Round Profile Pictures Are Coming To Facebook
We are back with yet another small adjustment that could change Facebook as we know it. We recently wrote about Facebook now allowing pages to use videos in lieu of their cover image, a move that was in line with Facebook’s goal of increasing engagement, specifically between users and businesses (the cover video feature is still only available to business pages). The next change to Facebook will have the same goal in mind, with an increased focus on user experience. Here is what we know so far about Facebook changing page’s profile pictures to circles when they show in user’s news feeds.
Why The Change
Although no official announcement has come from Facebook, the change has been rumored for some time. Back in June, Twitter decided to switch from square profile pictures to circular ones. The change was a minor one that was even mocked by the ever brutal internet, but Twitter made the change with the goal of making users’ timelines more visually pleasing and easier to see who is saying what. Check out Twitter’s official announcement of their changes, with the most notable for users being the new circle profile pictures. Social media, like many other industries, has proven to be a copycat world where one platform often follows the lead of another. For example, Snapchat had stories, so Instagram, quickly followed by Facebook, adopted a similar story feature. Rounded profile pictures have been a favorite of Instagram for some time, so Facebook adopting the change only makes sense. Another driving force behind the change is of course the steadily increasing number of primarily mobile users. Facebook hopes that round profile photos in the news feed will put an end to users squinting at their phone trying to see exactly what a page’s profile picture is. Although we don’t know a lot about exactly what rounded profile pictures will mean, it is easy to see why Facebook is making the change.
How It Will Work
Despite the lack of an official announcement, there are still some things we do know about the latest change coming to Facebook. Posts that are both paid (ads) and organic will have a circular profile picture next to them in both mobile and desktop news feeds. However, the rounded profile pictures will only appear in the news feed. This means that Facebook page’s profile pictures will still show in the same square format when a user visits a page that they always have. The rollout of this feature will happen in a similar way as the Twitter roll out of round profile pictures. Facebook is applying a circle overlay to existing profile pictures that will only appear in the news feed. How this overlay will look and the recommended dimensions for adjusting profile pictures is not yet known, but it could create some confusion for page admins and advertisers.
What It Means For Advertisers & Page Admins
This change could present some short term problems for anyone advertising or managing Facebook pages. You will need to be sure that your profile picture shows correctly in the rounded form in the news feed as well as the traditional square form for the page. This could create a challenge as you will have to have a profile picture that is visually pleasing in both a square and circle. If advertisers and admins do not adjust they could run the risk of having posts with a distorted profile picture, which could decrease engagement and hurt your brand image on Facebook.
What To Expect Next
Some advertisers and admins will start hearing about the feature in the coming days. Facebook has said they will start to release the feature to page admins on 8/15 so they can see if their profile picture will show correctly in a rounded form before the change to the news feed goes live. A week after this, so likely the week of 8/22, circle profile pictures in the news feed will likely become live on Facebook. For the time being, admins and advertisers can use this tool to see if their current Facebook profile picture will work in the new rounded format. It is a great idea to check your profile pictures as soon as you can as the official roll out could be a little hectic if you have all of your page’s profile pictures resize incorrectly at one time. We will continue to update this article as more information becomes available, so be sure to check back to stay up to date!
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How on earth did FB deice NOT to make this an optional thing? Many business users will find it impossible to use the round format with their logos on Pages. It’s amazing this could not be a matter of choice. What’s the purpose of the enforced conformity?
Hey Clarence, long term it will definitely be a positive, but it is an inconvenience especially since you do not have a choice. Facebook likely wanted to keep the news feed uniform so people are not scrolling and seeing circles and squares on different posts.
For some reason my profile picture isn’t round but my sisters is… wonder if it’s because my account is older than hers
I hate it and just got it, it is bullshit. It cuts details out of the photo. DUMB idea. How is it positive??
I want my profile to be round but mine won’t change how casn I make it change.
I agree whole heartedly.. I am a signature artist on delphi forums and I’ve done thousands of signatures for people and they are primarily square and made to ‘fit’ the original facebook avatar space.. Now all those people have signatures that are crap and worthless myself included.. They don’t fit this foolish round garbage.
HATE the stupid round Facebook profile pics. HATE HATE HATE !!!
We can definitely see how frustrating it can be to have to do so much image resizing! But, it should make the news feed, especially on mobile, a little more user friendly
I don’t like the round profile picture
I really wish it was an option to go back to the square.
totally agree. Personally I don´t really care and a circle probably suits most personal pics but for businesses it sucks. I can´t tell you how many pages I´ve seen now where I can´t read the name or the logo is so small it´s ilegible. Stupid and really who says it looks better. In whose opinion? I note there are a lot of squares on this page and it looks “visually pleasing” to me. If they were all changed to circles would that improve the page´s appearance?
It doesn’t. Milillions of pictures cropped to fit square are rendered useless. Not one person I know likes it as it cuts off much of what they want people worked to edit for others bnb to see. Bad move. Stop Yahooing facebook.
The round thingy is ridiculous. It looks much worse. Before you could actually see the person in the photo. Now it crops it out and just looks really bad. Facebook just keeps getting worse and worse. I mean who sits around in their ridiculous lame ass little board meetings dreaming up this nonsense?
