Adam Justice     socialmediasun.com

Last Week Twitter introduced an updated profile design based on a prominent header image. The change was designed to enhance the enhanced profile pages that Twitter launched for advertisers, which also allowed businesses to pin tweets. The new design overlays your avatar, bio, link, name and location over the header, which is roughly displayed as 520×260.

It’s really a toss up over whether the enhanced profile with a header or the traditional profile is more aesthetically appealing. Since there is a lot of text and your avatar displayed over the image, it is very easy for beginners to make their Twitter profile look worse. At the moment the new header is optional, and your profile will keep its traditional layout unless you upload a header image. Here are some things you need to know in regards to this latest Twitter change, which is drastic in terms of Twitter upgrades.

Keep Your Background in Mind

Before you open up Photoshop (or Paint, which appears to be popular among Twitter users wanting to try out the new header feature) upload a basic image and give your overall design some thought. If you’ve invested heavily in a background image, or especially like your current design, adding the header may not be the best move. You’ll want to make sure that your overall design expresses some form of brand continuity, and integrating a header may require a new background to keep your design from feeling redundant, crowded, cheap or unusual.

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Melinda Emerson     succeedasyourownboss.com

Twitter is the perfect marketing tool for a business in start-up or reinvention mode and anyone trying to position themselves as a thought leader in their industry. There are several reasons why Twitter is good for business. You can brand or rebrand yourself quickly. You can use your personal name or a nickname such as @Taxmama, @Publicityguy or @SmallBizLady to build a Twitter brand.

Twitter accounts are free, but you pay with your time, so you want to be strategic about what you share. You can use Twitter to listen to potential customers and competitors and no one will know. Twitter is data-rich! You can test ideas, products and price points for market research. The real-time feedback you will receive will be invaluable target market data for your business. If you are preparing to launch a book or brand, you can never start marketing yourself too soon online, and Twitter is a great place to start. Here are the 12 advanced Twitter techniques to grow your small business.

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Jackie Roy     engage.tmgcustommedia.com

So, your company is on Twitter.

That’s great, but unfortunately Twitter isn’t The Field of Dreams, and if you build it (or set up an account) followers won’t always come.

Don’t worry, building an audience does take time, but if you have a strategy in place it doesn’t have to be a hassle.

What does it take to get some love from the Twitter-sphere?

Here are 5 best practices to build your company’s following:

1. Be consistent and tweet throughout the day.

On Twitter, 75 million users generate 140 million tweets per day. 92% of RTs on Twitter happen with the first hour and 97% of @mentions responding to a Tweet occur within that same time period.

Bottom-line: there is a lot going on.

So how do you get noticed with the people who matter most to your company? Tweet interesting content, create tweets between 120-130 characters to make it easy for your followers to RT, use links, @mention followers, and, most of all, be consistent.

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Maddie Grant     socialmediatoday.com

I spoke last week at the Council of Manufacturing Associations, to an audience of 200 CEOs.  My panel was with Christopher Gahan, Chief of Staff for  Senator Toomey of PA, and Shana Glickfield of Beekeeper Group, a digital public affairs agency we work closely with.  The topic was Twitter and Advocacy.

I was impressed that there were several CEOs in the room actively using Twitter, but of course we got some pushback. One CEO in particular asked about frequency of tweeting – he said his staff told him he had to tweet regularly during the day to make it worthwhile. He had thrown his hands up in frustration and decided not to bother.

I told him I disagreed with what his staff said.

Yes, it doesn’t make much sense to start a Twitter account and not use it. Yes, the more you use it, the more you build audience and the more you build relationships.

But in my opinion, one good tweet from a CEO is worth more than 100 tweets from other staff.

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Jackie Roy     ragan.com

Whether you want to find interesting content or engage in worthwhile conversation, one of these hashtags will work for you.

If you’re on Twitter, you’ve likely pondered—more than once—about which hashtag to use for a tweet.

Or, perhaps you don’t know the best way to connect with people who share your interests. (This doesn’t include Justin Bieber.)

Or, maybe you’re a Twitter lurker and you want a more efficient way to find content related to, well, content.

Hashtags are a valuable resource for people who want to easily share or find things related to their interests.

Twitter has more than 170 million users and sees more than 300 million tweets every day. It’s easy to get lost in Twitter’s black hole. With the right hashtag, you can clear some of the clutter, search for interesting topics, and engage in worthwhile conversations.

I’d like to share 12 of the most-used content hashtags you should bookmark, follow, tweet and use to connect with other content-savvy minds. Each hashtag has a sample tweet to give you a taste of what you’ll find when you use it.

Twelve (actually 14) examples of #hashtags are shown in this post.

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