Image Sizes for the New Twitter Profile Layout

[RaJesh Balakrishnan]

Over the past few months we’ve seen visuals become a huge element of the social media space. From Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram to the rapid growth of Snapchat, there’s no denying that visual content is on the rise. Over the past year, even the text-based Twitter has started to make images a huge part of their interface and user experience.

Last summer Twitter introduced lead generation cards, which allow users to respond to marketing calls-to-action without leaving Twitter or filling out forms. Next, they introduced expanded images, which meant brands could break through the noise on user timelines by automatically expanding any tweets with images or cards.

Last week, Twitter made its new layout available to the public. Its sleek new design allows all Twitter accounts (brands and personal handles) to show more personality (and “human-ness”, as DJ Waldow would say) within the Twittersphere. But before you opt into the new profile, whether you’re using Twitter for your company account or personal brand, you’ll want to take note of these changes:

Profile Header Photo

The header photos on the new Twitter profile pages are no longer located behind the profile picture as they were previously. Now, the header photo is located at the top of the page and stretches across the entire length of the screen at 1500x500 pixels. To add a header image, you can either upload a custom image or you can select a pre-loaded theme from Twitter's collection in the design tab on the settings page.

Profile Picture

The profile picture, now 400x400 pixels, is also much larger on the new profiles. In addition, it will no longer be located in the middle of the page. Instead, on the new profiles, your profile pic will be positioned toward the top left of the page, overlapping slightly with the bottom left corner of the header image.

Do not fear -- your current profile picture and header image with be automatically resized to fit the larger dimensions on the layout. But that doesn't mean you can't put some thought into two images that would work well together considering the new layout and dimensions, much like you would with your Facebook Page's images.

Additional Layout Changes

There are a number of additional changes to the general layout of the profile pages, as well. Here are some notable ones that probably won't affect how you design your profile, but are good to know in case you get confused about where things are located:

The name, handle, bio, and pictures are all now positioned on the left-hand side of the page, directly below the profile picture.
The "Who to Follow" and "Trends" modules can be found at the opposite side of the page.
The tabs that display tweets, following and, followers are to the right of the profile picture and directly below the header image.
There are now also additional tabs for Favorites, photos/videos, and lists included inline with the standard tabs.
On the new profile pages, your tweets -- you know, the actual content -- take up the majority of the page. They are listed vertically, by date, and you can scroll through them as you would a news feed. Another (more minor) difference is when you follow new people, that information is included among your list of tweets.

Finally, if you select one of the other tabs under your header image -- such as "Followers" or "Following," that information is presented to you in an entirely new way. Rather than a scrollable list, you get a Pinterest-like board of your followers or those you follow listed in boxes both vertically and horizontally across the screen.

Customizing How Tweets Appear

The new profile pages also offer three new features that customize the way your tweets appear when people visit your profile page, and allow you to customize the tweets that you see when you visit another profile page.

Best Tweets

Your most popular tweets -- those that are retweeted, favorited, and replied to the most -- will appear slightly larger on your profile page than the rest of your tweets, so others can easily identify and interact with your best content.

Pinned Tweets

You can now promote some of your own content on your profile page using pinned tweets. Essentially, this feature allows you to pin one of your tweets to the top of your profile page so anyone who visits your profile will see that tweet first. All you have to do to pin a tweet is click on the ellipses (the "More" menu) and select "Pin to Your Profile Page."

Filtered Tweets

When you visit another profile page, you have the ability to select the types of tweets you want to see, filtering in only the tweets with photos and videos or only the tweets with replies.

Because many of us are still waiting for the new layout, there's not a lot you can do now -- except perhaps prepare some new creative for your profile picture and header photo. But you can think about how you'll use these new features when they come your way -- which will be soon!

Helpful Links:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/arti ... new-design
http://havecamerawilltravel.com/photogr ... mage-sizes
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/new-t ... -layout-nj
http://blog.marketo.com/2014/04/getting ... ained.html