Who Are You Calling a Twit?

While it is correct that this post is about Twitter customization and not "twits", aligning my title with the hilarious sketch masters Monty Python was just too obvious a leap for me not to take it. To make up for my lack of judgement, here is the full version of the Upper-Class Twit of the Year, by Monty Python for your viewing pleasure.

Me? I am a first-class twit, which brings me to Tweets and Twitter. If you are not on twitter, I wonder what reasons there are for that? Do you feel that there isn't enough time? Are you making all the connections you want from your other social media sites? Do you have difficulty expressing yourself in 140 characters or less?

All good reasons I am sure, but since you can sync up your other feeds to twitter, you can save time. And since twitter is the playground of the chattering classes, you might find friends in the press to retweet you or better write about you. And as for the 140 characters, I don't think I am the right one to advise you on being succinct. do you?

When you decide to go on Twitter, make sure you brand your account. Your site is actually a landing page and you want to pay attention to a few things. Make sure your profile has keyword relevant to your interests. Choose an appropriate avatar (get rid of that egg) and think about the resolution of your readers screens when picking a background graphic. Do you want it 200px wide? 500? Making a customize look and feel is worth it. I have just used my logo to start but have made a note to revisit when developing my website to pull elements from that.

Make sure like any landing page you have a call to action and a link to your website.

As I go will build a following on Twitter by following other people (some will follow back), I will be tweeting awesome things that followers retweet, and tweeting things found via search.

While in twitter I also created a widget that I can paste into my website that will show my twitter feed. That is important for a couple reasons. Least of all is not to create some dynamism on the page, which encourages viewers to come back and can also prompt for "following" and retweeting.

I will also revisit the widgets at a future date to select more customized displays if they are appropriate.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a race to officiate.