8 ways to personalize your Twitter page

Using Twitters own features is still the easiest way to personalize your Twitter page, so let's take a look at how things have changed from Old New Twitter (see below) to New New Twitter (which from now on of course will be called just Twitter). As of December 8th 2011 Twitter has been rolling out their new design. Although behind the esthetics a lot of things have changed, especially on the way to interact with the service, the design features haven't changed.

Insert a link to your own website

Mentioning the url to your website or blog is an excellent way to create some extra exposure, so be sure to include it. You can add it by going to:

* From the "Home" tab: View my profile page (top left of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (top right)
* On the settings page go to your "Profile" tab

On that page you will find the "Web" box where you can insert the web address.

Update your bio

When people find an interesting Twitter page one of the first things they'll look at is the bio. These 160 characters say everything about the person(s) behind the account. You can add the bio by going to:

* From the "Home" tab: View my profile page (top left of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (top right)
* On the settings page go to your "Profile" tab

In the box next to "Bio" you can add a short bio (as stated maximum of 160 characters).

Change your picture

This is still the default Twitter picture for your account to the right. And still it's not the prettiest thing out there, but it's a start. You can still change your account picture to one you want to represent yourself. Resolution is not a problem (Twitter will resize it) but it shouldn't be larger than 700k and be in a JPG, GIF or PNG-format.

You can change your picture by going to:

* From the "Home" tab: View my profile page (top left of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (top right)
* On the settings page go to your "Profile" tab

By clicking "Change image" next to Picture a box will open and through the "Choose file" button you'll be able to navigate to the folder which holds the picture. Select the picture you desire and by clicking "Save" it will be uploaded to Twitter and it will be displayed next to your name on your page.

Select a different theme

Twitter has options to personalize your background with their own templates, although there are fewer options then before. You can find these design features by going to:

* From the "Home" tab: View my profile page (top left of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (top right)
* On the settings page go to your "Design" tab

In the design tab you will see different themes and not many new ones have been added with the redesign. When not changed from first signing up, the default theme will be displayed. Just clicking on one of the themes will select it as your new current theme. Click "Save changes" to make the change.

Every once in a while Twitter will make a default theme for a global event. Those themes will only be available for a certain amount of time, but will also be displayed here.

Use a background color

You're not restricted to using one of the themes. If there's just a single color you want to use as a background you can do so. Select the "Remove background" link on the design tab in your settings and the default background color will be displayed. You can change that color to your liking by either clicking the color bar, which will then display a color circle where you can pick the color, or type the color code if you know it. Click "Save changes" to make the changes permanent.

In the earlier design you could edit the colors for text, links, sidebar and sidebar border. In the new design you can just edit the color of the links. Editing the color works the same way as editing your background color. This also works when you have selected one of Twitter's own themes or have uploaded a background of your own (more on that later) to further personalize your twitter background.

In September of 2010 Twitter rolled out a new design. It was a real step forward from the old design and it's now more of a web application with support for multimedia, keyboard shortcuts and easier access to your conversations and all types of content. This new design means that there have been changes into the way things are organized and can be accessed. Since the introduction of New New Twitter (redesign of december 2011) the company has been rolling out the new design for their users. Until you'll get the new design, this is the way to use Twitter's own features.

Insert a link to your own website

Whether you use it for personal or professional reasons, be sure to include it. Mentioning a blog or website on your Twitter page is a way of adding some extra exposure for it. You can add it by going to:

* Profile (top of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (under your username/above timeline tab)
* On the settings page go to your "Profile" tab

On that page you will find the "Web" box where you can insert the web address.

Update your bio

When people find an interesting Twitter page one of the first things they'll look at is the bio. These 160 characters say everything about the person(s) behind the account. You can add the bio by going to:

* Profile (top of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (under your username/above timeline tab)
* On the settings page go to your "Profile" tab

In the box next to "Bio" you can add a short bio (as stated maximum of 160 characters).

Change your picture

That's the new default Twitter picture for your account to the right. It's still not the prettiest thing out there, but it's a start. Twitter still gives you the opportunity to change your account picture to the one you want. You could change it into a picture of yourself or maybe a graphic that represents you in some way. Resolution is not a problem (Twitter will resize it) but it shouldn't be larger than 700k and be in a JPG, GIF or PNG-format.

You can change your picture by going to:

* Profile (top of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (under your username/above timeline tab)
* On the settings page go to your "Profile" tab

By clicking "Change image" next to Picture a box will open and through the "Choose file" button you'll be able to navigate to the folder which holds the picture. Select the picture you desire and by clicking "Save" it will be uploaded to Twitter and it will be displayed next to your name on your page.

Select a different theme

Twitter has options to personalize your background with their own templates. You can find these design features by going to:

* Profile (top of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (under your username/above timeline tab)
* On the settings page go to your "Design" tab

In the design tab you will see 15 different themes. When not changed from first signing up, the default theme will be displayed. Just clicking on one of the themes will select it as your new current theme. Click "Save changes" to make the change.

