Twitter's 280 Character Count - Is More Really Better?

It is almost six months (yes, already) since Twitter officially switched its character count total from 140 to 280 per tweet, which means enough time has passed to analyze whether or not this was a positive or negative step for the social media giant. Based on various industry conversation, literature and just my own personal observations, my conclusion is that it doesn’t appear that there’s been much of a result at all – good or bad. In other words, the response has mostly been indifference.

I have seen little evidence that the increased character count has had a positive effect on digital marketers and brands, as well as led to an increase in users and followers on Twitter in general. In truth, much as how I felt when the increased character count was first announced, I can’t help feeling like this change was pointless and unnecessary and hasn’t really added anything to the platform.

Twitter users have long been calling for certain changes to the platform – namely, an edit function (no really, when are we getting that one), a better handle on hateful trolling, etc. – but I cannot say I remember seeing a very vocal demand for a higher character count.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure many users have had moments of frustration when the 140 characters limited a great idea, quote, expression, etc. they wanted to tweet. Trust me, I’ve been there. But, and this is just speaking for myself, that is exactly what I loved about Twitter. That it forced me to have to be creative with my tweets and work on being more concise.

A little personal backstory – one of the most common criticisms I always received about my writing in school, was that I had a tendency to be a bit long-winded. For years, I was guilty of the run-on sentence. It’s something I am still working on to this day. So I loved that Twitter forced me to have to go against my natural inclination to over-explain and be too wordy and just get to the point in a direct and simple manner.

As a content marketer, I also understood the frustration of wanting to post something about a product, the brand and being hindered by the character limit, especially as URL links were counted in the 140 characters, as well as hashtags. And of course, as digital marketers, we know how important keywords and SEO is to the lifeblood of our business. So yes, the 140 character count did present challenges for businesses. However, that challenge provided the opportunity for marketers to have to be more creative in getting their message across to as many customers and potential customers, as possible. And in my opinion, they were better for it.

Also, as has been discussed in a number of digital marketing literature, we all know that many individuals’ attention span is particularly brief online. In most cases, brands have a very brief window to gain their attention. A wordy tweet is not the way to do that. The challenges that the 140 character count presented, were often simply minimized through the use of strategically placed visuals, i.e. images or videos that your target audience was far more likely to remember, versus a wordy tweet.

So in conclusion – was more really better for Twitter? I’d say, no.