Twitter’s Journey From 140 to 280 Characters

Social media has taken the world by storm and in today’s time and age one wouldn’t come across a millennial who is aware of the internet and social media and isn’t present on a few of these platforms. All these social networking sites have evolved through the ages; the years have added to their appeal. Social media is integrated into the daily routine of the millennials in some way or the other. Twitter is one such social networking platform that burst onto the scene in 2006. It was just meant to be a SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE (SMS) for small groups. Twitter grew wiser with age, it was destined to achieve greater heights and today it is one of the hottest platforms.

For a very long time, Twitter used only 140 characters for tweets but last November Twitter made an explosive announcement and increased the character limit from 140 to 280! (Yes, that’s right!) This is a blessing not only for the Twitterati but also for the brands that have a presence on Twitter to market themselves.

What’s more?

• @username isn’t part of the character limit anymore. Hence more characters for choosing the handle.
• The annoying ‘@’ can R.I.P as it won’t be required when tweeting to a user handle (may take some time to get accustomed to).
• Media attachments like photos, GIFs, quote tweets, videos, etc. don’t affect the character limit.
• A new feature termed as ‘threads’ by Twitter enables the user to tweet multiple tweets with a single click.  

The above features will help in creating a clear messaging, expressing thoughts in a better way, in-depth tweets (more characters to play with), wider reach with hashtags and visual content. If this wasn’t enough, now one can retweet their own tweets. That is #AWESOME!

Brands that had a hard time connecting with customers due to character restrictions can channel these features to make an impact and make advertisements and campaigns more appealing. This is not only going to change how Twitterati interacts or expresses, this will change how advertisements are now used on Twitter. The entire landscape has changed, kudos to the latest update! Things are now more engaging, exciting and there will be more room for detail that were sheared earlier.

So, ladies and gentlemen the “GAME IS ON”! Let’s play, to achieve higher goals, better interactions, better reach which will result in higher profits. There are endless possibilities, one just needs to channel it.

Bye- bye to the Twitter of old. Time to embrace the Twitter of NOW!