On the TODAY show earlier this week Twitter SEO, Dick Costolo made a live appearance to announce updates to the Twitter experience. The changes will affect the look and feel of profiles both on Twitter.com and on their mobile apps for iPad, iPhone, and Android. Twitter users will now have the option of a header-photo not unlike what you have on your Facebook profile. You will also have greater control over the background photo, and they are adding the photo stream to the mobile app environment. All these profile updates should give you a leg up in Twitter marketing, allowing you the opportunity for better branding.

To access these new options on your mobile device just select “Me” and then go into settings and choose “Edit Profile” this is where you will find the options for your header and avitar photo. Accessing these options online at Twitter.com is pretty much the same process.

Twitter continues to tighten up its business model in an effort to offer more value to their users and to their advertisers. They have also been starting to pull back their support of third party tweet platforms like Hootsuite, Echofone, and others. The plan is to get users to start engaging more on their own website. This first step allowing users to better express themselves with photos should definitely help their cause.

Original article about Twitter updates posted on Wikimotive's blog under the title Twitter Updates Profiles and User Experience.