Having a YouTube and Twitter presence takes effort, creativity and time. When you’re just a teeny tiny little dot on a digital map that wraps around the world, standing out is no small task. The people with the largest following didn’t simply stumble upon it, they planned and executed.

No matter how brilliant your content is, it doesn’t matter if nobody knows. The reality is this net is spread so wide that people simply don’t have time to let you convince them. You need to set the hook at the first bite.

Twitter and YouTube backgrounds are part of your branding, a form of self expression with pixels. The all-important stand-out factor must be achieved, if not then you will simply be forgotten, or never even known.

Understanding the importance of uniqueness with Twitter and YouTube presence is the first step to getting there. The heavy hitters, or rather the ones with the heavy hits, do not have default backgrounds and uninspired layouts. ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’ may be good advice to give, but we rarely follow it ourselves. The truth is the cover sells it.

Be bold, but not too bold

YouTube layouts are important, if there is too little going, the lack of creativity will spell out b-o-r-i-n-g. Even worse it may leave an impression of laziness, especially if you’re promoting a service or business.

Lack of effort is not an idea you want people to have of you, especially when one finger click is all it takes to move on to the next. YouTube may be a wondrous way to introduce yourself to the world, but don’t forget about all the little interesting icons placed all about, just begging for a click.

Just as a YouTube layout with too little going on spells failure, so does one with too much. We have all been to that page…the one that suddenly blasts us with amazingly intrusive music. The over-the-top page that has a jumble of insanity graffiti-ed all over the place is simply ineffective.

Putting too much in one place just buries the important stuff. Sure, you aren’t coming across as boring, but you certainly are running the risk of being annoying.

Don’t become overwhelmed by digital road-rage

It’s not hard to put people off on the Internet. The heavy traffic on the world wide web has lead to digital road-rage. This is evident in most forums and comments…pretty much everywhere online.

One slip-up, and you have a bunch of strangers thinking you are stupid, and without so much as a hint of concern for your feelings, they will tell you so. Some people can be especially cruel when behind a computer screen, and those people usually love an audience. The point is, not all is fair in love and war…or social networking.

So if you are reevaluating your traffic, or lack thereof, you may really want to consider how well your Twitter and YouTube backgrounds are working for you. What can you do to make it better? No matter how talented some people are, not everybody has that creative bone.

Don’t worry if that’s where you fall, there are tons of templates to work with. Look around at other background pages, pay attention to what grabs your attention and where information is placed. Perfecting your Twitter and YouTube pages calls for fine-tuning, since we rarely get it totally right the first time.

YouTube and Twitter backgrounds have to be unique to stand out, standing out is your key to success. Customization is an important tool in making your star shine in this giant universe.

- Josiah Staggs

Warmpicture Team Author

Josiah Staggs is a web designer, marketer and technology enthusiast. He’s been writing for over 5 years and currently runs the YouTube Layouts site BackgroundTube.com.