As one of the leading social networks, Twitter has become more than just a place for friends to keep in touch with one another. It is also a leading platform that businesses are now using to stay in touch with current customers and expand their reach to new clients. One of the central ways to stand apart from other Twitter users is with a custom background. Not only can you brand your Twitter page, but you can also promote yourself in creative ways via a Twitter background too.

Canned Backgrounds

If you’re feeling creatively challenged, or if you’re strapped for time and looking for a quick fix then visit one of these Twitter background sites and explore patterns, prints and images that can be used to spice up your page.

TwitBacks

Twitrounds

Twitter Background Images

My Tweet Space

Themeleon

Custom Built

Here’s a little secret, you can use PowerPoint and Mac’s Keynote software to design your own fancy Twitter background. There are two main elements to consider before you start to build-out graphic elements, monitor resolution size and final image size.

W3Schools current trends show that more than 76% of computers are using a screen resolution higher than 1024×768. The higher the resolution, the more that a user will see of the Twitter background. Having a grid that shows you how many pixels your background components need to be constructed at will make things much easier to put together.

Depending on what resolution size you decide to design your background for your placement dimensions will vary. Try giving yourself a width of 250 pixels from the left margin for your left hand graphics and at least 85 pixels from the top header bar. Experiment to see what works best for your layout and design. Here’s a sample background template from Smashing Magazine to help illustrate how dimensions can be laid out.

Remember that the final size of your design is important because Twitter caps the size of backgrounds at 800k. Try to use JPGs and lower resolution images to avoid ending up with a file that’s 10MB in size.

When you’re ready to start building a background, open up PowerPoint or Keynote and create a blank slide that’s sized to the resolution of your choosing. Use the rulers and drag and drop guides to help you position your background elements. Once you’re satisfied with your creation do a Save As or Export and process as a JPG, GIF or PNG. Try uploading to your Twitter account to see how it looks.

Sidebar Promotion

Just like tweets are limited to 140 characters or less, Twitter bios must be 59 characters or less. That doesn’t leave a ton of room to promote your brand. That’s where the sidebar area comes in handy. You can use the left hand side of your Twitter background to feature other social media profiles, your blog URL, contact information and even some additional highlights about your brand, product and services.

Stellar Backgrounds

A collection of creative Twitter backgrounds is featured below for inspiration and ideas on to set-up your own. Enjoy!

twitter.com/kriscolvin

twitter.com/coreyweb

twitter.com/ijustine

twitter.com/robingood

twitter.com/elitistsnob

If you’re still hankering for more then check out some of these outstanding links and resources below:

How To: Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace | Mashable

Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices | Chris Spooner

A Tutorial On Designing a Twitter Background | SEO MoFo

When you’re searching for something on the internet you’ll notice that a vast majority of the time the first or second entry on Google’s search engine results page will be a Wikipedia link. To date, Wikipedia boasts an impressive 16 million articles, of which 3.3 million are in English. Currently, it is one of the largest and most popular reference sites available on the net. A large network of Wiki editors review all articles that are submitted and use a group approval system to determine if content will be published, or in some cases, banned.

Because Wikipedia is a wiki, anyone with access to a computer and a Wikipedia account can make edits to posted entries. It’s important to remember that jus because you post an article, you don’t own it and updates and changes can be made by others at large.

Although writing a Wikipedia article seems like an utterly simple task you’ll need to know a few basics in order to prevent your content from being deleted. Before you begin make sure that you’re writing from a neutral point of view (NPOV). The best way to approach a NPOV is to make your entry mirror what it would look like if you were to read it in a traditional encyclopedia. The content that you submit should be unbiased, verifiable, noteworthy and not breach copyright.

Wikipedia is a social community and it takes the content that users submit very seriously. If you’re not able to draft an article that follows Wiki’s protocols it will more than likely be deleted. The other thing to keep in mind is that not every brand, service or product can produce an entry that acceptable by Wiki standards for the simple reason that vanity, promotion and opinion are not looked upon favorably.

