Social Media Marketing

Why do you need a personalized background (BG) for your Twitter Profile?

Personal branding is the key term here.

Let us look into the “WHY TO” for creating your own personal twitter background.

In our earlier article, Twitter, the power of Micro-blogging we have given few tips, tools, guides, how to use, free twitter background creating applications etc – Power Of Twitter article Link Here

Here are a couple reasons for why you might want to build your own BG for twitter:

WHY Twitter BG

Your Twitter BG should be created keeping in mind the above 4 categories:

BRAND – What does your Brand speak of

PRODUCT – Core Products Mentioned

AUDIENCE – Target Audience expectation

MESSAGE – What you intend to Tell them

Who needs to create a personalized twitter background profile?

Corporates, Professionals, Freelancers, Marketing Consultants, Freelance consultants, Artist, or anyone who needs to reach out to a target audience with a clear message, a personalized background helps you tell people who you are and what are you here for.

It also helps you to create a one pager profile including your core services, your skills, interests, website/blog & other details with your contact information for others to reach you directly.

For eg.

Take a look at our Customized Twitter Background, simple, nothing too flashy but yet creative and connecting with the user out there. We needed to keep in mind that:

1. We are a creative advertising & marketing agency with core services

2. Offering across multiple platforms.

3. We needed to portray ourselves as we really are, corporate yet creative and in sync with the latest in technology out there to help our clients achieve the best outcomes / goals.

@Techdivine

Make sure in the process of creating a customized creative twitter background, you do not forget who you really are and what is the message that you would like to give your user.

Guide to creating your own Twitter Background:

Size requirements: There are mainly two things you need to be sure of:

1. File size needs to be less than 800 Kb
2. Your Background image should fit into most screen resolutions (To be safe: Create an image higher than 1024 X 768 Pixels)

Next, the actual dimensions. This is important because improperly-sized images can be covered up by your Twitter profile or can start to tile, which often leads to an undesired effect. In most circumstances, you want your background to be large enough not to tile. To achieve this, the total image size should be around 1600px wide by 1200px tall. This encompasses almost all screen resolutions. The dpi can be kept at a little higher resolution of around 90 here for a high quality image.

Dimensions of Margins:

Right Side & Left Side: Maximum 240 Px width and Max 500 Px height

This is so as to keep in mind that the middle area of the twitter content does not majorly overlap the background image at most of the resolutions. Keep in mind that a computer with a low resolution of 800 X 600 Px will see only part of the images and not the whole picture / background image. So make sure, the text content in the design is always closer to the margin area and smaller in width size.

Creating a customized Twitter Page:

Use a background image that is free from copyrights or create your own using photoshop or such other image editing software.

How to plan a twitter background for your Personal Brand?

What we considered when we planned our Twitter BG:

What our Twitter BG means:

The core is the Coffee cup on top middle with the letters TD on top of the foam distinct denoting identity clearly visible across any platform and medium.

Techdivine Mark

The coffee mark denotes the core efforts and hours of inputs of a creative artist.

Dedicated Hours

The white badge denotes our flagship product which is social media marketing services.

social media services

The wood and pencil in the scene stand for traditional values, integrity, strength and ethics whereas the edge of the laptop denotes fresh ideas with the best that technology has to offer.

Strong Values

Monitoring tools

Finally on the left side our contact information with few of our core connecting platforms including Blog, SNS, site and our core products and services.

Social media connect

Just like we had planned above on how we needed to present ourselves to our friends, colleagues, peers etc via our twitter BG page, the first thing you need to do is create a simple storyboard of what you need to tell your audience. Once you are clear with that, start with the background of your design.

Step 1: Creating a Background – Select the right background that suits your theme, message and style.

Step 2: Select few Props for your page like Books, carts, chocolates, graphs, fabric etc depending on what is your core product and service.

Step 3: Make sure the Contact details furnished by you are accurate and not too complex for the reader to understand. Remember, the average surfer would spend not more than 15 – 30 secs on your page unless you have something very exciting and bang on target. So make sure the textual content is not too much, but has the right links and contact sources.

