That’s right, Twitter is rolling out a whole new layout, and with that comes an entirely new experience … well mostly.

Here’s a look at the new page layout:

Look familiar?

If you thought that you were looking at Facebook, then you’re not alone. When I first saw it, I had to do a double take to make sure I didn’t accidentally switch tabs to Facebook in my browser. Love it or hate it, it looks like Twitter decided to redesign its interface to appeal to more casual users by blocking out content in ways that are more familiar, and that eases confusion for new Twitter members who are trying to get their feet wet in the wild world of “hashtags” and “at” signs.

New Features!

With the new clean layout come new capabilities to promote yourself and explore Tweets. Here are the three big additions:

• Best Tweets: Tweets that have received more engagement will appear slightly larger, so your best content is easy to find.
• Pinned Tweet: Pin one of your Tweets to the top of your page, so it’s easy for your followers to see what you’re all about.
• Filtered Tweets: Now you can choose which timeline to view when checking out other profiles. Select from these options: Tweets, Tweets with photos/videos, or Tweets and replies.

What it means for you

While the new design allows for new exciting opportunities, there are some things that users will need to be aware of and update if necessary.

1. No more custom background images. You will no longer be able to add your own custom backgrounds to your profile.  If you have any marketing language or important information in your background currently, you’ll need to move them elsewhere. This brings us to our next big change.
2. The header image is now huge. Much like Facebook and Google+, users now have a large amount of real estate in the top of their profile page, which is probably where you would move all of those fancy graphics and the marketing language you had on your now-defunct custom background. The header image that you have currently will likely need to be updated as the original smaller header image will be blown up and pixelated to fit the new header image size.
   
3. Pinned Tweets allow for more marketing opportunities. You’ll be able to promote tweets and news about yourself or your company so that users who navigate to your profile will quickly be able to see your most important and relevant Tweets.

With all of these changes, it is important to update and maintain your Twitter page so that users get a clear image of you and your company, and failure to update may make your Twitter page look unprofessional. Currently, these new profiles are only available for a small group of users, but if you’d like any help in making sure that your Twitter profile will look great after these changes roll out for everyone, please let us know!