What You Need To Know About the New Twitter Layout

It would seem the suspicions of Mashable are confirmed. Twitter is going through a big design overhaul.

Just yesterday, Twitter announced that a new profile design is coming for the 140 character social giant. So far, the layout has been limited for use by a select number of subscribers.

If you haven’t seen the new look yet, you’ll very likely see your profile page has been updated in the coming weeks. With this change imminent, it’s important you make sure your page is sharp and ready.

As a side note: new users are automatically introduced to the new change. Twitter goes through a quick tutorial for new users, so it could be beneficial to start a test-profile for practice sake.

The New Twitter Layout and What You Should Know About It

Here’s an example of the new layout from the Twitter Blog – you’ll notice some big changes right away

What does it remind you of? It looks like Facebook has had quite an influence on the recent update. From top to bottom:

Profile Header

Instead of the header photos located behind the profile picture, they are located at the top and fill the length of the screen. This new size is 1500 pixels across, which is important to remember when recreating a quality profile header. To add, simply upload a custom image (which is a must) or select a standard theme from Twitter’s collection in the design tab on the settings page (you shouldn’t have to worry about that if you created a custom image).

Profile Picture

The profile picture is now much larger for new profiles (a big plus) at 400 x 400 pixels. Again, make sure your image is properly formatted for the new layout. As you can seen in the screenshot above, it is no longer located in the middle of the page, it has moved to the top left and will be slightly overlapping the header image on the bottom left (something to consider if your header has important info there).

No need to panic if you already have a profile image – it has already been resized and fit to the larger dimensions. With the new layout and customization options available, you should change your images anyway to compliment each other, much like you do on your Facebook page (you should also optimize your Facebook page if you haven’t already).

Other Layout Updates

Along with the images adjustments, here are a few of the other notable updates to the Twitter layout:

• Your information (name, handle, bio, pictures, etc) are all located on the left of the page right below the profile picture.
• Who to Follow and Trends are now located along the right-hand side, just moved across the page.
• Your Tweets, Followers, and Following tabs are to the right of the profile picture.
• New to the tabs menu are Favorites and Photos/Videos. There is also a List drop-down tab with more options.

On the page, your tweets and content (the important part) take up most of the page. As before, they are listed vertically by date and you can scroll along like a regular news feed. Though it’s a small change, when you follow new people their information is now included with your list of tweets. We will see whether this makes a difference or not but I believe it could have a positive impact on creating a following faster when linking to Influencers. I know I’ll be checking on that in the coming weeks.

A bigger change, when you select the Following or Followers tab, you no longer get the scrollable list. Now, you get a sort of Pintrest-y panoramic view:

Pretty cool right? It is a much more engaging look and I think taking advantage of the picture layouts can really help you build an audience base with people searching though other’s followers.

Custom Tweet Appearances

This new layout also offers 3 new features for you to customize how your tweets appear when people look at your page, and even how you see tweets on profiles you visit.

1| Best Tweets

Your “best tweets” (the ones that are retweeted, replied to, and favorited the most) will show up larger on your profile than other tweets. Your best foot is always forward, so that’s a pretty useful feature.

2| Pinned Tweets

If you want a piece of content to show up front and center, you can now “pin” tweets to the top of your profile. This allows you to showcase your pinned tweet for visitors to see first. To pin a tweet, simply click on the […] tab in your tweet and select Pin to Your Profile Page.

3| Filtered Tweets

As I mentioned earlier, you can filter the tweets you want (or don’t want) to see when visiting another person’s profile. This includes seeing only tweets with replies, or ones with photos, etc. This is still a new change and we’ll likely see some more tweaks and adjustments in the coming weeks.

What to Do Now

Besides testing the layout with a new profile, there isn’t a whole lot you can do with your current profile during the change-over. I do highly recommend you create some preliminary photos and ideas on content you want to feature with the new layout and dimensions I explained above. Get pictures formatted and maybe select some of your best tweets to be pinned, as it will be an quicker transition when you do see your profile change soon!

With the new layout of Twitter being rolled out, I want to get some of your input on the design changes. What do you expect to change with the adjustment? I’d love to see some of your comments on it.

With all this talk of design changes, how do you feel about your OWN website? Is the design up-to-specs with your social media accounts? My eBook, 25 Website Must Haves for Driving Traffic and Leads, gives an in-depth look at what you need to have on your website to get more prospects and convert them into quality leads. Check it out!