Twitter’s New Look Opens Up New Opportunities

Get your cover photos ready, because there is a new Twitter in town. If you haven’t heard by now, Twitter has a new look. Celebrities like Zac Efron, Channing Tatum and John Legend have already received the update. And for the rest of us non-celebrities, Twitter will roll-out its new look to all accounts in the following weeks. If your business hasn’t made the switch yet, here are a few things to keep in mind with Twitter’s revamped image. The big picture.  Twitter’s latest redesign resembles the bold user-friendly look of Facebook and Google+. The profile picture is larger and moved to the left of the page, and the header photo is now the full width of the page, making it the biggest and boldest element. The larger header images also offer businesses the opportunity to feature promotions in a much more attractive spot, rather than building it into the smaller header photo and the background image of the page. “Brands now have a bigger scale to take advantage of the larger header images and profile pictures to further highlight their message,” said Jonny Egan, Digital Producer and Web Developer with No Limit Agency*.   Size matters. If you’ve neglected adding a header photo to your page, now is the time to get the graphics team working on an image so that it’s ready to go live when the account switch happens. Twitter has been testing the header photos at 1500x500 pixels and cropped to a 2:1 aspect ratio. And the new testing size for a profile picture is 400x400 pixels. Say goodbye to the background image. With new additions to the Twitter profile pages, custom background images will be eliminated and replaced with a standard light gray background. This change makes utilizing the header space even more important; it will be the prime spot highlighting promotional items and other brand messages. Take a picture, it lasts longer. Like the bigger profile images, pictures will also be playing a more prominent role in your Twitter profile. The standard column to house all your 140-word tweets no longer exists. The page is now set up in a mosaic-like column with varying sizes and positions (think Pinterest). If your company is sticking to text-only tweets it may be time to rethink your social strategy. “Photos and images can really portray a brand’s message in ways that sometimes words cannot,” said Adam Daniels, Digital Coordinator with No Limit Agency.  “With Twitter allowing only 140 characters, images give brands an opportunity to portray messages that go well beyond 140 characters.” Show off your best tweets. The best tweets and “pinned” tweets will now get the star treatment. If you’ve had a tweet go viral or receive a lot of interaction it will now be bolded and displayed prominently on your feed. The redesign also gives brands the opportunity to choose their favorite tweets to “pin” at the top of the page. If you have a promotion or something new to share, the featured pinned tweets offer a new way to get the message out. “This should be very exciting for brands. For the first time, they’re able to streamline how their Twitter followers see popular content,” Daniels explained. Other bells and whistles. Other than the larger images and new layout, there are a few other fun updates to be aware of. Photos and videos now have their own page where they can easily be viewed and watched.  Also, the following and followers pages have adopted a card design approach where profile pictures, header images and bios are displayed on a virtual tile board.