Twitter Will No Longer Count Photos and URLs in Character Limit

Hashtags and Online Marketing

Twitter recently announced it will stop counting both links and photographs as part of its 140-character limit imposed on tweets. This limit was originally put in place when the microblogging service started out in 2006 to ensure that tweets would fit in a text message. As this was a time before internet-enabled smartphones were common, many Twitter users posted their tweets through text messages.

Currently, links and photos can take up to 23 characters. This reduces the amount of characters left for Twitter users to express themselves and share their ideas. Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, had previously stated that the company was considering implementing changes that would let users make longer tweets.

This recent change may not seem like a significant development for individual users, but online marketers are likely to find it highly beneficial when they use Twitter to reach their target audience.

The main benefit to social media marketers is that they can now tweet images more freely without being constrained by character limit. Catching the attention of users can sometimes be quite difficult, especially if their activity feeds are very busy. Including an image is a growing trend among Twitter marketers, as it has been shown to increase the amount of attention that users give to messages. This new change allows images to be included regardless of how many characters the message takes up.

The change will also help marketers include a more impactful message when they link to an article, blog post, or webpage. Having a few more characters may help marketers deliver a stronger call to action or a better quality message with fewer abbreviations or incorrect grammar.

If you aren’t using social media marketing as part of your overall strategy, it’s time to start—and we can help. Saba SEO is a trusted San Diego SEO company offering PPC, social media, SEO, and web design and development. To learn more about why you should be using social media or to discuss other online marketing tactics that could boost your business, give us a call at (858) 277-1717.