You may or may not yet have the new Twitter on your computer but if you don’t you soon will. Some people are saying that the new design resembles Facebook and that the whole look of the new Twitter is Apple-inspired.
There’s one important change that may need your immediate attention. Twitter on the web and the now-Twitter owned version of Tweetdeck (which I’m having a hard time getting used to) now shows your name above your message and not your Twitter handle. Check this. If, when you created your account, your handle was your company name (@AcmeShoes) but in the ‘name’ field you put your own name (Jim) then now, it’s ‘Jim’ that people are going to see in their timeline and NOT your company name.
But what are the major differences? You’ll see two new navigational buttons – connect (@) and discover (#). The symbols, of course, indicate their uses, in addition to the names. There is a whole raft of new keyboard shortcuts too. (Even if you don’t have the new Twitter yet, go to your Twitter account, type a ?, and you’ll see the existing ones.) Of course, it’s always tricky to remember new keyboard shortcuts but choose the ones you use most often – they really do save fumbling with the mouse.
The new discover section will give you information which is determined by the people you follow, where you are in the world (and of course, the language you speak). You’ll find suggested stories, people who might interest you and categories of interest.
Your activity stream, which was introduced a few months ago, will now be under discover too. It gives you the opportunity to follow people your contacts follow. As they are likely to have the same interests as you, this is a convenient and time-saving feature.
The @ section has a great feature in that it will show you your recent followers and who retweeted you. You can also now ‘open’ a tweet and this too will show you how many people favorited or retweeted it. (Hover your mouse over a tweet and you’ll see an ‘open’ link appear). This is a great if you are tweeting on behalf of your company and need to prepare a monthly report. You can also compare your messages – why did message A get retweeted and message B didn’t? This can make your future tweets far more effective.
It’s important to note that, with single tweets, your background becomes even more important.
There is another feature that many people are getting quite excited about and, as yet, I don’t see why. This is the ability to easily embed a single tweet into your blog or website. True, your viewers can click the ‘follow’ button from the embedded tweet but you probably have a follow button on your site anyway. Does the embed add value to your blog? No doubt I’ll find a way in which it does but I haven’t as yet. Remember that your social media accounts are there to send people to your site, not the reverse!
Design-wise, you’ll notice changes too. There’s been a switcheroo – your stream will now be on the right hand side of the page. I’m still working on the logic of this one – maybe it was just a design change for the sake of it?
I’m just feeling my way round the new Twitter and waiting to see the developments that are in store for brand pages. So no doubt I’ll be back with more news soon. It’s early days yet and I’m still discovering features about the new Twitter but if you have questions, get in touch!