Step 4: Your Logo, icons for the pages should again be in sync with the theme you have selected.

Step 5: Once your image is ready, go to sign in to your twitter account, and follow the steps given below:

customize twitter

Done!

One very easy to use and yet wonderful site for creating your own twitter BG’s in seconds below:

http://www.freetwitterdesigner.com

Feel free to share your own creative designs for Twitter profiles too here with us.

Happy customized tweeting!

@techdivine

What is Twitter?
It is a Micro Blogging tool or to be more precise a super power packed micro blogging marketing tool used by millions of people growing at an unbelievable rate for social, professional and interest based activities.
It has a character limit of 140 characters to send messages termed as ‘tweet’ to those who are following that group / user profile.

Tweet with us @techdivine

What exactly does Twitter do for:

1. Professionals:
Professionals can search across twitter in the Twitter website’s ‘find people’ section where one can search for groups, hobbies, topics, names, profiles, organizations etc and join in the conversation prism. It helps tweeters to find jobs, learn more about a particular subject, debate, understand, research, stay in tune with latest updates in their field of interest, find jobs, post openings, enhance skills, share industry updates etc

2. Individuals:
Individuals can be a part of this amazing learning opportunity. They can join in the conversations about their interesting subject topics, converse and learn faster than before. Following varied profiles of similar interest groups gives one the flexibility to learn from multiple domains, platforms across the internet in a matter of seconds without having to search through the internet for the same.

3. Free Birds:
Free birds are those who are not associated professionally or otherwise with a particular topic but just want to stay updated across industries, friends, colleagues etc.

What is the process of Tweeting?
Tweeting refers to sending (currently) 140 characters or less including spaces in text format using twitter website. These are referred to as tweets and can be just plain text, contain urls, redirects to sites, etc and as of date no images or videos.

Can one find a way to share videos or pictures through twitter too?
Yes, soon enough twitter itself seems to be planning to share videos and pictures through its tweet. Other than that one can access varied sites and tools to do the same online.

How is it that sometimes one finds scores of users following a particular profile where you find unwanted chatter and nothing practical or logical?
That is the best part of any social networking platform. The concept of ‘content filtering’ rests with the audience and not the owner of those profiles. If the reader finds the topic / company / person interesting, one would want to follow and keep track to stay updated for the same.

What are Hashtags & Geotags?
Hashtags denote # with the name of a particular topic. For eg. ‘#Yoursmq’ denotes conversations under that particular topic. This is a good method to generate group discussions and following on that particular topic especially if the user creating the hashtag topic name has many different products / services to be offered or discussed. It creates an easy method to generate group discussions.
Geotags are location based tagging for others to know where the users are from. It is a more professional way to enable geo-tags and tweet. It also adds authenticity to the profile of the user.

What is re-tweet:
The re-tweeters are your online brand ambassadors. This is an amazingly powerful marketing benefit reaped by professionals and organizations. Once you tweet a message across to your followers, if a user reading it likes the message or it appeals well to them, he / she might re-tweet as in send the same message across to his / her followers and so on. Thus, your conversation reaches millions of users in just fraction of seconds.

Other benefits of using twitter tools:

On your mobile phone: Use & tweet while on the go. Go to twitter mobile settings and check for your carrier of mobile’s listing. Follow the simple steps mentioned and tweet while on the go. Also, if you want to follow someone’s tweets wherever you are, you can also ‘turn on’ the mobile updates option from that user so that you get sms every time the user tweets.

Some useful twitter related websites:

Hootsuite:

The owl keeps track of your conversations on Twitter and few other profiles like Facebook, Facebook Fan page, Linkedin etc  It is a powerful, free and easy to use tool to monitor conversations online and schedule your tweets over a period of time
http://www.hootsuite.com

Twitter Search:
http://www.search.twitter.com
This website lets you monitor your and competitors brand mentions across the globe. Type in the name in the search box and find out the conversation mentions across sites.

