First came Facebook with its Timeline cover image. Then Google+ followed suit by allowing users to upload a cover photo. Today, Twitter chimes in by letting users upload a header image for their Twitter profile.

According to the Twitter Advertising blog:

All Twitter users can feature a new header photo on their profile pages that will appear across mobile and desktop. Simply upload a custom image or select a pre-loaded theme in the design tab within your settings page. For advertising partners with an enhanced profile page (EPP), this new header image replaces the EPP banner. However, these advertisers will still be able to pin Tweets at the top of their timelines to spotlight their most important or timely content.

To change your header image, simply go to Setting then click "Design." Select the "Change header" button and upload an image to serve as your header image. It's best to upload an image with dimensions of 1252x626 for optimized results.

You are not required to opt for this change now, but according to Twitter, come November, "profiles without updated header images will be replaced with a default grey image."

Aside from the header image, Twitter now lets users "have more control of the creative elements within the background image on their profile page." With the new design, you can now align the image and use both the left and right side of the to display content.

Moreover, the "photos module on the profile page has also been enhanced to show the most recent six images a user has shared."

Mobile Friendly

An important thing to note about these design changes is that Twitter is making them very mobile friendly. According to the microblogging site, "The new design allows users to customize their profile pages with header photos that will be visible on twitter.com and, for the first time, on iPad, iPhone and Android. Now marketers can instantly engage Twitter users with rich images while creating a more consistent visual identity across devices."

Welcome to a More Image and Mobile-Friendly Web

It's really interesting to see how social networks are embracing mobile and images so much. I think Twitter's recent move is a huge testament to where the digital world is heading.

Of course, this is just one in a series of big social media moves towards image/mobile. Remember when Facebook bought Instagram for 1 Billion? Then there's the rise of Pinterest and its clones. Not to mention, the release of the iPhone 5, which now has slightly bigger screen that makes it so much easier to do mobile web browsing and other tasks.

It's no secret that we are moving to more mobile and image-based world, and the fact that the biggest sites and companies are following this trend will only accelerate the mobile-fication and image-fication (yes, I just made those terms up) of the web.

So what can you do to keep up? The first step is to embrace these changes. Play around with Twitter's new design and see how you can use it to enhance your profile. You can try exploring image-based sites/tools such as Pinterest, Instagram, and the Facebook Timeline to engage users more. And if you haven't done so yet, be sure to optimize your website for mobile, and make sure that your on-the-go users will be able to browse it with ease.

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