"Twitting" your Best Face Forward

Okay, so now that you've begun your Twitter site, it's important to make it your site - unique and attractive. And you can do that without it costing you a thing, or you can pay a small fee to completely personalize it with your own graphics or pictures, it's your choice.

So...you remember that white bar at the top right-hand corner of your Twitter site? Click on the "Settings" tab in that bar, and the next page will be your "Account" page which will already be filled in with the info you gave Twitter when you joined. There is also a tab here to reset your password, if you'd like to. If you click on the "Mobile" tab, Twitter will walk you through a couple simple steps to set up Direct Message Tweets to be sent to your cell phone, via text messages, and will also enable you to send updates to your Twitter account, via texts sent to Twitter at 40404. You can also click on "Notices" and set up Twitter to send you emails whenever someone messages you, or you can turn this off so it doesn't come through your email. If you click on "Profile" you can download a picture here, and I recommend that. A nice smiling face has been shown to capture the most attention on any social media site, and if you don't have a close-up picture of yourself with a nice smile, I suggest you get one to put here, or put someone else's smiling face (with their permission, of course) if you prefer not to use your own. But you will see all kinds of pictures used for profiles.

Also, under the Profile tab, you can fill in your website URL in the "Web" field, and also fill in the "Bio" field with a brief biography. For your biography, you want to use only key words that others will use to find you, so use words to describe yourself here that are reflective of why you are on Twitter and that will be searchable by others when they're looking for people in your field.

Clicking on "Connections" will bring you to a page where you can browse through the many applications Twitter has available to you that you can allow access to your site. There are many, and they are being continually updated, added and changed, so there's no way to list them all, but you will find applications that will connect your Twitter site to your Facebook page and your Blog, applications that will automatically follow those who follow you, applications that will automatically send Tweets at different times during the day for you, and much more. It's worth the time and effort to browse through some of these and begin using a few to save yourself a great amount of time and effort with your site.

Lastly, but most fun, you can click on the "Design" tab, and you will be taken to a page that will allow you to personalize your site to look the way you'd like it to, at no or little expense to you at all. The designs you first see on this page are available to you free for the background of your site if you like any of these, simply click on the one of your choosing and "Save your changes" (or click "Cancel" to abort the changes and select something else). If you'd like something a litte different (you'll notice the background of mine is a colorful beach scene http://twitter.com/Thea_RG ) you can go to this site: http://www.custombackgroundsfortwitter.com/ From there, click on "Free Twitter Backgrounds." You will be taken to a nice selection of backgrounds you can browse and when you find something you like, click on it and save it to a file on your computer or disc and then go back to your Design page on your Twitter site and click on "Change background image" on the bottom of the page. Then click on "Browse" and select the image you saved to your computer to download as your background. Then "Save the changes" or "Cancel" it if you want to change it again.

Now that you've selected a nice personal background for yourself, don't forget your sidebar and the type print on your site. Matching all of these to your background will give you a smooth, professional look. Click on "Change design colors" and a bar will pop out below it with colors and labels, like "Text," "Links," "Background," etc. Select the item you wish to change and then choose the color for it and save the changes, and then take a look at your profile and go back and forth, changing the colors as needed, until you have the look you'd like. And now you're set to Tweet...