Tweetdeck:
For those managing multiple twitter accounts: A powerful desktop application tool to get a hold of and give you complete control over your multiple twitter profiles.
http://www.tweetdeck.com

Creating Background Profiles for Twitter:
http://www.mytweetspace.com
http://freetwitterdesigner.com

Want to Know WHY to create & What are the aspects one needs to keep in mind for designing your own completely Personalized Twitter Backgrounds using sites / tools: Stay updated with us: New Post on ‘WHY to create your own BG for Twitter’ coming soon:  Click Here  & Subscribe for Free to our RSS Feeds

For any queries, feel free to write to us: socialmedia@techdivine.com and do share your experiences with us.

Happy Tweeting!

Stay Connected.

Ananth V

Techdivine Creative Services

Social Media Marketing, Design Services, Your SMQ & Creative Writing

Creating An amazing GLASS TEXT with Adobe Photoshop

You can take any background to work  with.

I am using this pink coloured striped pattern for my glassy text effect that I have created using the same Adobe Photoshop Software.

Click On Images to Enlarge.

Fig1

Fig 1.

Choose a stylish font you have or any other you wish to and type whatever you want and then duplicate this text.

I have typed our Organization’s (Techdivine) abbreviation TD.

Fig2

Fig 2.

Step 1
Set the fill opacity of the text to 0% and start off the effects.

Fig3

Fig 3.

Step2
Go to blending by right clicking on the text layer and selecting Blending Options

Fig4

Fig 4.

We are using lots of effects from the Blending Options. We are also adding Contours to make the effect on the text more real. As Below:

1. Starting with Drop Shadow
2. Select the Drop Shadow option
3. In the right pane, change Blend Mode to Normal and color black
4. Set Opacity to 65%
5. Angle to 25°, check the box Use Global Lighting
6. Set Distance to 20px
7. Spread to 12% and Size to 23 px
   

Fig5

Fig 5.

Step 3

• We will now give Inner Glow
• select Inner Glow from left pane.
• Change Blend Mode to Color Dodge
• Set opacity to 70%
• Noise 0%
• Set the color to grey shade (#9b9b9b)
• From the Elements
• Change Techniques to Softer
• Source Edge
• Choke 0%
• Size 20px
• From Quality
• Edit the Contour option create the shape like in the image below

Fig6

Fig 6.

Back to the Quality
Set the value of Range to 55% and Jitter 0%
Fig7

Fig 7.

Step 4

• Now Select Inner Shadow from left pane.
• Change the Blend Mode to Overlay and color White
• Set Opacity to 75%
• Angle to 28°
• Distance 5px
• Choke 0%
• Size 20%

Fig8

Fig 8.

Step 5

• Select Bevel & Emboss from left pane
• In the right pane under Structure
• Change the Style to Inner Bevel
• Technique to Chisel Hard
• Set the value of Depth to 750%
• Change the Direction to Up
• Set the value of Size and Soften to 1px
• Under the Shading options
• Angle is 28° by default
• Set the Altitude to 20°
• Edit the Contour option and create the shape like in the image below

Fig9

Fig 9.

Check the box Anti-aliased
Now Change the Highlit Mode to Overlay and change the color to grey shade (#9b9b9b) with Opacity 35%
Change Shadow Mode to Overy and change the color to black with opacity 50%
Fig10

Fig 10.

Step 6

• We will now give a stroke to the text
• Select Stroke from the left pane
• Now in the right pane
• Set the Stroke Size to 8px
• Change the Position to Center
• Blend Mode to Soft Light and set the Opacity to 55%.
• Change the Fill Type to Gradient
• Change the Gradient pattern as shown below in the image and check the box Reverse
• Change the Style as shown and check the box Align with Layer.
• Set the Angle to 90° and scale to 100%

Fig11

Fig 11.

