Twitter is a growing phenomenon. There are already millions of people using Twitter and more joining every day. I read Joel Comm’s book Twitter Power which is full of great advice. Joel strongly recommends having a customised Twitter Background. Once you have signed up for Twitter it’s easy to change the background using the standard templates supplied. In the menu bar, top right, click on Settings then click on Design. Simply select the background you want, click save changes and your new background will appear. If you don’t see anything you fancy there are Web sites offering more exciting FREE or very cheap backgrounds, try Tweetygotback or Mytweetspace or freetwitterdesigner

How to make a Twitter Background

I made my own Background. Here’s how I did it :

1. Using my web design software I created a blank page 1200px wide by 600px high because this works ok with most computer screens.
2. I put my logo, some text and a small photo in a narrow column down the left hand side. I had been advised that the column should be 200px wide so I tried that first.
3. I then put another picture, full height on the far right hand side also bearing in mind the 200px width. I added some text which I flipped to read vertically at the extreme right.
4. I saved this as a png file in My Pictures.
5. I went back to Twitter, signed in, went to Settings, then to Design. I scrolled down and clicked Change background image.
6. I clicked the Browse button to locate my saved file which I had name twitback1, clicked open, then saved changes to install the image.
7. I opened a new tab on my browser, went to my Twitter page and previewed my work.
8. On previewing I found that the columns on both sides were too wide and quite a lot of my text and images were not visible. I viewed the my Twitter home page on my laptop and on a PC because the appearance changes depending on the screen size used to view the page.
9. I went back to my original design and made corrections, reducing the width of the columns, moving the images etc. I then saved the changes and went back through the process of uploading the revised image.
10. I previewed again on Laptop and PC  and was still not happy. I returned to my design and changed it.
11. I repeated this process several times until I got something I was happy with.
12. I found that the images and text on the right hand side were more affected by the change in screen size when viewing. I therefore increased the width of the images on the right hand side to compensate or this.
13. I also noticed that there is a gap between the box containing the main content and the menu bar on the Twitter template. I added a crowd scene across the top of the page on my original design. You can see the crowd scene in the space between the menu and main content. I was quite pleased with that.
14. I also ended up saving my design in JPG format rather than PNG format. The resulting image seemed sharper.
15. See my finished page by searching for ronwooduk on Twitter

Having a your own Twitter Background is a good idea and it’s not difficult to do. Yes, it is  time consuming and requires a little time and patience. However it’s worth the effort.

I hope you found this article useful. Your comments / questions are most welcome.