Twitter may not exactly be eliminating its distinctive 140-character limit, but it is implementing noteworthy steps to permit longer tweets. Marketing and PR pros probably look forward to having more space for their messages.
Twitter will take two steps to expand the 140-character limit. As of Monday, it will:
- No longer count @names included in replies, which comes as a relief for Twitter aficionados. In popular Twitter discussions, lists of @names can quickly fill up space. It’s important to note that @names will still count toward the limit in new tweets.
- No longer count media attachments, including photos, videos, images, polls, and quote tweets, toward the limit. Media attachments can consume up to 24 characters. That might not seem like much, but it amounts to just over 17% more space for text, as Social Media Today notes.
Twitter announced in May that plans for longer tweets would be implemented “over the coming months.” The Verge, citing unnamed sources, reported Twitter will begin allowing the longer tweets this Monday.
More Room for Marketing Messages
Marketers — and plenty of others — will generally welcome the ability to squeeze more into their messages and will appreciate the more consistent rules. Although the changes may seem small, they’ll significantly impact social media strategy and messaging.
The new rules can provide 10 to 20 percent of additional space, estimates social media expert Roee Ganot.
“That space will seem like a lot when you are sponsoring tweets and want to get the most out of every single character, Ganot writes in Business 2 Community. “You’ll feel like you have a lot more room to say what you want and enhance it with images or other media.”
Better for Relationship Building
The new rules, he adds, also mean that you can be more liberal when tagging users in replies, which can help you connect with more peers and work toward building relationships that could turn into partnerships.
To fit more into tweets, some Twitter users become creative with sometimes barely understandable contractions and abbreviations. Others split longer messages into multiple tweets. However, multiple tweets can dilute your message, even if followers see all the tweets. And followers usually only see some of the messages unless they bother to click on your profile to view all the tweets.
“One of the most consistent challenges brands see with the platform is around character limits – it can be a frustrating process putting together engaging copy and adverts with a moveable amount of characters to work with, so this is a nice step from their side,” Daniel Price, head of social operations at digital agency Lost Boys, told Marketing Week. “Let’s hope this is the start of a larger move towards simplifying how Twitter works – which will be key to its growth.”
Other Changes
Other changes are coming: Users will be able to retweet and quote tweet themselves, enabling them to resurface previous Tweets and add new commentary. In addition, any new tweet beginning with a @name will be seen by all followers.
Some marketers expressed skepticism that the changes will help Twitter attract and retain users. It’s so far been unable to match Facebook’s success and faces competition from new social networks.
Bottom Line: Twitter’s changes to how it calculates length of tweets allow longer messages and greater flexibility – changes that marketers and other users are likely to welcome. Although subtle, the new rules will enhance social media strategy on the network, experts say. Whether or not the changes re-energize Twitter’s overall popularity remains to be seen.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