Step 7

• At this step our half work is done
• Select Satin from the left pane
• Change Blend Mode to Soft Light and color to Black
• Set opacity to 75%
• Set the Angle to 130°
• Change the values of Distance to 16px and Size to 5px
• Change the Contour to 5th pattern Check the box Anti-aliased and uncheck the box Invert.

Fig12

Fig 12.

Now our image should be looking like this
Fig13

Fig 13.

But we can still work on our text to get much better output and will look much more awesome.
Select the Text copy which you at the very start made and hide the original text layer. This time we will work with some spectacular highlights and some very soft shadows falling to the backgroud.

Step 8

• Go to the blending mode of this layer
• Change the Fill opacity of this layer to 25%.
• Under Advance Blending
• Check the boxes of Blend Interior Effects as Group
• and Transparency Shapes Layer and rest uncheck the boxes.

Fig14

Fig 14.

• Step 9
  
• Select Bevel & Emboss
• Come to the right pane
• Under Structure select Style as Inner Bevel,Technique as Smooth
• Set the Depth value as 70%
• Select Up Direction
• Set the values of Size to 25px and Soften 0px
• Under Shading Set the Angle to 80°
• Uncheck the box of Global Light and set the Altitude to 30°
• Change the Gloss Contour to 4th pattern from second line in the menu and check the box Anti-aliased
• Change Highlight Mode to Color Dodge and color White with opacity 70%
• Change Shadow Mode to Color Burn and color to grey shade (#9b9b9b) with opacity 45%

Fig15

Fig 15.

• Step 10
  
• We will now give some shadow to this layer.
• Select Drop Shadow and change the values as below
• Blend Mode Soft Light and color Black with opacity 50%
• Angle to 28° and check the box Use Global Light
• Distance 3px
• Spread 0px
• Size 20px and Check the box for Anti-aliased for Contour under Quality.

Fig16

Fig 16.

Step 11

In the left pane under Bevel & Emboss select Contour
Set the Range to 40% and check the box Anti-aliased.

Fig17

Fig 17.

We are almost done with our text part. The Image should now look somewhat like this
Fig18

Fig 18.

But you must be wondering that there isnt any light reflection on our background image. So at our last step we will complete that too.
Just create a new layer under the original text or above the background image

Step 12

After creating the new layer and as this layer is active press Ctrl+G to group this layer.
What happens when we change the Blending Mode of this group to Color Dodge is that, Dodging this grouped layer is a quick way of blending with white color with transparent layer. And with the new layer still active, while pressing Ctrl click on any of the text layer to make the selection of the text.

With your empty color dodged layer selected, click the Add layer mask  icon in the bottom of your Layers palette and then do a Ctrl + I to invert the mask. You’re ready to start dodging.

Use a soft white brush, about 45px in size and 15% flow, and make some gentle strokes in front of the glass’s highlights. You can tone down the layer’s opacity (80%) if things get a little too bright.  Final Image Below:

Final Image

Have Fun!

Techdivine Creative Services

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Related Posts:

How to Create Text on FLAMES

How to Create Rain Effect with Photoshop

Creating Special Effects with Photoshop

Creating ICE Effect using Adobe Photoshop

In this tutorial, we will learn how to Create Artificial Rain effect on any image.

To begin with select an image to which you want to add rain effect. I have used this image which one of  my colleague has shot while his trip to RIE Mysore. Fig.1

RIE Mysore (Click to Enlarge) -Fig.1.

In this step we will first make a new layer and apply Clouds it.
Make a new layer.
Fig.2

New Layer (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.2.

Now go to menu Filter>Render>Clouds
Fig.3

Cloud Filter (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.3.

With the new layer still selected, reduce the opacity to 70%
Fig.4

Opacity - Fig.4.

Now we will add some noise to this layer.
Go to menu Filter>Noise>Add Noise
Fig.5

Add Noise (Click to Enlarge) Fig.5.

Set the value of Amount to 60%
Select Gaussian from Distribution and check Monochromatic
Fig.6

Filter Noise (Click to Enlarge) Fig.6.

