TWITTER BACKGROUNDTwitter is a lot of things — a virtual billboard, a modern-day paper boy, a voice for all those celebrities we can’t seem to get enough of — but attractive by default isn’t one of them. When you first join the massive social networking site, your default background image are some fluffy, off-blue cumulus clouds that hover on the sides of your profile as if you were sitting outside the gates of Heaven. And while that might be just dandy for the casual Twitter user — if there is such a thing — it’s certainly not for everyone. Your Twitter background is capable of so much more, such as advertising your mom-and-pop business or providing additional personal information you couldn’t cram into that 160-word bio of yours.

Regardless what you want to do with it, it takes a bit of ingenuity to tap into the Twitter background’s true potential. Here’s our how-to guide for changing or making your Twitter background, whether you want to tailor it for business and branding purposes or just make it more expressive of who you are. Also, check out our how to use Twitter guide if you’re just getting started with the social networking site.

A few pointers about your background

Keep it simple and clean: Backgrounds with a good deal going on can prove distracting and are unnecessary. Tone down the background noise for a more minimalist approach.

Keep it legible: Make sure all words and design elements are clearly readable if you choose to include text in your background. Followers shouldn’t need a magnifying glass if they want to read something on your background.

Keep it consistent: If you’re using Twitter for business or branding purposes, make sure your new background falls in line with your website and any social media platforms you use. You want people to associate your Twitter background with you, so keep those colors and graphics consistent across all platforms.

Keep it clean (the other kind): Twitter is not a big fan of the whole pornography thing. Shy away from indecent images and offensive material unless you want your account terminated indefinitely. It’s all outlined in the official Twitter Rules you agreed to when you signed up.

Keep the content original: No one likes to be busted for copyright infringement — whether you use a company trademark or someone else’s photography. Odds are the casual user probably will probably never see legal action brought against them, but it’s best to error on the side of caution.

How to change your background

Sign in to your Twitter account using your username or email and password. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but head over to Twitter to get started with your new background.

Click the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner and click the Edit Profile option from the drop-down menu to access your main profile settings. From there, click on the Design tab on the right-hand side to view the various themes and available design elements.

Choose from one of about 20 premade background images or customize your own from scratch. The premade images include everything from falling leaves to starry nights, but are rather dull and expressionless. If you’re looking to customize your theme using the hands-on approach, click the Change background button and upload your desired image.               Keep in mind Twitter has a 2MB limit on file sizes and all images will be justified to the top left of the screen. Although image stretching isn’t allowed, you can tile smaller images to encapsulate the width and height of the page. Images must also be saved as a GIF, JPG, or PNG.

Click the Save changes button at the bottom of the page to save your new background. A notification at the top of the page will notify you when your customization has been saved.

How to make a background

There are plenty of ways to going about creating custom Twitter backgrounds for your profile. The process is relatively quick and simple depending on what you want to do, but it can become more complicated if you’re looking to incorporate a side graphic or other design element.

Choose your photo editing software. If you don’t have Adobe’s flagship photo editing software, we recommend using Pixlr, Pixelmator, or GIMP. All three programs are 100 percent free to use and are bundled with all the standard features required to create a basic Twitter background. GIMP is probably the best of the bunch given its versatility, robust feature set, and active user community.

Once you’ve chosen the software you plan to use, open a new image file and set the proper dimensions. Twitter’s appearance varies slightly from monitor to monitor depending on screen resolution, so you want to set a background size large enough to avoid tiling and any other unwanted effects. Try using a total image size around 1600 pixels wide x 1200 pixels tall — this will cover most screen resolutions — or 2560 pixels x 1600 pixels if you really want to ensure enough breathing room for large-screen monitors.

Now decide on the type of background image you would like. Below are a few of the main design approaches that work best on Twitter. Some approaches are better than others depending on what you aim to do with your background.

Tiled backgrounds are a great choice for all monitors and are typically quick to load. The tiled image can be as straightforward as a texture or simple pattern, or as elaborate as photograph or cartoon. That being said, tiled images can quickly become the most obnoxious and distracting design approach if you’re not careful. Try to avoid images that make the tiling obvious, such as gradients and images with a high amount of contrast.

