Twitter profiles are a dime a dozen. Anyone can sign up and start tweeting. Because Twitter locks down a lot of the customization options, it’s a bit harder to stand out from the crowd. The default backgrounds you find in your settings tab are nice, but they’re default! Everyone has access to them. Why settle for the standard background when you can do so much more.

What I’ve done is create 7 free Twitter backgrounds (in .PSD format) that you’re free to download and customize to your liking. I’ve also created a short tutorial on how to add your own pictures, text and information. If you have any questions, be sure to send me a message @jasondrohn and I’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP.

Anyway, here are the downloads:

And the video tutorial:

What are your thoughts on Twitter backgrounds? Or better yet – what are your favorite ones? I’d love to hear.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



7 Free Twitter Backgrounds to Download and Customize

Many people think custom twitter backgrounds or themes with anything other than their business network profile and personal site links are not for the tech/business folks or only for the teenie-bopper Myspace crowd. I say it couldn’t be further from the truth. Here’s 6 reasons why all Twitip readers should dispose of those generic Twitter backgrounds today! Why? Because you could start gaining more followers by connecting with your target audience and relating to your peers.

1.Identifying mutual interest in tastes and preferences. For example you may be one of the many Twitter Fail Whale fans or are interested in the TV show “Lost”. Guess what, there’s a background for that. Why wouldn’t you follow somebody with similar likes and interest? Isn’t that how we make friends in the real world? Twitter is no different.

2 .Automatic recognition. Your profile becomes a standout in a crowd full of clones. If nothing about you is unique (for example you’re not famous like 99% of the top followed Twitter users) then a standout background is just another edge over your competition.

3. Setting yourself apart. Reason 3 confirms the point that I spoke on above. The key to gaining followers on Twitter is setting yourself apart from everyone else. Don’t think Darren has that huge picture of his face on his Twitter profile because he is thinking about a second career in modeling. It stands out! Duh.

4. Credibility. A custom Twitter background brings more credibility to your Twitter profile. Considering the fact that there are many fake pages on twitter or marketers who join with the intention of spamming users and as you will see most of those pages still have the default theme and very little visual appeal. Making sure you have an attractive avatar is a plus.

5. You’re Boring This might ruffle somebody’s feathers, but maybe some of you guys are just not interesting or haven’t posted anything worth following on Twitter, but maybe you’ve designed a creative background that catches the attention or gets your sense of humor across without a Tweet or word spoken.

6. (Bonus) It’s Easy. Last but definitely not least. If you’re using Doctor Twitter its free, and with one-click applies the twitter background of your dreams. Free and easily accessible is always a definite perk!

Here are a few themes that might get your personality across and they can all be applied in one click:

Show your sense of humor with a April Fools Theme:

Who did you vote for on election day? Maybe a fellow Twitterer also has that in common:

You need your weekly Family Guy fix:

You’re not the only Toronto Maple Leafs fan I bet:

There are Hello Kitty fans of all ages:

So what is your reason for the stale Twitter background? (Lack of photoshop skills, lazy, no time?)

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



6 Reasons To Get Rid Of That Generic Twitter Background Once and for All

Last time I spent some time tweaking my Twitter profile background, I didn’t change much. My goal was only to change the background and sidebar so they match my blog theme.

It appeared to be easy, but there are a few tricks to make the background appears nicely. Well, at the same time it is not as difficult as some people might think as it doesn’t require any specific HTML knowledge.

If you want a simple background such as my older Twitter profile (screenshot above), here’s how you do it. The tricks, summarized, are as follow:

1. Create a simple background wide enough to cover most screen. When I made the background image from scratch, I didn’t think it through and decide 2,000px pixels wide should be more than enough but a quick check on my display setting shows that it supports up to 2,048 pixels wide. In other words, use 2,048 pixels just to be on the safe side so your visitors will never see the background color at the most right hand side of the screen — uncovered by the background image.
2. Change the background color appropriately. This way, you don’t have to create a full background image with height 1,536px (maximum number of vertical pixels for my display). Gradient looks very well and it saves file size. It is basically a good idea unless you really want the vertical details in the image.
3. Customize the background image. I created an image with 300px high. The shade was from a darker teal to a lighter teal. The background color above should match the bottom color of the background image, so it flows smoothly as if the background color is part of the image.
4. Fill in the sidebar value. Peek into your CSS code — it is not hard to locate — and copy the color code of the sidebar and paste it in the sidebar text box. Note: Alternatively, use Firefox add-on ColorZilla to pick the right color from any pixel out of the screen.

That’s it. Change the background image but make sure you leave the tile background option unchecked. You don’t need that.

The following screenshot shows my saved options.

Taking Twitter Background to the Next Level

I’m quite satisfied with my customization, but I think I could pack more details into the background.

