Twitter highlights the importance of visual content with its new upgrade.

Social media brings people together to share content and talk about the latest trends or current events, while also offering brands new opportunities to promote their products. Twitter, which generally relies on 140-character engagements, now heavily promotes its mixed-media options by highlighting photos, videos and news higher up on newsfeeds.

Twitter upgradeOver the course of 2012, Twitter has focused on improving its search functions by adding autocomplete, related queries and spelling corrections, and now the network aggregates visual content to improve user experience. In the update, Twitter unveiled three new changes to its search interface – photos and videos are positioned first, news summaries are highlighted and personalized results are explained.

The first change updates Twitter’s treatment of visual media – when a user makes a specific query, the results show a grid of the most relevant media above the traditional Tweet stream. The second means mobile users no longer have to click on unique Tweets to view attached images or summaries for news results – the graphics automatically load. The final update, made to improve user experience, explains to active members why specific Twitter search results appear on their streams. For example, a Tweet that is favorited by someone a Twitter user follows or knows might show up as a suggested message.

Professionals have better opportunities to get their branded content in front of users because of Twitter’s latest search interface upgrade. With the social platform focusing more closely on visual media, developing infographic marketing campaigns and sharing media on the network can add another dimension to how businesses engage with their followers on Twitter. As the new year approaches, it’s important for a company to develop a social media strategy that supports lead generation, and Twitter makes it easier to engage with consumers online.

Ted Karczewski is an Executive Communications Associate at Brafton. He works to develop his own voice and apply his passions to the evolving world of SEO and content marketing, but he doesn't shy away from writing for fun. After graduating from Suffolk University, Ted used his Communications degree to test out Sports Journalism before Marketing at Brafton.