NOTE: Unfortunately, Twitter has stated that they will no longer allow animated avatars to be uploaded to their site. If you already have one, NEVER change your avatar or you won’t be able to make a new one. They grandfathered those who already had it, so if you have one, you can keep it, but if you don’t, you’re out of luck But hey – while you’re here, why not peek around the blog and learn how to build a work at home business?

Some people love ‘em, some people hate ‘em. I loved it when I saw it, so I did it. Some people unfollow when you do it. I’m talking about animating your avatar on Twitter!

If you head over to look at my avatar here: http://www.Twitter.com/TiffanyDow you will see my animated avatar. I saw another girl whose pic was animated and DM’d her to ask how she did it and she told me, so I’ll pass it along to you:

Step 1: Create a short video clip – under 8 seconds. Mine was 3 seconds. All I’m doing is waving and mouthing “Hi!” I used my handy dandy Flip Mino. I plugged it in and imported it to Camtasia.

Step 2: Produce the video as a GIF file. I chose 64 colors. I played around with this – too many colors made the file too big. Too few and was just a bunch of dots hopping around the screen. Set it to custom size 150×112. On file size, make sure both options are checked – Disable callout fade…and use instant zoom-n-pan. Both options help reduce file size. Name it and finish it.

Step 3: Log into Twitter and go to Settings – Picture. Click browse and find the GIF file on your computer. When I tried doing it through FireFox, it kept saying Twitter is over capacity. But I then tried through AOL and it worked instantly!

Now enjoy your animated Twitter avatar. I’m animated on other people’s profiles, too – in my thumbnail. This could attract more followers who think it’s neat or repel people who hate the movement.

Tiff

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