Customize Your Twitter Profile Background NOW: Why & How!

Serious entrepreneurs are serious about branding!

After all, that's the message that you put out there. It's the image that you want your audience to perceive of you. Since social media is where a lot of your potential market is nowadays, you don't want to miss branding your social profiles as well.

Why Is It Important to Customize Your Twitter Profile?

1. First impression makes an impact. Always keep in mind that people observe the way you carry yourself in the way that you conduct your business as well as your online presence. If you're just building up your social media following, you want your potential followers to have a great first impression of you.

2. Consistency in your brand is essential. You want your audience to get it! Have your message be consistent all across the board, be it in your business cards, brochures, letterheads, blog, website, and yes, social media profiles!

3. Stand out from the crowd. With over 100 million users, you would want to stand out. It may not necessarily be in the whole Twitternation but at least in your niche.

4. Builds your credibility. With proper and consistent branding, you can build trust with your audience. Your followers will get the impression that you are serious about yourself, about your business, and about giving them value if you took care of your own branding first.

5. Ability to Add More Information. Because everything in this giant microblogging platform is limited to 140 characters including your bio section, adding a customized background will provide you with the ability to add other information that you want to provide.

My Top 3 Fave Twitter Profiles
@marismith – Even though I think Mari's profile background has a lot going on, I still love it because of its colors and the consistency in her branding.

@ijustine – I just love how IJustine branded herself all the way. The colors weren't really consistent with her blog but it's the image of herself that she portrays that's very consistent: Fun, girly, outgoing!

@ntrepreneurchic – Hmmm. Why do I love this profile? *Grins!*

One of the challenges of small business owners or starting entrepreneurs who always don't have the budget is having consistency in branding. To overcome this challenge, it always helps to know how to do some things yourself, most especially the graphic part of branding. The good news is that there are lots of free resources nowadays and to help you save time, I'm giving them to you right here!

How to Customize Your Twitter Profile Background:

1. Tiled Background This is an OK solution but still not the best simply because you are unable to put additional information on the sidebar. This is a lot easier to implement if you already have a logo or an image that you want to use for your branding.

a. Log-in to your Twitter account and click on settings.
b. Click on design.
c. Click on change background image.
d. Upload your image and make sure that you check the box that says tiled background image.

2. Full Screen Background The best and preferred option for your Twitter branding. I have looked around for free web-based applications that will allow you to create your own. There were so many of them but found the two that are the most user-friendly especially for the tech and graphically challenged individuals. *Smiles!*

Twitbacks
I really find TwitBack very user-friendly. All you have to do is fill out the form with the information that you want to put on the theme, choose a template (they have free and premium backgrounds that start at $4.99) and voila! For as low as $4.99, you can also upload your own background image which I highly suggest. After all, you want to be consistent with your brand and to stand out from the crowd.

Free Twitter Designer
This is a web-based WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get Editor). They have limited background designs but you can always choose the blank one and customize the colors to match your branding scheme. You can also upload your own logo without additional charge.

If you're feeling creative and would like an even more customized background, Gimp is a great and free tool to use. Learning some basic graphic tools could save you hundreds of dollars in the long run at times.
(Image below was taken from the GIMP website.)

Twitter Background Specifications:

Full Image Size: 2048 px x 1700 px
Left Hand Sidebar: 200 px width

You might have to play a little bit with the vertical location of your left hand side bar until you're satisfied.

Once you're done, log-in to your Twitter account, click on Settings > Designs > Upload Your Image. Do not check the tiled background. Voila! You have your branded background!

Please don't forget to RT, like, or Digg to send me back some luv! *Smiles*

Until then!…

P.S: Sometimes hiring someone for a small monetary investment is worth it especially if your plate is full. If this is the case with you, there is a company that I highly recommend and they are called TwitrBackgrounds.com. Being in the graphic and web design industry, I know great design when I see one and this company has done some of the best Twitter backgrounds so far. They have lots of great testimonials too. They have lots of great testimonials from satisfied customers too.

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