Before You Begin

If you’re still feeling optimistic enough to craft a Wiki article you’ll want to do the following first:

• Search Wikipedia to confirm that an article doesn’t already exist.
• Use alternate search terms just in case your article is labeled under a different heading.
• Determine if your article is verifiable and noteworthy before you begin writing it.
• Create a user account if you don’t presently have one.
• Aim for an article that is a minimum of 1500 characters, but no more than 4,000 words.
• Practice entering your article with the Wikipedia Sandbox first.

Actual Writing

Building your first Wiki article does take a bit of planning. You’ll want to structure your article so that it reads in chronological order. Next, make sure to gather your references and credible sources that you can cite to support what you’re saying. As you write, reference other Wiki articles by including links to them. This helps to substantiate your article and it cross-promotes other reference material on Wikipedia.

When you’re ready to submit your article to Wikipedia, you might be surprised to discover that you’ll need to use Wiki-style codes to achieve specific text attributes like boldface, italics and bullet points. Check out the cheat sheet so that you have an understanding of what needs to be input to achieve your desired result on the user end.

Even though Wikipedia sounds like a marketing dream come true you’ll learn that it doesn’t quite work the same way that a brochure or brand website does. Wiki entries are not promotional landing pages for businesses or individuals. Entries are informational and neutral and quite the opposite of a marketing tool. Once you make that connection you’ll be able to assemble a solid piece that meets the criteria set forth by Wikipedia.

Word To The Wise

If you submit a Wiki entry and it gets deleted and then you make edits to the same entry and continue to resubmit in an effort to get it published, you run the risk of being permanently banned and blacklisted from Wikipedia. Instead of repeating the same mistakes read over the guidelines and look at current entries to get a better sense and understanding of what an entry should sound, read and look like.

After you’ve had your website up and running for a bit, or once you’ve been blogging for awhile you’ll want to start thinking about your online ‘community’. Your community is an important, if not integral, component to the success of your online presence. By building a solid brand, creating great content and interacting with your audience, you’re working toward developing a passionate online following that will promote and support you with others.

Build It

Make your blog/site an original, meaning, try to take a fresh approach to the subject that you plan on covering. A great example of an outstanding and custom brand blog is Southwest’s Nuts About Southwest. Instead of spewing a mouthful of corporate hum-drum Southwest has assembled a blended blog that reflects the diversity of its audience and they’ve peppered it with fun and interactive content.

Another super example is the Sharpie blog. Beyond simple blog posts, the Sharpie blog has incorporated a bevy of images and videos that showcase their products in action with everyday folks and artists. The result is a visually entertaining blog that is both inspiring and entertaining.

Take a cue from Southwest and Sharpie and find a unique way to position your blog/site  that’s right for the audience that you want to capture.

Promote It

Make it easy to pass along and share what you’re creating. This means including social share buttons to increase viral opportunities. At a bare minimum, you should feature  Tweetmeme and Facebook Share buttons that can be used to attract others to become a part of your online community. People want to be able to send links and information in quick and simple ways. Integrating social share buttons is a near guarantee that they’ll be able to do so.

Ask For It

You have to ask people to visit, comment and share. It’s a very simple way to remind and ensure your audience that you want them to invite others to take a peek and converse about what you’ve created. Communities aren’t built overnight, but asking others who appreciate your perspective, style and message to find and include others is an ideal way increase growth. Like-minds attract like-minds and you’ll discover that asking people to spread the word about your community is as easy to say as it is to do.

Get Involved With It

An online community can’t grow on its own. You need to take an active role in fostering relationships with your members. Encourage contributions through commenting and be prepared to seek out potentially interested people to invite to the community. This doesn’t mean that you need to launch a spam campaign or make a commitment to stalk anyone into joining. Be yourself, be authentic and tell people that you’d love for them become a part of what you’re putting together.

Repeat It

Whether your online community has 50 followers or 15,000, you need to continually work at adding new members. A stagnant community is also a flailing community. By continually adding new members you’re increasing the chances that better dialogues will form, more interesting questions will be asked and novel ideas will be exchanged. These actions in themselves make your community more attractive to others, which will increase your subscriber base. The goal isn’t to have a blog or site with the largest quantity of followers. It should be to have the best quality of content and relationships with the people who are supporting what you’re creating.

There are many other tips that can be used to build a strong online community. What are some that you’ve used to enhance your own blog or site? Fill us in.

