhone Download Blog (my iPhone blog), I am Sebastien Page, a guy who knows a lot about the iPhone.

Note that this point is not valid if all you do on Twitter is sending useless tweets such as “going grocery shopping”. Nobody cares about that. Keep this for your MySpace status update ;)

Establishing yourself as a social and knowledgeable persona will get you more attention, raise interest in who you are and what you do, ultimately helping your business if that’s what you’re looking for. As an example, I received several advertising requests for my iPhone blog from tweets that I sent out, even though I never looked for advertisers directly. These people saw that I knew a lot about the iPhone, they went to my iPhone blog, noticed that I got quite a bit of traffic there, and ended up asking me how much I would charge them for banner ads.

3. You will be able to keep this username when you leave your company

Imagine for a second that you are the marketing guy for a music magazine. For the last 2 years you’ve been using the @xyzmusicmag username,  attracting over 3,000 followers. Now imagine that your boss tells you that you are being laid off (or let’s say that you quit, if that can make you feel better).

What would happen to your Twitter username? You have 2 options: First option: you can just leave it to your company. You will lose all your followers and you will have to start on Twitter from scratch. Second option: you can sneakily change your username (Twitter is very flexible on this) to @yourrealname, taking the risk of being sued by your employer for doing that, which would be its own right.

You will never have this dilemma if you choose to use your real name on Twitter as soon as you create your account.

As you can see, there are big benefits in using your real name on Twitter. All this can be summed up in 2 words: personal branding. This in itself could be the topic of another blog post…

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