Now Twitter Looks More Like Facebook

Last week Twitter unveiled a new profile design. As of this week some users had new profiles, while others still had the old design. Not surprisingly, however, new Twitter looks a lot like Facebook and Google+.

On your profile page  – not the home feed – a cover photo dominates the screen, with your profile picture on the bottom left of it (just like Facebook). You are able to pin an important tweet to the top (again, just like Facebook) and your other tweets will follow below it. Everything is bigger and more spaced out than before. Tweets that are more popular will be bigger than others. Mashable offers step by step photos at what creating a profile with the new design looks like here.

Other than the fact that it looks eerily similar to Facebook, at first, we didn’t feel strongly about the new design. Because – as Wired points out – we’re not using Twitter to look at user profiles. We use Twitter for the timeline. As do most people who use this social network for marketing, information gathering, or social purposes. The new design is for the casual user. The report concludes:

“It does make Twitter easier for newcomers to understand, offering a shinier, more product-like public face to people who arrive directly at a user page… But it also positions the Twitter profile as a destination unto itself, apart from the newsfeed entirely. It’s a concession to an entirely different use case than the one Twitter was built upon.”

It’s the most drastic redesign for Twitter since its inception in 2006, and a shifting of gears. Twitter is making it appealing and easy to establish a brand presence, a home base on the network. It’s an opportunity to put a bold, eye-catching face on you brand, when someone arrives at your Twitter page.

Once your Twitter account has reflected the change, we suggest creating a new cover photo that immediately communicates your brand message, and also pinning an important recent tweet to the top.