Are you taking advantage of the visual branding opportunities on Twitter? You can coordinate your avatar, background, and menu colors to match your company’s image.

• Before You Start: You have a business Twitter account. Simple editing skills with any graphics program would be helpful but are not necessary.
• Learning Level: 3 | Building Skills
• Article Last Updated: Monday, August 22, 2011

Brand Your Twitter Presence

You can bring the visual branding elements you selected for your business to your Twitter account. In fact, Twitter makes it easy for you to customize your account settings. Building your Twitter presence with your visual branding doesn’t take much time, and it increases the impact of your company’s image online. Most of these tasks you can complete yourself if you have simple editing skills with any graphics program and access to your branding image files.

Avatar

Your Twitter avatar is the image that displays next to each tweet. You should be using either your company logo, a professional headshot, or another component of your visual branding for your avatar. Make sure that your avatar is easy to read and that it shows up completely. Twitter requires you to use a square avatar, and most logos are rectangular, so you may need to do a little tweaking.

Twitter Background

One of the most effective ways to communicate your company’s visual branding with the Twitter community is to use a custom Twitter background. You see your background each time you use Twitter.com to read and send tweets. Other Twitter users see your background when they view your profile on Twitter.com or send you a direct message (DM).

Visit other business profiles and see how much a custom Twitter background tells you about the company (or business person). While you are doing this, make a list of things you like and don’t like so you can create a Twitter background that suits your company’s message.

What makes an effective Twitter background depends partly on the kind of business you run and partly on using a nice layout for the information. In general, consider including:

• Company name and logo
• Description of products or services (menu for a restaurant)
• Location(s)
• Contact information
• Photographs of the business or products

The new Twitter provides less space for visual branding. If you created a Twitter background using the old Twitter, you need to adjust it for the new Twitter.

Before you hire someone to design your Twitter background, ask to see examples of the designer’s work to be sure it is going to give you the image you want online.

Twitter Menu Colors

Twitter makes it easy for you to customize the colors used on the right menu to coordinate with your background. After you select your background, change the design colors (Settings > Design > Change Design Colors). Use colors from your visual branding, or variations on these colors for a coordinated look.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with these colors. If you make a mistake (for example, white text on white background) just use the color blocks across the bottom to make changes. Before you start, get a list of the hex colors (this format: #ffffff) used in your visual branding to make it easier to update the colors.

If this takes you to the edge of your comfort zone, try using Themeleon which helps you coordinate your colors quickly. Create and install your background first, and then let Themeleon coordinate the design colors from your wallpaper.

Your turn: Have you focused on the visual branding opportunities on Twitter? What did you learn from creating a Twitter background? Share you experience and other great background examples here.

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