Background images are comprised of a single image that fills the entire background. Although they are relatively easy to design and implement, much of the image will be completely obscured by the Twitter content on your page, thus making it difficult to view. Remember that the upper left section of the image is the section that will be seen by all users regardless of their monitor.

Single image fades are a nice choice if you want to keep your layout relatively simple, but with just a hint of pizzazz. The background will feature a single image pinned to the upper left-hand corner while the rest of the background is a color that blends with your chosen image. Try to make sure the main background color matches the edges of the your image to a tee, otherwise it will produce a tacky hard edge.

Sidebars are an incredibly useful feature when combined with any of the above design approaches. Although you cannot click anything on the sidebar, you can still use it to promote your product or business, provide contact info, display your logo, or showcase anything else you want to appear in the background. Sidebars are the next best thing to adding a banner image or header to the top of your page (something Twitter has yet to allow).

Now it’s time to create your image using the photo editing software. There are countless ways to go about this, from creating an image entirely from scratch to opening an existing image and merging it with your background. Create the image however you would like within the given dimensional constraints.

               If you plan on creating a background sidebar to go along with your background, create a new file with dimensions around 235 pixels wide x 700 pixels tall and place your sidebar in the upper-right hand corner of your background when you’re finished. Ignore the seemingly small size, it will appear larger in a browser window.

Save your new background image when you’re finished with the design. We recommend saving it as a PNG file if possible to maintain image quality when shrunk.

Access your Twitter settings and change your background image as outlined above. If you plan on tiling your image, make sure to check Tile background beneath the Change background button.

TWITTER LISTSA list is a curated group of Twitter users. You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by others. Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the users on that list.

Note: Lists are used for reading Tweets only. You cannot send or direct a Tweet to members of a list, for only those list members to see.

To create a list:1. Go to your Lists page. This can be done via the gear icon drop down menu in the top right

navigation bar or by going to your profile page and clicking on Lists.

2. Click Create list.

3. Enter the name of your list, a short description of the list, and select if you want the list to be private (only accessible to you) or public (anyone can subscribe to the list).

4. Click Save list.

Note: List names cannot exceed 25 characters, nor can they begin with a number.

To add or remove people from your lists:1. Click the gear icon drop down menu on a user's profile. 

2. Select Add or remove from lists. (You don't need to be following a user to add them to your list.)

3. A pop-up will appear displaying your created lists. Check the lists you would like to add the user to, or uncheck the lists you'd like to remove the user from.

4. To check to see if the user you wanted to add was successfully included in that list, navigate to the Lists tab on your profile page. Click the desired list, then click Members. The person will appear in the list of members.

Note: You cannot add yourself, or a user who has blocked you, to a list.

To see lists that you are on:o On your Lists page, click on Member of. This will show you what lists you are on.

To remove yourself from a list:o You can remove yourself from a list by blocking the creator of the list.

To find a list's URL to share:1. Go to the list you'd like to share.

2. Copy the URL that shows up in your browser's address bar. It will look something like this:https://twitter.com/username/lists/list_name

3. Paste the URL into a message to anyone with whom you want to share the list.

To view Tweets from a list:1. Go to your profile page.

2. Click on the Lists tab.

3. Click on the list you'd like to view.

4. You'll see a timeline of Tweets from the users included in that list.

To edit or delete lists:1. Go to your profile page.

2. Click on the Lists tab.

3. You will see lists you've created and other people's lists you follow under Subscribed to.

4. Select which list you'd like to edit or delete from the lists you've created. Click Edit to update your list details or click Delete to remove the list entirely.

5. You cannot add or remove people from your list on this page —you must do that from the profile pages of each individual you wish to add or remove.

To subscribe to/follow other people's lists:1. Click on Lists when viewing someone's profile.

2. Select which list you'd like to subscribe to.

3. From the list page, click Subscribe to follow the list. You can follow lists without following the individual users in that list.

