Social media platform Twitter has now introduced a whopping new character limit for its tweets – 4,000 characters, in fact.
However, there is a caveat to this wordy new feature. While all users will be able to view these tweets, the ability to compose them is only available to subscribers to its paid offering, Twitter Blue. At present, this is limited further to Twitter Blue subscribers based in the US.
Twitter revealed this feature, using – you guessed it – a 4,000-character tweet. The contents of said tweet, while it did show off the new feature to some extent, perhaps left a little to be desired in terms of information:
more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more words more… https://t.co/0mcFJ1wwZK
— Twitter (@Twitter) February 8, 2023
The fact that not even Twitter itself could come up with a creative tweet to show of the new character limit does perhaps suggest that such a lengthy limit isn’t exactly needed, but time will tell as to whether users make use of the feature.
Twitter did provide some clarification on the feature on its Help page for Twitter Blue, with it explaining that Blue subscribers can use the longer-length tweets as main posts, replies and quoted tweets. Within these, users will be able to create polls, use hashtags and use photos and videos.
There are, at present, 300,000 subscribers to Twitter Blue, so there could well be, in the words of Twitter, a lot more words present on users’ feeds soon. However, those who have feelings of horror at the prospect of scrolling past 4,000-character tweets need not fear. These tweets appear in news feeds at their normal length, and people will be presented with a ‘Show more’ option if they wish to take in the rest of a tweet.
While the reception and success of this feature remains to be seen as of yet, the prospect of longer tweets would certainly bring advantages to businesses in particular. At present, it can be difficult at times for social media teams to condense a message to its key, bare bones in order to fit within Twitter’s character limit, or be forced to split out the tweet into a thread, which can appear disjointed in users’ feeds. Having a longer character limit would allow businesses to get more out of their Twitter content, and may make the process of posting across multiple platforms easier, as content won’t need to be condensed specifically for Twitter.
However, as Twitter at its heart has been a short-form content platform, it may well be that users don’t want to reach such long tweets – and so businesses may find the effort of condensing their messaging is worthwhile in order to get more engagement.
For now, we can only wait to see how this new feature will fare. In the meantime, if you want to get the most out of social media and content for your business, why not book a ticket for our next Social Media & Content Masterclass?
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