Not surprisingly, many businesses have a tough time understanding exactly how social media fits into their overall marketing plan. Social media marketing seems like more of a catchy phrase that consists of nothing more than tweets and posts. In actuality, marketing with social media is much more than that. No, it won’t transform your business into an overnight success, but it can be used as an extremely effective tool when you incorporate a solid plan and strategy behind it.

At a minimum, your social media marketing plan should include a blend of public relations and marketing tactics, as well as evoke flexibility, patience and commitment for the individual or team who will be executing it. Previously, we’ve shared what social media can and can’t do for businesses and it’s important to make sure that you have realistic expectations and a well-developed understanding of what social media is and what it requires before you begin planning.

Pick Your Marketing Objectives

Here’s the broken record part of this post – you have to begin with the end in mind. You’ll hear this from just about anyone who’s ever had a hand in developing marketing plan. Decide what your objectives are and why you’re putting a social media plan together. What are the things that you want to achieve? Are your objectives sustainable and realistic? Put your thoughts together and dedicate some time to creating this cornerstone of your strategy.

Know Your People

You need to know who you’re trying to connect with and where they’re at. It’s also helpful to understand what level of social media interaction they currently have. For example, if you’re selling vitamins to seniors then tweeting about them all day isn’t your best bet. Find out what your audience likes and dislikes and get involved with them.

Get Engaged

Social media is anything but passive. It’s about a two-way conversation and that means you need to plan on being involved and contributing to the dialogue. Your social media plan should include how time will be allocated to develop relationships and communicate with your audience.

Stretch Your Creative Muscle

Once you’ve nailed down some of the basics for your social media plan you’ll want to customize your strategy. Brand it and make it your own, after all social media isn’t based on tweets alone. Get inspired by taking a look at how other businesses have leveraged their social media presence.

Measure and Evaluate

You need to figure out what success means to you and how your social media plan will measure it. Choose which key metrics are most important to you in measuring your ROI and set-up methods to gather data on a regular basis.

At the end of the day, a social media marketing plan can be effectively used to build brand awareness, brand loyalty, build word of mouth marketing and convert customers into brand ambassadors. Put some thought and creativity into you plan that goes beyond tweeting and posting and you’ll be on your way to enhancing a relationship between you and your audience.

Were these suggestions helpful? What are some other key points to consider when beginning a social media marketing plan? Share with us.

So you’ve spent all night writing a blog post that can only be described as the pièce de résistance to your dedicated followers. Clearly, you’re proud of what you’ve produced and you’ve poured some serious effort into developing an outstanding representation of what great content truly is.

But what do you do once you’ve posted that bright, shiny new blog entry and it’s dashed to bits in the comment section? First off, don’t be offended by the feedback about your masterpiece. Instead consider following some of these suggestions to help you work through any negative comments.

It’s Not Personal

Harsh comments can be tough pills to swallow, but remember that it’s not about you. It’s just about perspective. You’ll never be able to make your blog satisfy the opinions of all your subscribers. Plus, being able to produce content that sparks a debate isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You’re setting up a place to inspire conversation and that’s a good thing.

Keep Calm

Take a deep breath and a step back before your respond to any negative blog comments. Remember that you’ve created a blog to exchange information with readers and ultimately, your readers come first. Take an objective stance and respond openly. If you find this person continually engaging in negative, abrasive or combative commenting consider flagging their comments and remove them from future posts.

Embrace The Feedback

Hate to say it, but comments on a blog post, both good and bad, demonstrate that you’re developing and sharing insightful topics that readers are connecting with. Brush your ego aside and roll with the punches. Use the comments from your readers as learning opportunities to help you create better posts and acknowledge different views.

Give Thanks

Strange as it may seem, thanking people for leaving blog comments is a great way to show that you’re focused on creating a transparent blog, not to mention that it is an easy way to involve readers by encouraging them to offer alternative ideas or solutions.

Depending upon how active and passionate your blog following is they may jump in and answer the negative comments for you. Make sure that you follow-up to show that you’re listening and open to discussion. It will show everyone that your blog community is a place where people can be themselves.

Have you experienced any tough situations with your own blog comments? Share with us.