Note: If the owner of a list that you're following includes a public user that you've blocked, you will still see the updates of the blocked user.

TWITTER HASHTAGSAre you #using #hashtags when #you #write a #marketing #statusupdate on #Facebook or a

#tweet on #Twitter? #ohmygoodness #itssotrendy.

Hashtags are all over the place. You even hear people talking in hashtag speak (#crazy).

The hashtag craze began in Twitter as a way to group topics, events, and other kinds of

conversations. Hashtags work nicely over on Twitter because you can easily search for the

latest news or trending topic. Recently, Facebook has joined in on the hashtag craze, and you

can use hastags on Google+ as well.

In theory, hashtags can be a good thing. You can search for news items and trending topics. If

you are doing research for a book or report, it’s a handy tool to have for search purposes. Need

the latest scoop on a celebrity or one of your competitors? Use their name in a hashtag.

Searching for news in a particular industry? Add a hashtag.

For example: #realestateagent, #accountant, #healthinsurance. By simply adding the hashtag in

front of the word you wish to tag, you are creating a clickable link. People can click the link and

they will be brought to other status updates, and tweets, using the same hashtag. Make sense?

In reality, however, hashtags have become something that most people don’t understand, and

very often abused. As in my opening sentence, hashtag abuse is extremely evident.

Repeat after me, “hashtags are a good thing”. Let’s see what you can do with them:

Organizing your search based on subject: As previously mentioned, by adding the hashtag

symbol to a word or phrase makes it searchable. Tag words that make sense to you and your

business, or whatever it is you’re sharing. Like #howtoblog, #socalsurf, #cooking, #Dodgers,

#CoveredCalifornia, #earthquake, or #bedtimestories.

Promoting and managing an event: Often, when you have a large event, workshop, training

class, teleseminar, webinar, mixer, expo — indeed, any kind of event, you can have people talk

about it on Twitter or Facebook simply by creating a hashtag for it. I’ll give you an example of

how this works. Suppose you’re at a conference. The conference hashtag is #DiscoverSocial.

While you are at the conference you can follow the hashtag and read what others are saying

about the conference. On the flip-side, others can read about what you are saying about the

event as well. And for those who couldn’t make the event — well, they too can follow along as

they read everyone’s hashtagged tweets.

Follow televised events: OK, if you watch “America’s Got Talent,” “Dancing with the Stars,”

“The Voice,” and other live TV shows — including sporting events — you’ve seen how they use

Twitter and hashtags during the shows. People watch the show and tweet their opinions, and

even votes, all at the same time. TV shows love this because they are getting your input as

things happen live. You’re becoming PART of the experience.

Twitter chats: You can find themed conversations almost any day of the week on Twitter. By

using hashtags, the conversations don’t get lost in the Twitter stream.

Hashtags can help you follow along and participate in the conversation. It’s great for webinars

and other online events. Users can ask questions they wish the webinar host to answer.

A bit of hashtag etiquette goes a long way. Just because you CAN use hashtags doesn’t mean

you SHOULD use them. Choose your hashtags carefully. Make them meaningful, and not silly

random or generic words. Think about why you are using a hashtag. Also, use hashtags

sparingly. Using more than three (if that many) in one sentence is going to annoy a whole lot of

people. Goodness knows it’s more difficult to read a sentence loaded with unnecessary

hashtags. Besides, it looks spammy — and you don’t want people to think you’re spamming

them, do you? And don’t use hashtags in each and every one of your status updates or tweets.

Hashtags work only if relevant. With that said — test your hashtags first. Check out the hashtag

you would like to use. If you find that it leads to meaningless chatter, then don’t use it. What?

You don’t know how to test them? In Facebook, change your status update setting to “Only Me.”

Then put a few hashtags in an update, publish it, and start clicking to see what you find.

Don’t worry, you’re the only one who will see it. Oh, and remember to delete the status update

when you’re through. On Twitter, simply place your desired hashtag in the search box. Add the

# symbol and then the word. See what comes up. Again, if it leads to senseless stuff — chuck

the hashtag and think of something else.