Thunderbolt Digital are a trusted marketing agency in Surrey with an expert team able to help small business owners create successful online advertisements and get their brand noticed for the right reasons. As we’re at the forefront of online marketing and social media management, we need to stay updated with the latest news and changes in the industry, and reports about possible changes to Twitter are certainly of interest to us, and perhaps you too!
According to a recent report from Bloomberg, a Twitter insider has hinted that the social media site will soon be shifting its character counting algorithms so that links and pictures no longer contribute anything towards the character limit. This change could happen in the next few weeks, though Twitter hasn’t officially commented on the matter.
Currently, tweets are limited to 140 characters, and 23 of these are eaten up whenever a user posts a link or a photograph, meaning that their accompanying message or caption is limited even more. Twitter’s iconic 140 character limit was originally introduced to fit the constraints of SMS/text messaging, which was a common way of posting to Twitter before the rise of smartphones and mainstream mobile internet.
This rumoured move seems to be part of an overall effort to make the site more flexible and easier to use. The issue of character limits is hotly debated amongst frequent tweeters, with fierce support for both sides. However, no matter your opinion on whether the character limit should be increased, it can’t be denied that users turn to a variety of ways to tell longer stories, including screenshotting large chunks of text and making long series or chains of tweets (which can be slightly confusing considering Twitter’s reverse chronological timeline).
Many Twitter users disliked the previously suggested idea of upping the character limit to 10,000 but seem a lot more welcoming to negate the characters taken up by pictures and links. After all, fitting a message into 140 characters can be a fun challenge but 117 is a bit of a squeeze!
Businesses and brands are also likely to benefit from this change, as pictures and links are essential to SMM (especially for SMEs) but they expend valuable characters that could otherwise be used for hashtags and a good tagline. With the changes to Twitter’s character limits, businesses will have one less obstacle to effectively marketing themselves online via social media.