Home topics small-business-resources hot-tips Hot Tips Social Media Hot Tips The Twitter marketing guide to profits Denise Mooney January 23, 2012 Spending hours on Twitter with nothing to show for it? Having trouble even getting started? Want to punch that tiny blue bird in the face? Don’t give up. Twitter is a powerful marketing tool. But only when it’s used the right way. Make sure you’re set up to leverage the full power of the Twitterverse with these simple guidelines from Denise Mooney. 1. Your username Use your real name. Twitter users want to engage with a human not a company. I know you’re representing your company, but you are not your company. I made this mistake myself when I first started and it’s harder to change now that people know me as @clickablecopy . Plus if you decide to start a new venture or change your company name down the track, you end up juggling multiple accounts or starting from scratch. Both of which would suck. When you’re choosing a username make sure it’s not too long. You only have 140 characters to play with. That’s fine for your tweets but an outrageously long username will make it harder for followers to retweet your posts, which won’t help your marketing efforts. Try and shorten it or use a nickname, something easy to remember so people can find you. Similarly if your name is hard to spell, you might want to think about abbreviating it. If your brand is fun