Go customized. Here’s a simple but powerful tip that more brands need to take advantage of on their social media channel design to establish a presence.

I recently spoke about the need to treat yourself as your most important client or you’ll perpetually push yourself to the bottom of the list. Knowing that this involves walking the walk and talking the talk, here’s a first example of a simple but very important self-branded piece that we often forget about because it can fade into the background – literally.

I’m speaking of custom design of your Twitter backgrounds, Facebook covers, LinkedIn cover pages and the like for your social media channels. Yes, when it comes to Twitter, you can find yourself a nice profile image and a bigger image that fits just above your Twitter stream. But the real opportunity to strike a presence for your brand is to utilize the blank canvas you’ve got around that stream. Don’t use those ordinary templates they give you. Do it right and hire a professional designer to spend a little time creating a background incorporates your logo, calls to action, your people, links to other channels and more.

Give this some thought for a moment: What are you trying to have people do when they come to your social media profile? Can’t the background help you communicate that next step? It doesn’t have to be complicated in nature – just move them along with some subtle references to your location or what you do.

In my case, I wanted a website-like feel that captured a captivating moment in Chicago, my logo, phone number and website address. Of course, being a fellow who has more of a flair for the written word than the custom designed background, I knew I needed some help. So I’d very much like to thank Silas Pepple and his talented web development team at Sipep Design for creating these custom backgrounds for Caliber’s brand on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Just by looking a tad more unique to the agency brand, the potential payoff in establishing a strong look that’s all your own on social media is big. If you like what you see here in these examples below, give Silas and his team a call at 866.535.7929 and I know they’d be glad to talk more about your ideas and goals for your social media channel backgrounds. No excuses this summer, people. It’s time to get to work on our own brands too.

Next up, I’ll show you one of the biggest elements you can work on for yourself right now that I’m not only psyched to be launching this week, but hope to give a bit of inspiration to you in your own agency’s self-branded efforts in the process. Stay tuned.