There’s A Place In Twitter Where You Can Go Beyond 140 Characters

The catch is it’s NOT tweeting.

If you think Twitter is just about…well… tweeting, and sharing links, and rounding up thousands of followers… then think again. Because if you actually go to the root principle, you have only one job in Twitter – to get yourself known and to do it fast.

What’s the point? The point of this story is that I’m going to share to you one of the greatest overlooked and under-estimated Twitter tactic that could boost your image (literally and figuratively) and popularity at record speed.

I’ve just implemented this tactic a day or two ago and I’ve been seeing quick positive results. My new followers easily recognizing and remember me within seconds (yup. Not minute, or hours, or days or months). Seconds!

So here’s my Twitter tactic, hope you can pick up a thing or two.

It Is Having A Strategic, Social Media Targetive, Twitter Profile

One day, I was just staring at my Twitter account wondering what else to do so that I could maximize the benefits that I could get from it. As usual, I’d usually be visiting profiles to profiles of my bloggers friends to just check out tweets that I might have missed.

Right there, I’ve began to realize something.

The Power Of A Twitter Profile Page

Our twitter profiles are actually powerful pages that we have almost full control over. It’s simple, it displays our recent statuses, it almost works like a business card… and best of all… it’s highly visited. Just imagine if you get at least 10 new followers everyday- that means 10 people looking at your “twitter profile” everyday (and the rate of visits could be exponential after then).

The beauty of it is that you don’t do anything (or maybe just a “follow me in twitter here”) to drive traffic to your profile. It’s a self-sustaining page regardless of whether or not you draw attention to it. That might as well be one of the greatest powers of social media.

What To Do To Optimize Your Twitter Profile Page

It’s not a secret – the tactic is to use every little space you can. Of course your name, location and short bio is displayed, but let’s be realistic. Those things wouldn’t really be the first information that can draw people’s eyes. You need to go a little creative. Have your own customized twitter background page.

And if you’re in doubt- here are the following reasons:
• There’s a wide, promising space around your twitter profile
• This space can catch the eye’s attention easily
• Attention means fast retention (of your name, blog and brand)
• Be a professional by looking like one


The Story Of My New Twitter Background



{here’s a screenshot of what my twitter page looks like- and i just love it!}

With my trusty photoshop and some *promising* graphic designing skills, I created my new and improved Twitter background. I love the new look! Don’t you?

GO SEE ME MY TWITTER PROFILE PAGE IN LIVE ACTION

I already had a custom design before, but it wasn’t as appealing and as striking as the new one (since I just created the old background using twitter backgrounds generator and the result looked just okay).

Now I’m more than happy with my Twitter page… especially with the results that it brings.


How You Too Can Create A Strategic Twitter Profile Page

I’ve studied a few customized Twitter backgrounds and the common mistake is that many of them where sloppily done (no matter how professional the creator claims to be). I don’t claim to be a professional designer as well but I guess I know enough blogging and social media to determine which kind is strategic or not.

The first step you have to do is to identify your basic color. It would be the ‘canvass’ of your background. After which, you can apply a few lighting techniques to make it more attractive. If you know how to use gradients, the all the better.

The second step is just a bunch of adding stuffs. You have to lay-out where exactly do you want to place your brand image, logo, picture (if you want to) and more details that you want to be included.


Here’s A Zoom Of The Left Portion



Three essential elements. Notice how I placed my (1)@username, my (2) blog’s name (brand) and (3)a photo of myself. My username @HeyLiane is incorporated directly at the top-left portion (isn’t it cool that it’s beside the twitter logo?). I think it’s important to make your username memorable from the get-go. That’s the reason why I placed it directly on top.

Our eyes are trained to read from left to right. Therefore, if you want for a piece of information to be easily absorbed, place it on the left.

The face and the brand. Two things when combined can do a lot of remarkably branding. If there’s one thing people can’t resist, it’s being talked to in the most humanistic of all approaches. I recommend you too to really place a good photo beside your brand. Works like magic all the time.


Here’s A Zoom Of The Right Portion



Going to the right portion, you can see that the technique I used is to incorporate the sub-information that I want people to know. The magic in this technique is that the moment that the left portion have already caught their eye, the right portion follows.

So by the time you’ve successfully captured your page visitor’s attention, he’ll be interested to know more. Thus, he goes to the right portion (and this is where we work more magic tricks).

There, I placed a more appealing bio (plus the larger version of my Twitter picture). To make it more strategic, I also included the name (again) and the url of my blog as well as my mentoring program. Of course, no information is complete without the contact details isn’t it?


There You Have It

I’ve been talking about ‘techniques’ and ‘magic tricks’ in this post but really… the mechanisms at play here is just to catch a person’s attention which can hopefully turn out to produce a stronger following.


Hope You Can Design Though – Even The Basics

You need not go for really awe-inspiring looks. The content of the design is the thing that matters most. But I do hope you know your way around Photoshop (even the basic’s will do!) or have a trusty tech savvy friend around.

Say you can’t? If not, just reach me and I’ll be happy to do it for you (yay for my new found designing hobby!). Don’t worry about the cost. Let’s just say I love doing it that I charge 70% off what TwitterBackgrounds charge you. Do the math. You'll be happily surprised at my rate. Cool huh?


In Conclusion

I just want to brag around my Twitter background work. Haha. Kidding.

In conclusion really, you can do a lot more in Twitter than you think you can. All it needs is a little creativity and some good foundation of being a social media savvy blogger.

Creating your own professional twitter backgrounds might not mean much too you (in fact, you could’ve taken it for granted!). But if you did took a step, you’ll be pleasantly surprised what great things that small simple action can do for you and your blog.

Plus the fact that you’re not being limited by Twitter into a mere 140 characters to tell people about what you can do. I know, right?

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Updated: I recently changed my twitter username from @webloggr to @HeyLiane. I like the more personal username now :)