While the bio and other information on the sidebar allow me to promote my web site, they don’t stand out as much as I want them to. So after seeing other Twitterers do it, I want one too.

And just because I can do it, why not! Besides, it looks so cool.

Allow me to take you through the process to create and update a Twitter background image.

Note this is not a typical tutorial on changing Twitter background, because I’d like to approach it from a different perspective.

It helps if you think about your future followers as site visitors and your Twitter profile page is the landing page. Your goal with the landing page is two fold:

1. Turn strangers or lukewarm visitors into followers. That is the ultimate goal. There will be people who return back to your Twitter page to check your updates or other reasons, but most of them are not yet followers so your focus should be on the “strangers.” With lukewarm visitors, I refer to people who already read your blog or recognize your name somewhere.
2. Get your brand out there. Color that matches your blog or company color scheme may help, but especially for independent bloggers and small business owners, most likely new visitors don’t know about you if they don’t arrive via your blog. For this reason, you also need to display your logo and other information as well.

Installing the Tools (Firefox Add-Ons)

Mozilla Firefox happens to be my favorite web browser, you will see why once you install the following add-ons. (This is just a handful of the extensions I have loaded on my browser.)

• Web Developer. This extension adds web development toolbar to Firefox. There are too many features to list here. What you’ll use this for: locate which CSS class or id belongs to certain area and resize your browser window to specific screen size.
• ColorZilla reads color from any pixel on the screen. You’ll be using it to pick colors from the screen and match your blog/site color scheme with your Twitter background.
• MeasureIt is another small and neat Firefox plugin. Using it, you will measure how many pixels are available for you to display additional information in the Twitter background image.

Of course, you also need an image editor. I use Adobe Photoshop but you can pick any image editing software of your choice.

Once you’ve installed the above extensions, you are now ready to go. But before that, go to the Web Developer toolbar, pick Resize → Edit Resize Dimensions.

Add commonly used screen resolution to the list, as follow:

• 800×600
• 1024×768
• 1280×1024
• 1600×1200

Know Your Territory

Twitter was designed for browsers which have 800×600 resolution or higher. Below that, horizontal scrolling is necessary. Good news is, nowadays, nobody still uses 640×480. W3School confirms the stats from my web analytics.

Nowadays, the most common screen resolution is still 1024×768. Soon it will 1280×1024, but before that let’s focus this design on 1024×768.

You will be surprised to find that under that resolution, remaining space outside the Twitter content area is minimal. Examine the following screenshot carefully.

A few important numbers you should be aware of (window resized to model the 1024×768 resolution):

• The number of pixels before the main content is 83 pixels.
• Remaining space on the left hand side of the content area: about 115px. I can’t be too accurate with this because not everyone maximize their browser window. Moreover, desktop theme may use up different width for window’s border and scroll bar. But 115px is a safe assumption, I think. Notice that I mark this spot as Safe Zone. That means if you put your content here, you will gain maximum exposure throughout different screen settings.
• The amount of pixels from the left edge to the end of right sidebar is around 878 pixels. Again for the same reason as above, no one can be sure about the exact width seen on the user screen. You need this number if you want to use the Secondary space on the right.
• The height of the screen varies. Currently, including the navigation bar, bookmark toolbar and tabs, I have six bars at the top of the content window, so those eat up space. Unless you install more toolbars, the minimal height for background image is about 525 pixels, including the header space.

Use MeasureIt to find out the exact pixels available for your background. If you want to be on the safe side, I’d recommend 525 pixels, as I believe rarely people would use so many toolbars.

Note: My working screen is now at 1920×1440, so I can afford to give away some vertical space for quite many toolbars.

Remember that the background image doesn’t scroll as the visitors scroll down the window. Everything has to fit above the fold if you want them to see it.

Twitter Background Image Mistakes

Before getting started, it is critical that you are aware of these common mistakes. Avoid these as they may confuse your visitors with your landing page.

The purpose of strategically placed content is to give your visitors interesting information about you. If they are confused, you risk losing followers.

Incorrectly formatted background image may hurt your profile more than it helps. Unless people have known about you before clicking on your Twitter page, they will look around to see if you are the right person to follow.

It is the purpose of the custom background image to add more information beyond what’s available on the sidebar. If you put text, make sure that it works on as many screen resolutions as possible. It can be frustrating to see the text cuts off the screen.

Here are a quick summary of common mistakes people make when customizing background image for Twitter.

