My Twitter Background Image

Whether you run a corporate or a personal Twitter account, your background image can say a lot about you.  I want to explain my often questioned background, and then give you some pointers for what makes an effective background for company tweets.

I get a surprising amount of direct messages from people telling me that they like my Twitter background image, and they want to know what it is.  Popular guesses include “steel mine” and anything to do with railroads.  Off-the-wall guesses include stuff from the Sci-Fi channel and “jet engine factory”.  The real answer is…a copper mine!  Not just any copper mine, it’s one that my great-grandfather was the manager of in Arizona.  I don’t know the exact date of the pic, but from what I understand (and this is understanding passed down a few generations, so who knows if it’s true or not) he actually took that picture.  It would make sense to me as I pulled it out of a photo album that included dozens of other pictures of him, other family members and more pics of Arizona copper mines than I ever thought possible. I may switch it over some day to my other favorite pic, my grandfather (as child…maybe 4 or 5) holding a human skull.  Huh.

Your Twitter background can make or break first impressions about your company, so choose it wisely.  If you run a corporate account that has several contributors, I think the best strategy is to list each contributor in the background image and denote their tweets with their initials, like “^MS” for Matt Singley.  Take a look at how Media Temple does it; great communication!  Another good example is Comcast Cares; although the account is handled exclusively by Frank, the background gives you a lot of other options for communication with Comcast, including their blog, other Comcasters on Twitter and Frank’s personal family blog!  Although your company doesn’t necessarily need to go to this level, it’s a nice touch.

If you are a person and not a company…try to dress up your background with something that is personal to you.  Renee Hamilton‘s page points out that she is a “talker, thinker, do gooder”, while “Scandalous” Jennifer Stavros has an amazing painting. It’s easy enough, when you are logged into Twitter go to Settings–>Design–>Change Background Image (the button at the bottom) and then upload a file from your computer. If you are handy with Photoshop, check out these Twitter background guidelines and make something spectacular!

So what about you…do you have an interesting and personal background on your Twitter page?  What’s the link and the story?