It had to happen. In fact, I was just talking about this the other day when I spoke at Social Media Marketing World 2015 in San Diego. Since Twitter launched in 2006, the microblogging social media site has had a strict 140-character limit to all tweets. The are a number of sites that allowed you to make your tweets longer by linking out to them, such as TwitLonger.com. But to date, Twitter has remained firm on the 140-character limit, stating that brevity and easy-to-consume tweets are the foundation of the site. All that changed today. And it’s about time. Twitter has announced that for the first time ever, they are increasing the character limit. However, it’s not nearly as dramatic a change as you might think. Your tweets can now be 141 characters. Certainly there is a good reason for this seemingly insignificant increase. I contacted Twitter HQ and was able to get the skinny from a source who preferred by remain anonymous. “Look,” he said. “So many people write out their tweets and they get to the end only to discover that there isn’t room for one more character. They have to go back and figure out if they can risk changing “to” to “2” in order to save space. Sometimes the exclamation point at the end provides essential context, and if they are out of characters the whole tweet can get flushed before it is ever shared.” My source went on to say, “By allowing people to tweet up to 141 characters, we feel the problem is solved. It’s a small concession for us to make, yet one that the Twitter community will really appreciate.” When I asked what would happen if someone wanted to tweet 142 characters instead, my source was silent for a few seconds before he told me that he needed to go. I must confess that I’ve had run-ins with the 140-character hard limit more times than I can count. It can be frustrating. Just today I went to quote the modern-day teeny-bopper philosopher Taylor Swift and ran up against the 140-character wall. Houston, we have a problem. “Shake it of”? What does it mean? But with the new and improved Twitter 141-character limit, all is right with the world once again. I honestly can’t say what impact this is going to have on the social space overall. Only time will tell. For now, we can all enjoy the freedom that one more character in our tweets allow us. If you want to learn how to leverage the power of Twitter to engage with customers and grow your business, pick up a copy of Twitter Power 3.0 by myself and Dave Taylor. Newly revised and updated for 2015, this 3rd edition of the top-selling book on Twitter is packed with useful strategies for dominating your competition. Click Here!
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