• Twitter logo actually runs over your logo (on some screens). This one is partially related to user screen size. I mean, Twitter logo will cover anything you put on the left side of the logo if the screen is narrower. Solution: start your background content below the header area (the 83 pixels mark).
• Content area takes too much horizontal area. Users with higher screen resolution are able to see the whole thing but many others see only half of the sentences, URLs, or whatever. Again if you look at the stats (link above), that means you annoy at least 40% of your visitors.
• Put main profile information on the right. You’d just hope that the visitors use the same screen resolution as yours. If they use a smaller screen, the content will be off the screen. And if their screen is just a bit wider, the content will be covered behind the sidebar, or even under the main content. Now you know why I highlight the space to the right of the sidebar as “Secondary.”
• Displaying too much information. While the above mistakes are related to screen width, this one has to do with screen height. If you really have a lot of stuff to put in the background, make sure that the most important elements are up above the fold. Consider how frustrating it is when the visitors read your message, just to find that when they scroll the background doesn’t follow. After all, it is a background image. Workaround: Be concise and to the point. Fit everything above the fold.

It is important not to design for your screen only. Refer to the above link to see current statistics of screen resolution and then design to fit at least common screens.

Tips for Designing Twitter Background Image

Generally, you can avoid the mistakes explained above and end up with an image that is readable on most user screen. But just for the sake of completeness, let me list them again, with a few additional tips as bonuses.

• Background image should be 2048 pixels wide. The height depends on your background image. I personally use 525 pixels.
• Never touch the header area. Put your content after the 83 pixels mark. The logo will not cover up your content before and after the visitors log in. If the visitors haven’t logged in, lower resolution screen users will still see a bit of your content in the header area, so pulling down the background content even more may help.
• Use the “Safe Zone” to put primary information. This spot will be seen by users with 1024×768 resolution or higher. See the above map for a rough guide. Resize your browser window and use MeasureIt to be sure.
• Limit the width of your content to 115 pixels. Remember that you are aiming at users with 1024×768 screen size. As of January 2008, they were still 40% of the entire Internet users.
• Put secondary information on the “Secondary” area. Decide on a screen resolution that you want to target and place your content on there. For 1024 pixels screen, it is about 878 pixels from the left, 115 pixels wide.
• Don’t start from the first pixel. Add 8-10 pixels from the left edge for some padding.
• Keep your content above the 525 pixels mark. Resize the screen resolution with “Web Developer” toolbar, choose Resize &rarr 1024×768 or any preset you configure above. Use “MeasureIt” to be sure about your viewable screen height.
• Place most important piece of content at the very top. Put the content you absolutely want the visitors to see just below the header area (after the first 83 pixels).
• Blue for links. This is a bonus tip. Web visitors are used to blue links. That’s why I use blue color when mentioning my web sites and blogs even in the image. Some readers will hover over the URLs, just to find that they are part of the background. But that’s intentional. By the time they do it, they will already read my URLs. If matching to your color scheme is necessary, skip this one.
• Set the background color to match your background image. That way you don’t have to create an image to cover all the screen height. You can’t add vertical details that are more than your image height though.
• Set sidebar color. Twitter highlights active tab on the sidebar as white, so if you set the sidebar to different color, the highlight will stand out.
• Optimize image for the Web. There is a reason why you should limit your image height. Most people won’t see anything below certain height limit, so why make the loading of your background image slow? Optimize for the Web in all cases. Under 100KB if possible. A file of 100KB takes about 18 seconds to load on a stable dial-up connection, which is a bit too heavy already.

Once you’ve created your background image, just upload it and make sure you don’t tile the background. That’s it!

Resulting Background Image

After doing what I recommend above, you should end up with an optimized background image that works on most screen resolution.

People with 800×600 screen won’t be able to see the background content because the main area covers the whole screen, but for the rest, they will be able to see the whole message you try to deliver to the readers.

Take a look at my Twitter page to see what I mean. (@hendrylee)

The Drawbacks

With several limitations, certainly there are a few drawbacks to using this method to create Twitter background image.

• Limited space. Because you try to design for users with lower screen size, you have limited space. That requires a bit of creativity to fit your information right in.
• Narrow strip. At the same time, perhaps your creativity can’t be expressed freely because all you have is 115 pixels wide and a few hundreds of pixels high.
• Not the best looking background. Users with higher resolution display will see your information strip close to the left side of the screen. Unless you have filled the background with tiles and other patterns, it looks quite dull. Remember that you may want to choose between smaller file size or better background so you may or may not use a pattern to fill the background.

My Twitter background image may not be the prettiest, but at least the content I put in the background will be read by more people than most others who don’t spend some time to plan for the layout of the content in the background image.

As a final note, it is possible to put part of the content to fit in the 115 pixels and then reveal more information for 1280×1024 screeb users, and so on. Instead of using one wide column, put your content into multiple columns. Again use MeasureIt to measure the screen size accurately, up to the pixel.

So is it worth the effort? Your choice.

Hendry Lee helps bloggers overcome strategic and technological challenges in starting and growing their blogs. He also writes about social media on his blog Blog Tips for a Better Blog – Blog Building University. While you are there, download your free eBook and subscribe to the blogging e-course!