As a former graphic designer, this “new and improved” round version is idiotic. It is major cropping that has absolutely no practical purpose – it’s a nuisance. For instance, I run an NGO Community Awareness Page and specifically designed the page’s logo to include as much info — including phone number for donations. It is now November 2017 and it’s confusing for I see that page suddenly revert back to square profile pic for no apparent reason. For now. I have no idea if visitors see it as round or square. For personal FB pages, it forces people to either re-center or crop their image or have existing profile pics look strange, incomplete, off-composed. LEAVE GOOD ENOUGH ALONE.
i will never understand why anyone would think forcing round images on rectangular screens looks good. it doesnt. it not only doesnt look good, but it makes things difficult to see. add to that the fact that no ones camera takes a round image…and no ones camera is set up to even preview what a round image would look like…and now you are forcing rectangular images that are conceptualized and formatted to be rectangular….viewed on a rectangular screen, with eyes that (for the most part) perceive the world in a rectangular fashion…..to be round. why?
its a mess, and subconsciously is uncomfortable to look at. its almost literally forcing a round peg into a square hole.
After a long time, there is a good change from Facebook, but, however, this round profile picture does not meet our expectations in most cases. It looks irritating.
I can’t change back to square after this stupid circle. Please help me! I hate this circle.
Can I change it back… to my original business card? My information can’t be read. The circle sucks.
Hate the circle. It’s really messed things up. And find I can’t change my profile pic now. As some photos won’t fit in the circle.
Waste of time.
We all should have had the option
Circle profile…Why??? Please give an option to change back to square!!!
Dont want this rediculous circle…… want the square back again…
When you add a campaign twibbon, the circle cuts most of it out!!! Bring back the square!!!
The round profiles makes the frames option unusable
It cut the designs and words out.
Sad excuse for an advance in design
Bring the square back! Stupid stupid stupid circle..
DO NOT LIKE ROUND PHOTOGRAPHS THAT I POST ON FACEBOOK! CUTS OFF PEOPLE IN PHOTOS.
GO BACK TO OLD FORMAT….PLEASE
totally agree with the majority… the round format is one of the most stupid things farce book have come up with,,, note I said “one of” because in reality, there are many stupid thing that they have done lately.
Stupid idea..hate the circle and pictures don’t fit properly in the circle leaving most of it cropped off…bring back the square!!
The round profile really sucks! Like we’d see the world trough a toilet paper tube and pictures from cameras were round. What were they thinking.
I hate the round frame, I want the square one back or at least an option of which one we want to use. It looks stupid .
HORRIBLE!!! I cant even get my whole face in this stupid circle. What a dumb idea. There was nothing wrong with the square before. Please let us change it back!!
I hate the circle. I can’t even get all of the wording in the circle that I could in the square. Whoever’s idea this was, was a stupid one.
I hate the circle. There is no way to fit a picture with words in it to a round space. I liked the square. Put if back. If it was not broken why mess with it. Who ever had this idea it was a stupid one.
its crap put it back to square
Bad move. Just like the resizing of covers rendered all my hard work and everyone elses, aka millions, creating pics and covers now useless. The circle cuts of important parts and makes pic useless nor ridiculous. Not sure who decided it was pleasing to the eye but judging by responses here and my friends hating it..bad move. Remember Yahoo oh yeah, they made so many unwanted unneeded changes people did not want that everyone left..stop yahooing facebook.
First, taking away my ability to set my news feed to most recent was the main reason I stopped using Facebook on a regular basis.
Now, I want to update my profile picture and now I have to deal with this circle.
F Facebook.
Me to ! I hate the circle profile frame it cuts off half of my face like wtf my chin and my forehead my ears to like come on now not cool
Horrible i hate the circle at least let us have an option bring back the square….. now you can’t see my background picture as much ..what a stupid idea FB
I want the circle…. Mine hasn’t changed. why?
This circle is moronic. It doesn’t fit any purpose except to compete with Twitter. It will not make FB any money. Just some stoner behind a desk saying ” Wow, it looks cool man ” The other 14 year olds working there will all agree since they all have the same mindset. Give me a break.
Facebook it is only a “choice” if I can decide yes or no on the frame.
Just another reason to move on from FB.
Been managing pages on FB since 2008 back when you could have this huge vertical avatar. I’ve seen a felt all the changes since then. These circle avatars are 100% junk. There’s nothing positive about them even on phones, now they’re pointless on phones.
Facebook literally blew away my page. Why in the world would you consider cropping a picture to a circle? It’s the most stupidest idea ever. The cover wall is rectangular and so the profile pic should also correlate next to it. I really hate the fact that nearly everything is becoming circular. Just because Instagram or Whatsapp uses these doesn’t mean that’s got to look good in every platform. I hate this circle. It’s like I’m having a circular TV that looks disgusting. You could have at least given us a fuc.k..ing choice instead of forcing to take an action without or consent and which most importantly millions of people already hate. Facebook sucks big time sometimes!
That headline makes it sound like it’s a good thing! I’ve never seen a more stupid change on Facebook, and they are the experts in stupid changes. All the details were cut off my photo, and just forget trying to put a frame on it!
One of the other comments mentions logos, I never thought of that – what a disaster
Hate that stupid circle. Wish I could change it. Anyone know if you can change back to a square.
The circle is just ridiculous. When we take pictures, they are not circular. Now people’s heads are cut off, details are left off, etc. Do they not read or care about the feedback?
Every change since the beginning of Facebook has made the platform worse. I can only think of one that was a net positive–the realtime ticker (which no longer exists, of course). Everything else has been unnecessary, confusing & just plain annoying.
I’m convinced they leave things as they are juuuust long enough for us to get comfortable before pulling the rug out as some sort of social experiment to test our threshold for change. People will complain, sure, but how far can you push users before they actually leave? There’s got to be some deeper purpose for these constant changes since there’s nearly always an outcry from users when they alter something. Maybe it’s a political thing–how far can you push citizens before they actually revolt?
Meh.
Could you please, please, please. please bring the square for our profile picture back!!