By Jennifer Henderson
Last week, a big announcement was made about changes to the Twitter character limit:
Say more about what’s happening! Rolling out now: photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and Quote Tweets no longer count toward your 140 characters. — Twitter (@twitter) September 19, 2016
Any media attached to a Tweet will no longer count as part of the 140 characters (images, videos, etc., previously counted for 23 characters). I was thrilled by this news because many times I’ve carefully crafted a 140-character Tweet only to find that the image I wanted to use with it bumped the tweet over the limit. This can be frustrating, especially when it’s already a challenge to say all you want to say in just 140 characters.
According to Fortune, this is just one of the changes Twitter is considering. For instance, Twitter may also eventually exclude links from the character count, but no word on when and if that will happen. The article states that these changes are part of an effort to “appeal to new users, and encourage more activity by existing users, since user growth has slowed to a trickle.”
Engaging users with media
Rita McGrath, a professor at Columbia Business School, told The Washington Post that the relaxation of character limits could be to encourage Twitter users “to post more images and videos, which some research has shown captures more users for longer.” Twitter states that research has shown that tweets with photos get 313% more engagement.
“They want their content to be more engaging,” McGrath said. “If you can’t keep people on the site and sharing to the site, where are advertiser’s dollars going?”
How to use media on Twitter
Twitter provides some good tips on how to increase engagement with media. The company suggests extending your word character limit by incorporating text into a visual or overlaying it on a photo. And, as a reminder, Twitter provides the perfect vehicle for showcasing photos of your products. If you can’t choose only one photo to showcase, you can attach up to four photos to a single Tweet.
Hubspot also gives helpful information on using photos, including the proper dimensions to use for Twitter images.
It’s not always easy to find images and videos to include with your social media posts. Look for a future “Lift the Fog” blog post on how to find royalty-free images free of charge online for social media content.
Are you happy that Twitter has made some changes to the character limit? What other changes to do you hope Twitter makes?
