Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Twitter is about to make a big change to the way that tweets work, The Verge can independently confirm. Beginning September 19th, the company will cut down on exactly which types of content count toward the platform's 140-character limit. Media attachments (images, GIFs, videos, polls, etc.) and quoted tweets will no longer reduce the count. The extra room for text will give users more flexibility in composing their messages.

Twitter first announced plans to stop counting extras like photos, videos, and user polls toward the limit back in May, but gave no firm date on when the shift would occur. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by The Verge. The date comes from two sources familiar with the company's business, but plans for the rollout could change.

Another new adjustment to the character limit is that usernames will no longer count when they're at the beginning of replies, giving users additional room for discussion. It's unclear whether all of these changes will occur simultaneously; certain content types may gradually stop counting against the character limit in stages. But the company will at least kick off the move next Monday....

Given 140 characters, how can you make the absolute most of every single word, hashtag, and link in a tweet?

We’ve been excited to test and experiment with answering that question by trying out headline ideas, power words,psychology, science, and more.

Now we’re happy to share the quantitative numbers—based on 1 million tweets from Buffer users—about what seems to drive the most clicks, retweets, and engagement on Twitter!...

The simple-to-follow instructions in this post will work for self-hosted WordPress blogs (WordPress.org) and for Blogger blogs. If you are on the free version of WordPress (.com)  sometimes they work but more often they don’t. After  a lot of investigation I’ve learned this is because WordPress.com does not allow Javascript code in posts, so it deletes the word “script” when saving a post – and this breaks the code. I have tried several workarounds, but as yet have not been able to get anything to work consistently. (I will keep trying!)

Eagle-eyed Twitter users have noticed that it’s now categorizing itself very differently in the Apple App Store.

In an update yesterday, Twitter now sits in the News category rather than Social Networking. The move shifts it away from its competitors like Facebook, Snapchat and Kik. The switch boosted the app from sixth place in Social Networking to first place within News, according to App Annie.


But why? Twitter didn’t immediately respond for comment, but the change is a quick way to boost its visibility within the App Store’s rankings and bring in new users.

Compelling and relevant content will help you attract more customers to your website and keep them engaged with your brand. Your followers are more likely to respond to tweets that are relevant to them.

This brings us to the need for Twitter marketing, and how from generating ideas to promoting on Twitter for free or paid, there are numerous things you can do on Twitter alone to ensure that it fits well into your content strategy.

This guide will highlight Twitter as one of your vital tools in your content marketing strategy and ensure that more people engage with your content....