In this step our work is almost 70% done. We will now give some motion blur to the same layer we were working on.
Go to menu Filter>Blur>Motion Blur
Fig.7

Blur Effect (Click to Enlarge) Fig.7.

Set the angle to 70° and distance to 10 pixels.
Fig.8

Rain (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.8.

Change the blending mode of this layer to Screen
Fig.9

Blending Mode - Fig.9.

We have almost through with our work, just we need to give it a final touch by different blends and contrasts.

So first we will flatten the layer on which we were still working on to the image we are using.
Fig.10

Flatten Image (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.10.

Now go to menu Image>Auto Levels.  This will make our rain look little more realistic.
Fig.11

Image Level (Click to Enlarge) Fig.11.

At this stage, You can do some color correction, contrast settings to suit your image style.

Go to menu Image>Adjustments> (Select the option that suits your image style to adjust Contrast/Color etc)

With this, our artificial rain is complete and the image now looks like this
Fig.12

Final Rain Effect (Click to Enlarge) - Fig.12.

Final Image to compare the Before & After effect:

Rain Effect Before/After (Click to Enlarge)

Hope you liked this tutorial!

Lots more coming your way.

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Also, do write to us for any queries or views or comments:
admin@techdivine.com

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Yasir A

Designer

Techdivine Creative Services

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How to create Glowing Lines Tutorial

Part 1 – Photoshop Tutorial – Creating Fire & ICE

Stunning Rays Text Effect in Photoshop

Being an art student, as I would like to always proudly refer myself as, over the last two weeks many have asked me to put forth my art works and some styles that I have been using to get and create my digital art works…. And those using traditional media…..

Many of these artworks have also been sold as Digital Paintings and received excellent acclaim for eg. City Traffic, Actors Life, Tribute, 26 years and many others have brought about fabulous reviews from all over…..

The digital artworks are available for sale in varied sizes of 11″ X 11″, 22″ X 16″, 8″ X 8″ etc….. and are available for purchase…

For enquiries contact the author at: ananthv9@gmail.com

So here are few of them with their details….

Some of these works have earned me good accolades over the last three years…. With media, International Computer Graphic societies, India’s contemporary upcoming and famous artist directories, work and projects wise….

My works include “Photography, 3d still Works, Animation, Walk through, 2d graphic art works, Sketches, Charcoal (colour & B&W), Clay, Sculpture and relief works …

For digital media, the skill sets that I have used are as follows: Maya 7, 3DSMAX8, Photoshop, Corel Draw, Illustrator, Paint Shop pro, Combustion….

Few of my works:

1. Reflections of the Soul: Skills used : Photoshop, Illustrator, Paint Shop ProThis Cover art is for the Coffee table Poetry book:

“EXPRESSIONS” titled Reflections of the soul

This cover art speaks of LIFE being inside a bubble where you have different memories and emotions…. that hold you close and sometimes take you to the edge of your life…. the colours mean different expressions of a soul such that: Brown colour depicts the sad memories, green depicts hope and pink the good of health and happy memories…. and everything we do gets reflected all around us…..

REFLECTIONS OF THE SOUL

Related Links:

http://www.lulu.com/content/709570

2. My Workstation: Completely done in 3dsmax and textures created and painted in Photoshop and Illustrator…. displayed in International CG society…..

3. The Alley: Done in 3DSMax and textures painted and composited in Photoshop

4. Few other Sketches, relief works, crayon, ink and paint sketches, graphic pen works…..

26 Years AnanthV

Actors Life at Directors Cut

One of my earliest works on ” Famous Illustrations reproduced – quick digital sketch competition

City Traffic & Jammed Signals

Ashta Vinayaka Ganesha with numbers

The Journey to Freedom

Joyride

Ocean Colours – Splash for HOLI

Relationships

ALL split up

Target of Attention

Tribute

and loads more to be updated……… keep watching the space……

Thanks

ANANTHANARAYANAN V