Follow Hendry on Twitter (@hendrylee).

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Custom Twitter Backgrounds: Tips for Better Readability

Since Twitter’s focus is on saying a lot with very little, it makes sense that the Twitter profile space is very brief and the default settings leave little room to present yourself in detail. It’s also the first and last thing potential followers will see before deciding to click “Follow” or to click away from your profile. Here’s a few tips to customize your profile so that potential followers will be convinced they can’t miss your Tweets!

1. Create a Custom Profile Page Background

Since the visual impact of your Twitter background is the strongest tool you have available, customize it to give people an eyeful of who you are.

You can make your own image on your computer and upload it under Settings – Design – Change Background Image. The first 200-250 pixels width on the left hand side is a great place to put additional profile information and list websites.

For a quick solution, you can create just the sidebar (250×700) as your background image with “no tile” selected. Then, modify the rest of the Twitter color scheme to complement it. You can use the first 200 pixels from the top for your picture or “header” for a possible logo and tagline.

The rest of the 400-500 vertical pixels should be used to tell others what you’re about and most importantly, what you’re looking for. Are you using Twitter to get business? To gather ideas for a project? To get feedback from customers? This is the best place to reflect your interests and other facets of your professional life if necessary, so that others can see it immediately.

Alternatively, you can use it to tell people how best to contact you like @garyvee who encourages people to email him instead of sending a Direct Message on Twitter.

Still not sure about the dimensions? You can use Browser Shots to see what it will look like on different screen sizes and browsers.

For an in-depth look at how to create a custom Twitter background, read the Twitip article – Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background.

Also check out these resources on Background images”

• Boinblog provides two different Photoshop templates to download, or you can create your own!
• Several templates for free at TwitterBacks

Other interesting uses of Twitter backgrounds:

2. Create a Twitter Landing Page as your “Web”URL

@pistachio had a great tip for this months ago when she created a “Twitter landing page” instead of sending users to the front page of your website. Advertisers create custom landing pages for different markets, so why not treat your Twitter audience differently, too? You can create one that explains to potential followers how you use Twitter and how to interact with you.

Some things you may want to include on your Twitter landing page:

- who you are / an abbreviated intro with a link to your more detailed About page, if available

- how you use Twitter (including frequency of Tweets, topics and if you use Twitter to tweet your new blog posts)

- your “follow” policy and how others should contact you if they want you to follow them back (with a “@user hello,” for example).

See Laura’s (@pistachio’s) Twitter Landing Page (Who is @pistachio?) as an example of this.

3. Use a Profile Picture that Reinforces Your Brand (You!)

Keeping your profile pictures consistent across all your social networks will help people find you and recognize you online as well as offline. A picture of you with a hat obstructing your face or you in your Halloween costume should probably be swapped out for a picture that looks like you almost all of the time. A hard-to-recognize picture may result in users squinting at it and clicking away instead of clicking “Follow.”

Of course, using a photo of your face may not be the only way to be “recognizable”:

@photomatt Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of Wordpress, has a profile picture which is simple a bright pink square. It’s certainly recognizable in a Twitter lineup, but unless you’re on magazine covers like he is, you’ll want to use your picture as a way for people to identify you and to create a visual and hopefully emotional connection with your Tweets even if they haven’t met you in-person.

If your company has a memorable logo (and you have the permission to display it) you may consider using it to increase brand recognition. Note that this is best when the content of your Tweets is close to your company’s mission/communication strategy.

4. Utilize your Profile “Bio” to your Best Advantage.

Be clever, be witty, or just be yourself! In a few words, sum up who you are and make it sound interesting. Since that’s what Twitter is all about, writing an intriguing Bio in such a small space shouldn’t be hard. Here’s also another opportunity point your audience somewhere. If you are going to point users to a site that is not your website or Twitter landing page, I recommend putting it here so that users see the entire URL instead of in your Web link which gets cut off. Transparency is always best.

@jowyang uses his Bio to give a brief explanation of who he is and points those interested to an article he wrote “How I use Twitter.”

5. Break up any @ Reply Marathons with Useful Tweets

If your potential follower is still on your profile page, and they’re not yet convinced about following you, they are going to check what you’ve been tweeting recently. Hopefully, they won’t see a sea of @ replies, which might insinuate that you spend a lot of time in micro-conversations that they may be left out of if they follow you.

I recommend breaking up any @ reply marathons with some useful, wide-audience tweets, share links or re-tweet a fellow Twitterer’s useful link.

For more on @replies ettiquette, read the Twitip article Twitter as Dinner Conversation: A Guide to Using Replies.

How would you personalize your Twitter profile to encourage newcomers to follow you?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



6 Tips for Using Your Twitter Profile to Get New Followers