3 Time-Saving Twitter Tips

By Keith | Posted Feb 27, 2009 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Social Media

As more and more companies start developing or evolving blogging and content-marketing strategies, Twitter is becoming an important component because it enables a user to find and build personal relationships with an unlimited number of like-minded people.

In the past, we've posted a blog that deals with building a Twitter Strategy, so this time, we’ll cover some time-saving Twitter tips that can easily be overlooked when launching your account.

1) Twitter Background Design

While Twitter’s default backgrounds work well, it’s a good idea to develop your own background to really personalize your profile. The most important aspect is the description column because it is here that you can include a different picture of yourself, a longer bio and contact information. Check out this example: @Mashable.

I created my own background (@KeithMoehring) using Apple iWork’s Pages and Adobe Photoshop. It took some time to lay everything out, create a .jpg the right size, and then test it to make sure everything fits properly. Here are a couple tips to save you some time when creating yours:

• Your description column should be on the left. It will always be the side that is exposed first as someone enlarges their browser.
• The background image should be approximately 800 x 500 pixels, but this may vary. Just make sure when the browser is full screen that your description column is completely visible. The description column should be about 150-200 pixels wide.
• Find ways to integrate images of your hobbies and interests behind or around the description column. This frees you up to write a less-cluttered description. However, the main keywords you want to be found for should be included on your Twitter account bio. Twitter won’t be able to tag the words in your background image.

2) Twitter Desktop Tools

It’s a good idea to utilize one of the many Twitter Desktop Tools to monitor your Twitter account. Currently, I’m using Tweetdeck because it allows me to easily create groups and automatically scans Twitter for mentions of my @username.

3) Twitter Groups

Before you start making friends on Twitter, define several groups of people you want to follow. For instance, I work in Cleveland, so I created a group for everyone I’m following from Cleveland to monitor what they are discussing.

As you befriend new “tweeple,” flag them as belonging to a specific group because sifting through their profiles after you’ve started following them is a very time-consuming task.

More Solutions?

These are by no means the only ways to overcome these issues, and if someone has any other ideas, please share.

 I’d love to hear additional solutions.Keith Moehring is a Consultant for PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. He is a certified Google Adwords Professional and has been working in PR & Marketing for more than three years. You can follow him on Twitter @keithmoehring