Twitter Marketing: Branding With Unique Backgrounds

Branding Is Key To Success

I am massive believer in the power of branding, and consider it one of the most, if not the most important reasons why the majority of ProBloggers are as successful as they are. If people perceive that you are professional and have influence, then whether you are or not has no bearing.

Perception Is Everything

Have you ever noticed that seem to have a lot of subscribers and a heap of influence – yet they never seem to have anything interesting or of value too say?

I can definately think of a few bl0ggers like this. The thing I have discovered, is that people live by a herd mentality. If someone sees a lot of people doing something, they will naturally follow – because obviously there is a reason so many people are doing it, and it is the same with blogging. But you don’t have to be the most influential blogger with 1,00o’s of RSS subscribers to give the perception of success.

Excellence And Success Correlation

If you look at all the most successful bloggers in your niche, the one thing you will find is that their blog is excellent. Take my niche for example:

ProBlogger.net

• Quality Design
• Published Book
• Well Researched Twitter
• Personally Branded Twitter Page

The reason Darren has been able to build such a successful blog, can largely be attributed to the above factors and how Darren has branded them all to the ProBlogger brand. Knowing this, I now know the things that I have to do to emulate his success – but in my own way!

Branding With Twitter

With the month of May being directed at Twitter, and using it to grow your blog. After setting up your Twitter account, there are two things that you can do to brand your blog on Twitter, that you should do straight away.

1. Your Picture

Your picture is the part of your brand that will be most seen on Twitter. Every time you make a tweet, your picture is shown – so you definately want to make the most of it. There are only really 2 options here and the one you choose will depend on how you are branding your blog.

A Picture Of You
If you are working on branding yourself  personally then this is the obvious choice. Bloggers like John Chow are an excellent example of personal branding. A good tip for this is to make your photo stand out. Ask yourself, ‘Why would this photo catch peoples attention?’

Your Logo
The method that I went with, and perfect for branding your blogs name and logo. It allows you to be constantly exposing your followers to your brand – which will definately help with brand recognition. If you have a long logo, then you may have to rework the design to make it fit into the square template Twitter uses.

2. Your Twitter Background

When people receive an email, letting them know that you are now following them, the first thing they will do is click on the link through to your profile. Your Twitter background is the first impression of your blog that they  will see. Is it a good first impression?

I was once told:

‘You only get one chance to make a good first impression’

Now knowing this take a look at your Twitter background and ask yourself,  ‘Is this the first impression that I want to be giving?’

At the top of this post I included an image of my new Twitter background. Personally I love it because it does everything that I want it to do, and it portrays the first impression I want people to have of the ‘StandOutBlogger brand’. So let’s pick it apart and analyze each section.

Continue Colours From Your Blog

The first thing you will probably notice when you visit @standoutblogger (feel free to follow) is that the background is blue. In fact it is two shades of blog that just happen to come out of the StandOutBlogger logo. I did this because I wanted people to be able to connect the Twitter account to this blog, and keeping the colours constant between both the blog and Twitter account helps do this.

Your Photo Or Logo

Continuing on from your Twitter picture,  your background is another great way to expand the branding of your blog. So if you are branding yourself, include a photo. ProBlogger is the perfect example of this:

Notice how although the photo itself is not really that special, the way he has edited it and how big it is, really makes his Twitter background stand out. However, also notice that Darren has also included the ProBlogger logo! As I am not looking to brand myself through this blog, but mainly the standout blogger name, which is why I only included the logo:

Credibility Builder

With there being so many blogs starting every day, why would people want to subscribe to yours over any other blog in your niche? Especially with people on Twitter constantly growing their followers – ‘What is going to make them stop and look at your Twitter again – AND follow through to your blog?’

If you are serious about building your influence with Twitter, I think you definately need to include some form of credibility builder. This is the part of the background that shows people that you know what you are talking about. This could be as simple as text saying ‘featured on (insert website here)’ or ‘As seen on TV’ or it could be an ebook like I have done.

Your constant battle as a blogger is to gain readers trust and I believe that we need to constantly be looking at ways to build our credibility. Using the ‘featured on’ tag lets followers know that someone else vouches for you, while the ebook portrays a perception of being a leader in your niche and that you know what you are talking about.

Do you have a Twitter background that you believe perfectly brands your blog? Or maybe you know another blogger that does… Feel free to link to them in the comments below and provide us all with a little inspiration.