The increase in Twitter’s character count from 140 to 280 has given social media professionals a lot of space to work around. But what instigated this need for more and what does this increase mean as far as marketing via Twitter is concerned?
Why the Platform Needed the Extra Girth?
According to research carried out by Twitter, for English users, cramming of thoughts due to the lesser character count was one of the biggest frustrations.
Justifying the increase Twitter pointed out – about 9 percent of the tweets in English hit the 140 character mark while only 0.4 tweets in Japanese hit the maximum limit. This is due to the fact that tweets in languages such as Japanese, Korean and Chinese are able to convey double the amount of information than those in English, French, and Portuguese etc. This has prompted marketers to tweet in those markets where they can optimize their 140 characters without constricting their thought process.
How Do the Extra 140 Characters Help Social Media Marketers?
Using up the entire 280 character count does not guarantee engagement but it definitely gives you ample room for creativity, if you are concise.
Better engagement for contests and sponsored tweets
The liberty to say more will give the tweeter space for creativity and hence increase the engagement rate but only if the laws of brevity are adhered too! Marketers will receive an added advantage when promoting their brand through promotion vehicles like contests. Moreover, the increase in the quality of engagement will better the reach of sponsored tweets.
Innovative extended hashtags
Finally, hashtags can be longer! More creative and serve as more than just conversation pullers.
Better Responses
Where the increased character count will mostly benefit marketers is while responding to queries from customers with thorough replies. Also, you need not maintain a long thread of conversation for an appropriate reply.
Attracting new and existing users
With Twitter being more speech friendly, there will be an increase in the number of users both existing-but-inactive and new users.
Where Marketers Needs to Draw the Line
This is not the first time Twitter has given marketers a reason to smile. In September 2016, Twitter announced that GIFs, videos and polls would not be included in the then 140 character limit. Now the increase in characters plus videos or creative is sure to send marketers in dreamland.
But marketers need to be advised as though there is a lot of room to play around; the ramifications of long copies to their brands have to be taken into consideration before investing in months’ worth of long tweets.
The Limitations of Longer Tweets
The earlier 140 character count was introduced as it is easier to consume short copies and the message resonates much faster. With the introduction of 280 characters, there will be the obvious temptation for marketers to include as much information as possible. This may affect the consumption and engagement of tweets.
Engagement with hashtags
With 280 characters under your belt, you might want to use as many hashtags as possible in order to increase your engagement. But researches have shown that tweets with one or two hashtags get more engagement than those with three or more.
Unique platform
Each platform is unique and copy-pasting the copy from your FB post to your Twitter handle might not give you the same traction as Twitter is expected to deliver neatly tailored tweets.
Driving traffic
Increasing the length of copy will help Twitter’s own engagement and enable it to keep the user inside the app for a longer time. The same might not work for a marketer who wants to drive traffic to the brand’s website. Therefore, you need to keep the consumer curious with only so much of copy that does not eat away at your neatly placed URL.
A Word of Caution
What responsible advertisers need to keep in mind is to hit the sweet spot between clarity and brevity. The tweet length may have increased but not everyone might like it. Therefore, it is important for marketers to listen to how the consumers are reacting to the change in information disbursement. No consumer will appreciate a wall full of marketing tweets.