Twitter has always adopted a less is more philosophy. By limiting text to 140 characters they encourage their users to think creatively, to articulate their thoughts succinctly, and to express themselves using a variety of different media.
Twitter is changing the most defining part of their service, the character limit rules.
But, before the more verbose among you get too excited, this is a refinement of the format, not a revolution. The changes are simple, but have potentially far reaching consequences.
Twitter have rethought what counts towards your 140 characters. Now you can include @s and media without using up your character count. You can also broadcast tweets which start with a username to your followers, negating the need for the ubiquitous .@ at the start of a tweet.
Finally, and perhaps most excitingly for marketers, you can now retweet your own tweets.
Add Media to Tweets for Free
The removal of media from the character count (photos, gifs, videos and polls) promises a richer user experience for all. This allows us to make our tweets more interesting, more informative, and (hopefully) to enhance our engagement rate.
One important caveat, however: links still count.
Include Who You Like in your Conversations
We’ve all experienced Twitter’s limitations when it comes to maintaining a conversation with two or more people, and we’re glad to see they have finally rectified the issue. This opens up interesting avenues for marketers and businesses, allowing us to potentially reach more people directly. Although usernames no longer impact your character count, we believe there is a limit of 100 usernames in any one Tweet.
However, caution is advised when using this feature, no one likes a spammer!
Retweet yourself
This function could prove to be particularly useful for businesses and marketers. This allows users to retweet their own content to prevent it getting lost in the noise, offering exciting potential for increased organic reach on the platform.
Twitter is a fast moving platform, which prides itself on its brevity. This update is very much in that spirit, and should make for a more satisfying user experience.
For businesses and marketers, the new changes mean we can say more, and, with the removal of media from the character count, we can make what we say more informative, leading to higher quality content, and higher engagement rates.
Not sure what this means for you? Have a question? Then ask us on Twitter.