How to Add a Cover Photo to Twitter

CIO - Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Google+, Twitter announced today a redesign that lets you customize your profile with what it is calling a "header photo."

The header photo is different from your Twitter profile picture, which appears inline when you send a tweet. Your profile picture is an icon; the header photo is a background image.

Once you upload a header photo, that image is visible to others accessing your Twitter page via iPad, iPhone or Android apps as well as via Twitter.com.

To upload a header photo to your Twitter page, navigate to the gear icon in the top-right of your Twitter.com page and select "Edit profile."

Then, from the menu on the left, click "Design" and scroll to the bottom. Under "Customize your own," you'll notice that your header defaults to a gray box. Here, you can upload your own image, but be sure that the minimum dimensions are 1252x626 and that it has a file size smaller than 5MB.

Your changes will appear instantly, but they're not saved until you click "Save changes."

In addition to the new profiles, photo streams now appear below your most recent tweets on iPhone, Android and iPad apps. To view them, swipe through the stream and tap the thumbnail to view them in full-screen.

Kristin Burnham covers consumer technology, social networking and enterprise collaboration for CIO.com. Follow Kristin on Twitter @kmburnham. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline and on Facebook. Email Kristin at kburnham@cio.com

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