With social media constantly changing, Thunderbolt Digital Marketing Surrey must keep up to date with all channels that may affect our clients’ online presence. Today saw the release of Twitters new beta feature, with a randomly selected group of Tweeters being granted 280 characters to tweet with, rather than the conventional 140 characters.
Who needs whit when you have characters? The iconic 140 characters limitation may be lifted, as a select few sample a nerve-racking 280 ch… (140)
We can appreciate the difficulty Twitter is having, with the company’s revenue being affected by the decelerating growth of user interaction. Facing social media giant Facebook, Twitter has had to come up with new ways to keep users and investors interested (and investing!). January 2016 saw Jack Dorsey, Twitters chief executive, announcing that despite the rumours; the 140 characters will not be changing. Throughout 2016 multiple updates meant images, GIFs, polls and quoted tweets did not affect the 140 characters limit. With this being a success it raises the all-important question; will it work?
Positives
Twitter’s product manager, Aliza Rosen, explains that the update is to allow people to express themselves in all languages. Languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean are able to convey a lot more into their tweets, in comparison to other languages that may encounter loss of important words or punctuation. 9% of all English tweets hit the 140 characters limit, with only 0.4% of all Japanese tweets hitting the 140 limit!
280 characters will remove the difficulty of cramming what you have to say which may make it more appealing to new users. It will allow companies a better opportunity to create brand awareness by displaying messages in more detail, without having to tweet multiple times and spamming feed. The extended limit indicates change, a sign that Twitter is a forward-thinking company and is not afraid to push boundaries.
Negatives
“Brevity is the soul of Twitter”; says Dom Knight, co-founder of The Chaser and writer for The Guardian. 140 characters encourage snappy, smart, instantaneous tweets. The limitation sets Twitter aside from competitive social media channels, with more characters meaning more baffle and fewer tweets.
With the ability to post images of screenshots, is this feature really necessary in digital marketing Surrey? 140 characters eliminate unnecessary content, it allows us to see the headline and slightly more. It forces companies to display exactly what their message should be; it has introduced a new platform of customer service that allows you to communicate with a human being rather than official business-approved email jargon. 
As of Wednesday 8th November, Twitter has announced that all users (except China & Japan) are now able to reap the benefits of 280 character limit! Will this be a positive for Twitter business and personal profiles or will tweets become less creative? We look forward to using the new limit to ours, and our clients, benefit.