Every once in a while Twitter will make a default theme for a global event. Those themes will only be available for a certain amount of time, but will also be displayed here.

Use a background color

You're not restricted to using one of the themes. If there's just a single color you want to use as a background you can do so. Select the "Don't use a background image" button after clicking the "Change background image" button on the design tab and the default background color will be displayed. You can change that color to your liking by clicking the "Change design colors" button on the same tab. When clicking the background color you'll get a color circle where you can pick the color or type the color code if you know it.

In the same tab you can edit the colors for text, links, sidebar and sidebar border. Editing the color works the same way as editing your background color. This also works when you have selected one of Twitter's own themes or have uploaded a background of your own (more on that later) to further personalize your twitter background.

If you don't like the themes that Twitter provide and you want to display something else, there's an option for that as well. Only restrictions are that pictures must be smaller than 800k and should be a GIF, JPG or PNG-extension.

Let's say that you have a photo of yourself you would want as a background. You can add it by going to:

* From the "Home" tab: View my profile page (top left of your Twitter page)
* Edit your profile (top right)
* On the settings page go to your "Design" tab
* Click "Change background image"

This will open a smaller window. By clicking the "Choose file" button a box will open and you'll be able to navigate to the folder which holds the picture. Select the photo and by clicking "Save changes" it will be uploaded to Twitter and it will be displayed on your page.

As a default Twitter will anchor the picture in the top left corner of your page. Depending on the size of the picture, this will leave room which will be filled by the default background color or the color you picked yourself. A solution for this is to check the "tile background" box which can be found in "Change background image". That way the picture you uploaded will be repeated across your page.

Many have used wallpapers to brighten up the desktops on their home computers. You can also use one as your Twitter background. Uploading a desktop wallpaper picture works the same as you would with uploading a picture. Just make sure that it's no more than 800k and is a GIF, JPG or PNG-file.

Word of warning though. Wallpapers are meant for display on a PC desktop. Because Twitter uses an amount of screen real estate to display your tweets, a large part of the wallpaper will not be displayed. Also, when someone with a lower screen resolution watches your Twitter page, a large part of your wallpaper will not be seen by them.

Changing to a Twitter background of a wallpaper is the same as changing it to a picture.

Here are some resources if you want to use a desktop wallpaper as your Twitter background:

Free Wallpaper Download

Free 4 U wallpapers

Free wallpapers

Image courtesy of Free Wallpaper Download.

Because of the growing popularity of Twitter, there have been sites that want to enhance the Twitter user experience popping up all over the internet. Some of these specialize in providing optimized backgrounds for your Twitter page. With downloading or installing the designs you can personalize your page in no time. Uploading these backgrounds works the same as uploading any other picture.

Some sites that provide backgrounds are:

Twitter gallery

Tweetstyle

Twitter backgrounds

If you want to be even more creative you can use programs like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Gimp, Seashore or even MS Paint to create your very own Twitter background. If you do, there are some things you have to take into account. Twitter uses the somewhat strange maximum resolution of 2048x1707 for their page setup which you should take into consideration. Again, the image you create shouldn't be larger than 800k and be in a GIF, JPG or PNG-format and uploading it to your page is the same as with any other picture.

Chris Spooner has created an excellent how-to and best practices blogpost when it comes to designing a Twitter background. He talks about the different approaches you can take, has made a Photoshop PSD file for you to check how your design looks in different resolutions and has a walk-through on how he build his own background. A must-read if you want to create your own Twitter background.

Drew Binkley from 38 pages has also provided a .psd template in this post on the blog.

Powerpoint or Keynote are not the first pieces of software that come to mind when you think about designing your own Twitter background. But these two programs fro creating presentations have an option to export one of the slides as a .jpg file. As long as the picture sticks to the maximum measurements and file extensions things should be OK and uploading is the same as with every picture you want to use in your background.

Tomas Carillo saw that opportunity as well and created a blog post where he not only provided both a Keynote and Powerpoint template but also a step by step how-to.

Several resources can be found on the web for you to design your own Twitter background without having to install programs such as Photoshop. Online editors have found their way on the web and some sites have used those features to create online background creators.

When created, most of the sites offer a way to save your creation as a file. It's just a matter of uploading the picture in the usual way to Twitter after that.

Some of those sites are:

Free Twitter Designer

My Tweetspace

Artweet

If all of the above seems like too much work for you, you could always go the pro way. There are professional designers out there who will design your background for a price. Although you undoubtedly will get a professional looking page, this might only be a good option for a business Twitter page.

To give you an idea of how creative and great a personalized Twitter page can look, here are some examples:

Mr Tweet

Darren Rose from Problogger

Keylimecreative

Images courtesy of Kasper Sorensen.