Twitter Has a New Tweet!!

Well, the people over at Twitter are at it again.  There is yet another new user experience rolling out.  Tagline: A faster, simpler way to stay close to everything you care about.  Now, while I am a creature of habit, and these things usually annoy me more than make me breath a sigh of relief, I must say that they may be on to something this time.  Twitter has gone back to the basics and decided to streamline their overall experience, while adding features for business users as well.  I won’t go into all of the details because Twitter has a blog and landing page dedicated to explaining the when, how, and why behind these new changes.  What I will do, however, is highlight some of the basics just to give you a taste until the new site rolls out to you fully.

New Site Navigation

New Tab Menu

Twitter has developed what they’re calling the Tab Menu, that you see above.  These are the icons that will now grace all user experiences Twitter.  Every site (full or mobile), plug-in, and app that they own will have the same simple to understand menu icons that allow you to quickly get to what you want.  The idea is that once you are familiar with these icons you will more easily be able to “follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new.”  They have changed the TweetDeck platform to mirror that changes too, since they own TweetDeck now.  Check out the new Twitter for Android profile page, and then meet me on the other side for the lowdown on the new site layout!

Twitter for Android

New Layout

The layout of the site has changed too.  Here is a screen shot of our homepage:

New Homepage

As you can see the content is now on the right, and your vitals (as I like to refer to them) are on the left.  You’ll also notice that the navigation tabs have the icons that I talked about above.  On this main full site, the words accompany the icons, this is not the case on the mobile site and in the Android and iPhone apps.  Profile pages will look like this:

New Profile Layout

Notice the extra head room! Another cool feature is that your media will be embedded into your tweets.  I’m guessing this is with the help of Twitter’s new native posting services that can replace services like bit.ly and TwitPic.  I know!  The plot thickens!

New Enhanced Profile

That brings us to the main event. Along with Twitter’s anouncement of the new site for all users, they have introduced “enhanced profiles” for business users. The idea is that business pages should feel more like the brand of the bussiness. They have allotted more head space for businesses to add images to their profile header, and will have the option for a promoted tweet that will act as a “sticky” post at the top of your page, and will automatically expand whatever media is in the tweet.  Check this out:

Disney Pixar Enhanced Profile

Cool, huh?  I think that this will be great for businesses.  Branding the entire online presence has always been one of the the strategies that produces that most Brand recognition, loyalty, and familiarity.  Twitter is making this enhanced profile available to 21 (big time) partner business right now, but will soon roll it out to all businesses!  We, here at KR Social Media Consulting are excited, and I hope you are too!  Sound off on what you think in the comments!