What do you need to know about Twitter’s new layout?

As one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, Twitter is under pressure to constantly evolve. Keeping up with the needs of business and individual users, as well as competing with the features offered by other platforms, such as Facebook, is a constant challenge. This year, you may already have noticed that there are differences when logging in to Twitter. It’s these changes that represent what Twitter is doing to try to stay ahead of the social media curve.

Changes to analytics

Although it may seem like access to analytics has been withdrawn, in fact this has just moved. Previously, analytics data was available via the sidebar of the home page. Now, you’ll find it under Account Information. Most of the same analytics are still there and there is also more detail available about the way that your account is performing if you’re looking to go deeper.

A new home page

Twitter’s new approach to the home page is to reorganise and try to make the layout easier on the human eye when it comes to digesting information. So, content from followed accounts is now prioritised on the left while browsing functions, such as what’s trending and ideas for accounts to follow, now sits on the right hand side. Twitter is also making more use of drop down menus and this is where you’ll find the data on your own account. The driving focus behind the changes seems to be more emphasis on interaction and making it easier get an overview of activity connected to an individual account.

New tools

There are two key new tools that Twitter has created to enhance the experience of using the platform. The first of these has had quite a lot of press – Night Mode. This is essentially designed to help give the human eye a break when using Twitter desktop after dark. The white space on the Twitter layout is swapped for black to make it easier for eyes to adjust during non-daylight hours. The other key tool to note is Data Saver. This is aimed at mobile users who are frequently ploughing through their data due to constant Twitter use. When this mode is on Twitter will switch to using less mobile data.

“Add tweet to bookmarks”

By clicking on a tweet you’ll see that there is now an option to add it to bookmarks if you want to read the tweet again later. This doesn’t count as engagement in the same way as a like or a retweet and only an account user will know what tweets they have added in this way. Bookmarked tweets can be located under the Account Information dropdown menu and removed from bookmarks at any time.

Although the changes to Twitter are not revolutionary there are some useful alterations in there that could help improve the experience for business users. The ongoing evolution of the platform is increasingly geared towards enabling everyone to use it to do more of what matters most.

For more social media tips and advice, get in touch with Iconic Digital today on 020 7100 0726.