If you are familiar with Twitter, you will know that your homepage is a pretty important page. This is the page that people are directed to when they click on your twitter handle and shows some information about you on the right, and then all your latest tweets in the middle, (twitter.com/yaellevey for example). Twitter gives you some excellent customisation settings to tweak your homepage to look exactly how you want it. You can pretty much choose any colour combinations as well as being able to choose from a variety of backgrounds for your homepage. And most importantly, and very nicely, the people at Twitter allow you to customise your background to whatever you want!
I wrote about this customisable background jive a while back as I started to think about making my own! I said at the time that I wanted my Twitter background to:
a) Publicise The Fight Sequence
b) Give out some of my contact details
c) Look pretty rad
d) Eventually publicise my portfolio site when it is finally up and running
Amongst the growing population of Twitter users who use Twitter as a platform for promoting themselves and their brand, using the Twitter background in this way has become a growing trend. But whilst I see many of people employing this convention as a means of self-promotion, where I think a lot of these people fall down is not taking the time out to make sure what they are advertising is clear and aesthetically pleasing.
My top 3 Twitter sidebar bugbears are:
1) Using a fuzzy or unclear logo/image
Dude! Your logo or image needs to be strong and arresting, not looking like its just down 10 rounds with a lawnmower! When you use a highly pixellated, fuzzy image, not only does it shout ‘Unprofessional!’, but more than that, it looks like you really don’t care that people think that. Same principle with images or logos that you can’t quite figure out. If its not immediately obvious what it is or what you want to get across with using that image, get rid of it, it will just look like unnecessary noise and put people off staying on your page to find out more.
2) Not making it clear what you are offering
Sometimes I come across Twitter homepages where the owner has rambled on and on in their sidebar in flowery, effusive language about what they do. None of which makes that much sense, and definitely none of which goes in when you are scanning a page in less than a second for something catchy. If you are offering a particular service or product, don’t take 5 lines for what you could effectively say in 1. For example, my Twitter background isn’t really there to do anything other than redirect people who may be interested in me to my other pages on the Internet. Simple URLS are all it takes, rather than long floaty descriptions.
3) Using the same image tiled or using default images!
For me, people who tile the same image over and over again or use the default Twitter settings when they are attempting to promote themselves are just facilitating the idea that they don’t take the impression they make on people seriously. Tiling images can also be unnecessarily crowding and in your face for the viewer, unless it happens to be a pattern conducive to tiling. Using a default image when you are using Twitter to promote or sell something also is a big no no. Thinking about your brand, and brand consistency, is a trait many savvy consumers now look for as a mark of quality. Making a twitter background in sync with your product does not need to take long but plays an important role as one of those implicit things that users notice and take heed of when making their decisions to stay on your page for longer.
Adhering to these basic principles when thinking about designing your own Twitter background is a surefire way to have your Twitter page seem more professional and in touch with the users needs.
