Twitter masterclass: Learning the basics

Pimp your profile

At the top right, click on 'settings'. Here you can enter a 160-character note about yourself, change the colour of your profile, add a link and a picture of yourself, and even change the background picture.

It's worth adding a picture of yourself, known as an avatar, because many tweeters won't even look at a profile that has the default brown and blue image. Profile pictures don't have to be of your face, but something arresting will grab people's attention. Sometimes memes grow around profile pics, such as cartoon pictures or photos of the tweeter as a child.

If you're tweeting as a company or service, don't forget to add your logo and perhaps make your profile's colours match your branding -- ours is yellow. You can also link to your Web site.