Everyone knows how valuable a tool Twitter is. Whether it’s your personal account or a Twitter feed for your brand’s messages, it has the potential to reach hundreds, thousands, and even millions of people. This probably isn’t news to you.If you’re a regular user of the social media network, within the past few days you’ve probably noticed a pretty drastic change in the way your Twitter Feed looks. Previously, if someone attached an image to their Tweet, you could view it by clicking the link that Twitter generated. But now, images display by default. You have no choice but to look at whatever images pop up in your feed.
Twitter as a visual medium?
Facebook has always been considered to be much more visually-oriented than Twitter, and for good reason. On Twitter, images have always been relatively hidden. On Facebook, people upload photo albums containing hundreds of images. My personal Facebook account is like a visual record of my life from my freshman year of high school to now, between pictures I’ve uploaded of myself and images I’ve been tagged in by friends. Like this delightful photo:
It’s also always been a valuable asset for brands, because they can post eye-catching images with a short description and a link to a landing page with enticing content or a valuable offer. Sort of like this advertisement by Uber, only ideally it wouldn’t have a person with this ridiculous look on his or her face.
What this change to Twitter means: Not just that you’ll now have instant, unbridled access to the pictures I post of puppies.It’s also important because you can utilize this new feature to make your brand’s messages stand out. By attaching an image to your Tweet, you can make them stand out within the Twitter Feed of your followers or the people you reach with sponsored messages.People are far more likely to like and share Facebook images and videos than other types of content, and the same is true on Twitter, even before images were automatically displayed in the Twitter Feed. This advancement is a game-changer for brands on Twitter. It will be interesting to see how this will change things.[pull_quote text=”use this new feature to make your brand’s messages stand out”]I wanna post something awesome. How do I do it? Unlike on Facebook, where you can reposition an image that you’ve sized larger than the recommended image dimensions, a Twitter image must be clicked on to view the entire image. That means that it’s important to crop and resize an image to maximize viewability and effectiveness.As long as its dimensions are sized at a 2:1 ratio and the image is 600 pixels or wider, the entire image should be viewable. Large images will be resized based on the viewer’s browser settings. The ratio is important, because if you post an image at an irregular size, it’s possible that you’ll end up with something like this screenshot of a Tweet that I took last night during the World Series.The Tweet itself may explain the error, but I’ll clarify: at the bottom of the image is Steve Horgan, a Boston police officer famous for his celebration of Red Sox home runs in two different stages of this year’s playoffs. But because the image isn’t sized at a 2:1 ratio, the bottom and top of the image are cut off, so he’s not in the visible part of the photo at all.
“Bullpen cop!” isn’t in the picture, so the Tweet makes no sense at first glance. If you’re going to take the time to attach an image to a Tweet for your account, or for your brand’s, it may be ineffective if it’s not sized appropriately.With new Tweets pushing yours down the Twitter Feed very quickly, you need to make an instant impact and provide a compelling argument why your message is worth taking the time to read, retweet, or click on the link to your landing page. This change is empowering because it makes it easier to use visual content to sell your messages. But a simple mistake could cost you.
