Set up Your Twitter Page

Today, Twitter has roughly 6 million users and is projected to grow to 18.1 million users by 2010. With all those people, the chances for networking are endless and connecting with new people can lead to new opportunities, so it is essential that your personal brand exists on the service. Today we are going to learn how to create, build, and promote a Twitter page.

Since The Blog Boat is a new site and I hadn’t set up the page yet, I thought I would walk you through how to set it up and customize your page. Of course this are the simple/basic instructions, but it should get you on your way to having your own page!

Step 1:
The first thing you MUST do is to claim your Twitter name, click HERE to go to Twitter. The username is your Twitter name. Hopefully you will get the one you want the first time, but if not you may need to try a few different names to find one.

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Step 2:
Step 2 is to set up your account. Click on “Account” and you should see your username (Twitter name) and your details. Set your time zone, and enter your site’s web address and your one line bio. Keep the bio short!

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Step 3:
Step 3 is to upload your image. This is the small image that will be attached to all of your tweets. Click on the “Picture” tab then click the “Browse” button and select the image off your computer. Your image should show up to the right. Images are important to help you brand your site. It is very acceptable to use a personal photo for this.

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Step 4:
Step 4 is to choose your design. Twitter offers several very nice backgrounds that you can choose from. If you already have a back ground image you are using on your site you can use that one. My philosophy on this is you want your Twitter page to resemble your website/blog. It may just be me but I like uniformity

See Step 5 if you don’t like any of the backgrounds available or if you have your own.

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Step 5:
Step 5 is what you do if you don’t like any of the stock images. If you have your own click the “Browse” button and select the image and upload it. If you upload an image make sure you select the “No Background Image” box. If you don’t the defaulted Background image will show up at the top of your page. Although you could play around with this and get a pretty interesting looking page!

If you have a small image (or background image) that you plan to use, make sure to select the “tile background” option. This repeats the choice over and over to give you the entire screen covered in it. Make sure to use something that isn’t too busy…see example below.

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Step 6:
Step 6 is actually customizing the colors of your page. Each of the boxes represents one portion of the page. To get to these options click on “Change Design Colors”. These boxes will pop up. Your choices are background, text, links, sidebar, and sidebar border. You will need to enter HTML color codes to get the colors you want. ***The color that shows in the box is not the color, you will see the color option selected represented ON your page, you can see it in the background. I use Color Picker to find the codes I need. Once you are done you have designed your page!

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Step 7:
This is my finished project. I know it looks plain but this is the basic page I will use for now until I get time to REALLY customize it. The colors match my current site so this works for now!

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I also wanted to show you what NOT to do. The image below is one I was playing with. I created a custom background using my boat image. I set it as the background and used the “tile background” option. As I said above this ended up being WAY too busy to use and blended in way too much. The background area where the tweets are posted is white and not easy to change…. so keep that in mind!

Well that is it, you now have your own Twitter page that you can start promoting. Make sure to place a link on your site and in your emails. Look for upcoming articles on how to customize more and ways to promote your site!

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