Twitter's New Profile Layout

A header with its edges cut off

You open the business's Twitter account to post a weekend special and find the profile rearranged. The header spans the whole page, its logo has lost its top, and the phone number is gone.

Twitter began moving profiles to a new design on April 8. Artwork made for the old layout now sits in frames of a different shape.

The new layout gives a small business three things to set up on purpose: a wide header, a larger photo and one pinned tweet.

What the redesign changed

The profile now leads with pictures and lets the account holder choose what visitors see first:

• A wide header across the full width of the page, far larger than the old one.
• A larger profile photo, square, overlapping the lower left corner of the header.
• One pinned tweet held above everything else until you change it.
• Best tweets shown larger, picked by how much response each one drew.
• A choice of views for visitors: tweets, tweets with replies, or photos and videos.

The first three are yours to set, so they deserve the care.

Where the header gets trimmed

Twitter suggests a header of 1,500 by 500 pixels, three times as wide as it is tall. Other shapes are scaled and cropped to fit.

Even at the suggested size, not all of it shows everywhere. The visible slice changes with the width of the window, and the phone apps crop it to another shape.

The profile photo also covers the lower left corner. A logo, a face or a line of text placed there is hidden.

So treat the header as a photograph with a safe middle: the subject in the centre, background at the edges, and no words at all.

Sizes that crop badly

Headers from the old design were twice as wide as they were tall. In the new frame they lose bands at the top and bottom, often where the logo and phone number sat.

Lettered banners suffer most, clipped at the ends on one screen and covered by the photo on another. Half a phone number is worse than none.

Small images are stretched and turn soft, and very wide panoramas lose both ends, along with whatever made them worth using.

A photo that reads at thumbnail size

The profile photo appears beside every tweet in other people's timelines, at about the size of a fingernail. That is where most people see it.

A wide logo with the name spelled out becomes an unreadable strip. A simple mark, a single letter or the owner's face survives the shrinking.

Twitter suggests 400 by 400 pixels. Use the same image on your other accounts, so people recognise the business everywhere.

What the pinned tweet is for

Any of your own tweets can be pinned from the menu beneath it. It stays at the top of the profile until you unpin it or pin another.

Pinning does not send the tweet out again. The pin is for people who come to the profile itself, from your website, a search or a mention.

Those visitors want to know who you are and how to buy from you. Pin the answer: how to book, or the one offer that matters now, with a photo and a link.

Without a pin, the top of the profile is whatever was posted last, perhaps a reply to a stranger.

The bio and the link beneath it

The bio holds 160 characters. Fill them with the service, the area covered and the kind of customer, in plain words rather than a slogan.

The website field can point to any page. Choose the one a profile visitor needs, often the booking or contact page rather than the home page.

A worked example

A pet taxi in a suburban area drives dogs and cats to groomers, kennels and the airport with two vans. Customers book by phone or with a form on its website.

After the switch, its old header, a banner with the logo, a slogan and the phone number, lost its top and bottom, and half the logo sat behind the profile photo.

The profile photo was the full logo, shrunk until the letters blurred, and the top tweet was a retweet about last autumn's pet show.

The owner chose a header photograph of one van at the curb, a dog looking out of the side window, framed so the van sits in the middle third. There is no text in it.

The paw mark from the logo became the profile photo. The bio names the service, the areas covered and the hours, and links to the booking page.

A tweet about booking summer kennel rides, with a photo and the booking link, is pinned at the top, with a reminder to replace it in July.

Each part now does one job: the header shows the business at any width, the photo reads beside a tweet, and the pin answers a visitor's first question.

Keeping the profile current

A pinned tweet shows its date. A March sale still pinned in June suggests the account is unattended.

Review the pin whenever the season or the offer changes, and replace the header when the business changes.

The counter-case

A business that tweets rarely, or keeps an account only to hold its name, gains less from careful artwork. Its customers come through the website, the phone and the map.

Even so, people visit the profile to check that the business is real. Set up the three parts once, and pin a tweet pointing to the website and phone number.

For an account used every week, the case for doing it carefully is stronger, because the profile is where new followers decide.

Setting up the new profile

1. Look at the profile on a computer and on a phone.
2. Choose a header photo with the subject in the middle.
3. Keep text out of the header altogether.
4. Use a simple square mark for the profile photo.
5. Rewrite the bio in a customer's words.
6. Pin one tweet that says how to buy or book.
7. Review the pin each time the season changes.

Step six is the one most accounts skip. The header and photo are seen in passing, but the pinned tweet is what a visitor reads.

The same aim, a profile that says plainly what you do for clients, matters on LinkedIn, where one-click endorsements can fill a profile with skills nobody chose, as LinkedIn endorsements for skills you never listed explains.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.