How to customize your Twitter background

Your Twitter profile page is an important marketing tool. You can use it to provide information about your business in the biography (in up to 160 characters), add a weblink to your site (essential), and customize your page to reinforce your branding (advisable).

You can choose from around 20 default Twitter 'themes', or background designs – but it is a good idea not only to tweak you colour scheme, but to create your own bespoke background.

[image error]

To change your colour scheme, and match it to your corporate palette, choose Settings from the top menu, then the Design tab, and the Change design colours button towards the bottom. Five colour boxes will appear, showing the current background, text, links, sidebar and sidebar border colours. Click on any of these boxes to change the colour, either by using the slider and palette, or by entering the HTML value of the colour you want. Click done for each colour change, then save changes when you're finished.

Choose a background colour even if you are planning to upload your own image. This will be visible if your image takes a few seconds to load, or if it doesn't quite fill the screen of a very large monitor, so choose a colour that matches the main colour in your background image.

If you're ready to go a stage further, it's a good idea to use a customised background image. You'll notice, for example, that the Twitter account for @getuptspeed is designed to match the book jacket.

You can choose an image to repeat to fill the space, but it is better to go for a single large image. Why?  Apart from looking more professional, you can optionally use this to include an additional column of text on the left-hand side with extra information about you or your business, such as web addresses showing where else you have a presence online.

It has been the received wisdom for a while that this is an essential step to take. However, two things have changed:

Many people now access Twitter from their mobile device or by using a desktop application such as Tweetdeck, so will never see your profile page anyway.
'New Twitter' is launching, with a newer, wider, interface and a much narrower left-hand column in which to place your logo or other information about your business. Most people have access to the preview of New Twitter now, but within a few weeks, it will be the only option.

Whether or not you choose to include a sidebar image, choosing a bespoke background – even if it is just the same as the background image of your business website – helps reinforce your brand.

You can also find loads of themes at Themeleon or  TwitBacks, have a graphic designer create one for you – or do it yourself. If you choose to do it yourself, here are the steps you need to take:

Create a large background image. Create an image at least 1600px wide by 1200px tall. Some designers recommend 2048px by 1707px, which should fill even the largest screens. Use Adobe Photoshop Elements (PC/Mac), PaintShop Photo Pro (PC), Pixelmator (Mac) or whatever your favourite graphics software is for this.
Save your image as a .jpg. Twitter will accept .gif and .png image files too but, at these dimensions, these are likely to exceed the maximum allowed file size of 800k.
Upload your new background. Choose Settings from the top menu on your Twitter page, and then the Design tab. Click on Change background image, browse to the file you saved, leave the tile background box unchecked, and click save changes. You now have a customised Twitter background.

If you're still using old Twitter and want to use a sidebar:

Create your sidebar as a new image. This should be a maximum of 200px wide and 587px tall. However, I tend to create these at 170 x 430 to make sure they work on smaller screens, and don't disappear behind the main Twitter timeline window, or off the bottom of the screen. Remember, when you scroll down the page on Twitter, your graphic image remains in a fixed position.
Position, combine and save. Paste your sidebar image onto your large background image as a new layer. When you're happy with its position, save as a new .jpg. Keeping these elements separate makes it easier to update your background and sidebar when you want. This is probably the part you will want to play around with the most, to get your sidebar in a position that works for you. I recommend starting the image 30px from the left of the screen, and either 14px or 64px from the top, depending on whether you want to align it with the top of the Twitter logo or the top of the window that contains your status updates.

If you're using New Twitter:

Either avoid using a sidebar image at all, or keep it very narrow – no more than 50px.
Bear in mind that the right-hand half of the screen on New Twitter is a semi-transparent layer, at least for your timeline views. It becomes opaque when you expand the information on individual tweets. Consider this when creating your background, and think about graphical elements that will work behind this 'see-through' layer.

Whatever approach you take to designing your custom background, there's no real substitute for trial and error – upload your image, tweak it, upload it again, until you're happy. And because no two screens are the same, remember that your carefully placed graphic elements won't look how you intend for everyone. This is a static image – it's not like designing a website – so don't rely too heavily on information contained in your graphic. Keep it simple, make sure the colours reinforce your branding, and use the weblink, your biography – and, above all, your tweets – to contain your essential content.

Find out more about Twitter in Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing, Chapter 13: "Tap into Twitter – How to use the power of the real-time web to build a following".





Tweet This!


Share this on Facebook


Share this on LinkedIn


Share this on del.icio.us


Digg this!


Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon


Post this to MySpace


Post on Google Buzz