Twitter Crop is Gone!

It’s a cause for great celebration that Twitter will no longer be cropping the photos in your posts, because let’s face it, the crop was crap!

Twitter is slightly behind the times as Instagram already rolled out a feature that avoided users having to fit their pictures into the Instagram square format in 2017.

The update in a nutshell

It has been a source of frustration for Twitter users for quite a long time that when posting a photo, it would be cropped to 1200px X 675px image on the Twitter timeline. This led to a lot of unfortunate cropping of heads in team group shots or cutting out important words on an announcement, which in some cases would have made users more likely to scroll past the post.

The new update will allow users to share their photos in full on other users’ timelines and will improve the visual aspect of Twitter.

Unfortunately, this has only been rolled out on iOS and Android apps so far and not yet on desktop, so if you’re wondering why you’re seeing some images still cropped – this is why! However, Twitter says the crop will soon be gone from desktop too.

It’s also important to note that it is only posts including single images with a 2:1 or 3:4 aspect ratio that will show in full. When posting multiple images, the post will appear in the same format as before.

As with all updates to apps, it’s a good idea to check if your phone is due any app updates to unlock new features.

So what does this mean?

The update is great news for anyone managing a social media channel for a business, as editing photos or creating graphics that fit within the Twitter photo dimensions is time-consuming and limiting for some users.

The disadvantage of the update is that those monitoring their Twitter analytics will see a drop in clicks as the need to click on a post to see the full photo has reduced.

It’s also great for photographers and artists who can now show off their work with full effectiveness – and this could be one contributing factor to why Twitter made the change.

There have already been some amazing examples of photographers showing off their best photos and the increase in posts like this has spawned new trends like “Post a photo that felt like a painting”.

Why is Twitter updating this?

Social media is ever-changing and updates like these are crucial to the survival of the platform, adapting to the changing needs of consumers in the same way retailers would update their product offering.

Other recent updates to Twitter include the addition of ‘nudges’; when retweeting a tweet that contains a link to an article, you’ll now be shown a notification prompting you to think about reading the article before you share. There’s also an update to promoting tweets, which Twitter states “will offer [an] improved and simplified flow for promoting your tweets”.

As with all updates to Twitter, they aim to improve the user experience on platform and encouraging users to keep posting.

A great way to keep up to date with any changes to Twitter is to follow the Twitter blog.

It’s a challenge to manage your own social media channels and to keep on top of all the constant changes and trends, but help is at hand!

If you’d like to get advice on managing your social media, or if you’d like someone to manage it for you, please get in contact
with the Shooting Star team to find out how we can help.

MO