Category: Twitter

Coming in November 2012 to each and every Twitter profile is a new Twitter cover, but a nice big image is not all you’ll get.

First Twitter recommends a cover image of 1200×600  with a maximum file size of 5MB. To add your new cover follow these easy steps.

1. Login to your Twitter account at Twitter.com.
2. Click the drop down menu for settings at the top right. Look for the gear icon.
3. On the left sidebar click design.
4. Under header in the body of the page click to add your own photos. You can add anything from your camera or phone.
5. Size the photo the way you like once loaded by moving the zoom in icon.
6. It may take several tries to get your header image to load. I am not sure what but I had to try three to four times.
7. Update your bio and check your web url.

The best thing about the new cover is that your bio will appear overlayed on the cover image AND your now CLICKABLE website URL appears on the cover as well.

There is simply no more need for a special background image if you don’t want one and the ability to have the clickable URL is worth all the effort to get your header image to load.

You can visit our Twitter page @mccordweb to see our cover shot and how the new cover works on your Twitter profile. Keep in mind that Twitter will make every site have a cover in November and if you don’t add an image you will have a big gray block at the top.

It used to be that I felt that every business should have a Facebook page. With the changes that Facebook has made this past year, I am starting to rethink Facebook’s importance and consider that businesses may be better served by a strong presence on Twitter instead.

Although Facebook still owns the social marketplace and is the place that consumers spend a measurable amount of time, Facebook has made it very difficult for a business to establish a vibrant presence easily on their platform. I am finding that new business pages without additional marketing will simply not grow a “like” or fan base quickly or easily.

On Twitter, additional follower numbers can be grown fairly quickly with good updates AND follower interaction. I have seen that updates alone are not the key to growth on Twitter. It is the combination of the manual addition of new followers, creation of lists, and interaction with followers that helps an account to grow and for messages to go viral.

When a follower retweets your status update (that may potentially link back to your blog or your services), your link exposure and potential to reach new customers is tremendous. With regular interaction on Twitter you will find that there are certain people you can really connect with that you can use to reciprocally push out each other’s content. If these Tweeps (Twitter friends) have “klout” (measurable Twitter or social impact) or a larger follower base, the result of clicks in to your content can result in increased traffic and potentially a better SocialRank score.

Both Google and Bing are watching SocialRank and have stated that they will be using this metric in their organic search algorithm. To what degree is SocialRank important to organic placement, that we simply don’t know. What I do know is that with the changes on Facebook, it is by far easier to grow, connect with others, and funnel traffic to your website by Twitter than by Facebook.

If you are looking for help to establish or grow your Twitter presence, I invite you to review our affordable Twitter services.

Twitter released this past week its new preferred logo. You’ll see it to the right. There are several variations – bird on blue, bird on black, bird on clear, but the bird is the same; poised to fly up to the right with beak open. Oh notice the bird has no hair? Make sure you get the right icon as I have seen some out on the Web where the Twitter bird has a shock of hair. The logo on this page is Twitter’s own iconic image.

Seems kind of late in the game for Twitter, after several years, to strive to wipe out the use of the blue lowercase t which has become synonymous with Twitter, but it’s never too late to try to take back your brand. Especially if maybe you want to start thinking about a future IPO and are trying to sell ads on your platform.

I will be working to update my own website with the new icons in the weeks coming up, but have to say I do like a more cube shaped icon as it will look better in a line with Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. I may try to put my own Twitter Bird in a square and then polish it and add a drop shadow. The essence is the bird not necessarily that the bird sits in a square or on a white ground. When I finish my icon, I’ll post it on my blog and website for you to check out.