Social Media

Social Hour: What 280 Characters Means for Your Brand

Posted On November 9th, 2017 | 10:09pm EST

This week, Twitter announced that will no longer cap tweets at 140 characters and instead the limit will be doubled to 280.  Until now, the social platform prided itself on the instantaneous brevity of 140 characters. This presented a challenge for content marketers to do a lot with a little. That being said, this new doubled character count is good news for marketers. With over 320 million active users on the site each month, here’s why this is a change you can benefit from.

More characters mean more engagement 
According to their blog, Twitter reported that users who had access to 280 characters received more engagement through @’s, retweets and likes, got more follow backs and spent more time on Twitter. It’s true that the more social engagement you generate, the more traffic you’ll send to your site.  

More characters mean more users 
As engagement increases, it’s possible that more users will be attracted to the social channel. That being said, it’s important to make an impression. According to one study, 15 percent of Twitter users said they will unfollow a brand if they don’t feel engaged. Therefore, if you don’t connect with your users early on, you might miss your chance. Make sure you retweet and respond to your followers, post useful links and interesting images and space your tweets out throughout the day. Lastly, start the conversation or join one by using appropriate hashtags.

More characters means more ad space
Twice as many characters mean twice as much ad — or image — space. That said, Twitter users are used to short and brief. Be careful not to get too carried away with all the extra room, as users are still inclined to skim past big, bulky messages, so use those 280 characters wisely. Remember, just because the platform changed doesn’t mean your audience has. 

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