New Twitter Header = Great Opportunity for eCommerce

by Chloë Thomas

Last month Twitter added a new area to the Twitter profile page. This is the “Header” image – it’s an image that sits on your profile page (the twitter.com/you page) above your stats and tweets.

On top the image sits (in this order, and center aligned):

Your Twitter Avatar (the image that appears next to all your tweets)

Your Twitter title

Your Twitter Name (the @____) bit

Your twitter profile text

Your Location – Your URL

This gives you some new ways to encourage followers, and promote your business.

Firebox HeaderKey things you need to know about Twitter header images:

  • You can upload an image of size 1200 x 600 – twitter will shrink this to 520 x 260 for the current display format.
  • You can upload yours by logging into your twitter account, going into edit your profile and selecting the “design” option.

Cool Ways to use the new twitter header for eCommerce businesses:

Right now not many ecommerce businesses have set up their Header image. And I’m not coming across many who are using it well – so the following is my take on what you should/could be using it for:

  • Show the range of your products – just like Firebox have above.
  • Use it to advertise a key promotion – if you’re doing this then please change the URL to link to the right promotion! And maybe the copy too.
  • This could be particularly useful for promoting email sign up offers, and event you’re going to be at, or a new catalogue that can be requested.
  • Make sure you leave space for the copy that Twitter are going to overlay
  • Consider integrating the avatar into the design.
  • Remember those great “Like” arrows we used to get on Facebook – why not do that here – but an arrow pointing to your “Follow” button.

What else do we need to know about Twitter Headers?

Well, the old twitter header went right across the page – by limiting it to the width of the tweets column, Twitter are able to pull the navigation column on the left higher up. This does 2 interesting things.

First it brings the box where someone can send you a message higher so expect more communications. In fact it’s now high enough that in your image you could have an arrow suggesting they drop you a tweet…

Second it changes the “images shared by” section, from small thumbnails to space for 6 much larger images. If (like me) you’ve not shared many images, then you get grey boxes. So make sure your 6 most recent images are relevant, and that you have shared 6!

I’d love to know how you use your twitter header image – so please let me know!