Twitter’s expanded tweets and what it means for your social campaigns
Twitter has announced the update that many marketers have spent a long time patiently waiting for. Similar to when constructing Google Ads, there’s nothing more frustrating than composing your scheduled tweets only to find that meticulously-designed imagery tears into the character limit, forcing you to alter and dilute your messaging.
This week, Twitter has started rolling out expanded tweets across the world. So, is this as good as it sounds? And what does it mean for your social campaigns?
The character limit
Before you get too carried away, unlike the recent Google AdWords update, your typical tweet character limit isn’t changing. The cap is still at 140 characters and this update will only affect tweets that feature various forms of attachments or reply handles. Whilst this may cause some of you to groan, we think it’s important that this remains the same in order to preserve the platform’s identity as a place for brief updates. After all, there are plenty of other platforms to share your lengthier messages.
Attachments
The key aspect of this update is that images and URLs will no longer count against the 140 character limit. This means that your branded campaign imagery and links will no longer interfere with your copy, something that has been causing marketers headaches for years. Other wavered content includes GIFs, videos, polls and quote tweets.
This is big news for your Twitter campaigns. Imagery is essential for making a tweet stand out and you will naturally also want to include a link on top of this to drive traffic to your website. You no longer have to worry about images and links leaving you with next-to-no text to communicate and sell your product.
Conversations
Twitter are also trialing a new tweet reply system where the Twitter handles of those you are replying to will also be omitted from the character limit. You can get a feel for how that will work from the GIF they produced below.
This is brilliant for scheduled tweets targeting influential accounts and also for engaging in popular trends such as Follow Friday and Cornwall Hour, etc. Topical ‘hour’ trends are a powerful way of engaging with niche industries and reaching out to new audiences. They are usually administrated by an active account of the same name which needs to be included in your tweet, along with the hashtag, in order to get noticed. You can now do that with the full 140 characters at your disposal to best get your message across.
Conclusion
This is a long-awaited update that will strengthen your activity and influence across the platform. Eye-catching imagery will no longer interfere with key campaign messages and there’s even more reason to reach out and communicate with fellow users.
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