What is Twitter?Part 2:
How do you Twitter?

How do you get the most from Twitter? Here we expand from Part 1 – How to Work with Twitter? to describe tips on Twitter page and background personalisation for a more professional approach to Twitter.

Operator: Sorry sir you can only Twitter from a digital phone

How do you Join Twitter?

The most positive aspect about Twitter is it’s flexibility and the freedom a user has to make it work for themselves, on a personal or business level.

To make it work from the start is to get involved.  You will need to show other members that you are going to use Twitter regularly and that you are willing to put effort into maintaining your updates and you are worth following.

To make the most of the service you will need to do a little housekeeping and add some color to your personal pages.  The first step is to follow this link and Join Twitter (to register a company see Twitter for Business).  The next step (below the video) explains how to personalise your Twitter page.

You may wish to get a visual idea of how to Join Twitter and how to use Twitter. I recommend this helpful video from howcast.com it’s a quick overview and is very useful.

Why Personalise your Twitter page?

It may seem pointless personalising your page, you may like the design already and feel that your input and conversation alone are enough to keep people interested.

Through personalising your page you send out a message that you are willing to put some effort into Twitter and that you will take it seriously and will engage with other users. Your personalised page also makes you appear more real, putting a name to a face is more appealing and trustworthy than the default twitter image.

A plain background is also boring and above all it is not difficult to change the background, (Check Out Problogger for a nice example!).

To Personalise your page go to Settings >> Account

• Make sure you add some information about yourself in the One Line Bio Section which you can find under Settings >> One Line Bio. You only have 160 characters so make sure it is interesting.  If you don’t have enough room you can add more detail in the background of the page when you personalise your page.
• You can also add a website under More Info URL, this may be a personal blog or work.
• Location includes an option for geotagging this will provide your exact location to other users. Do you need it? Will it help to add context to your tweets/online profile?. See Twitter geotagging for more information
• Language use your primary language
• Protect my Tweets this takes your information out of public view you become a private user and can also choose who can follow you, not advisable if you wish to network and grow your group.

Add a Photo/Image go to Settings >>Picture

Add a photo or if you do not want to use your photo, you could use either a cartoon version of yourself, logo or something that can distinguish you from the next person.

Twitter Background Design

Next Modify the design of your Twitter Page under Settings >> Design.  Here you can choose a different background and play with the colours:

• Select a background.
• Select change background image at the bottom of the page.  Background has been changed.
• For a larger selection of backgrounds, in the bottom right hand corner there is a link to Themeleon, where appear many different background to add instantly.
• Even better to make your own. If you can use Photoshop or any design software you can create your own background. If not you could try freetwitterdesigner.com. The site allows you to add colour, text and images to create a background and even imports the background to Twitter for you and best of all it’s free!.

Once you have personalised your page, the main effort is now getting up to speed on Twitter. Part 3 of this series Twitter Network and Track Tools covers networking, conversing with your network and tracking methods and tools.