Twitter Changes Character Count – 10,000 in Direct Messages
Have you heard the news? Twitter changes character count to a maximum of 10,000 for its Direct Messages. Change is in the air at the headquarters of Twitter and there is more to come. It all started earlier this year when they connected with Google to have tweets being indexed within search results.
This new partnership benefits both companies in different ways. It gives the content-hungry Google more for its search engine to index and for Twitter it increases the amount of exposure and traffic to their social media network.
Are Tweets going to change too?
But don’t worry loyal Twitter users. Those of you who love the chronological crawl of 140 character tweets fear not. That aspect of Twitter will NOT change. So why did Twitter decide to change the character count for their Direct Messages?
There are several theories out there and my opinion is that Twitter is trying to be more competitive with the other social networks, whose direct messages offer far more than 140 characters. I also see it as a move to get many of its users to use Twitter Direct Messages instead of the popular WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
What Twitter has said…
“We’ve done a lot to improve Direct Messages over the past year and have much more exciting work on the horizon. One change coming in July that we want to make you aware of now (and first!) is the removal of the 140 character limit in Direct Messages,” wrote Sachin Agarwal of Twitter in his recent Twitter blog post.
Twitter is unique when it comes to social media platforms mainly because of its short 140 character count Tweets. However this has also been somewhat intimidating to those who try to use Twitter, because they cannot wrap their mind around how they are supposed to get their point across in such a short space.
Image by Paul Snelling of WinfrithGraphics
What do I think about the change?
This change to Direct Messages in my opinion is long overdue. Though I have embraced the Twitter social lifestyle and use my active Twitter account daily, it took me a couple of weeks to get used to the whole concept. But you know what? It grew on me and now I like it!
So I am looking forward to seeing what other great changes will be coming to Direct Messages in the coming months. I am wondering if this new arrangement with Google will also have the search engine giant indexing Direct Messages too. It could also be a boon for those who do Social Media Marketing.
The fact that Twitter changes character count of their Direct Messages to 10,000 characters, I think, would be another opportunity for Google to feed its appetite for more content to index. Perhaps this could be yet another reason for the Twitter change?
What do you think? Do you like this new change to Direct Messages and do you think it will be something that you would use more often now that you are not limited to only 140 characters? Please share your comments below and let us know your views.
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Robert,
It is a very interesting post. Do you think it will harm relevant data in google indexing? Looking forward to your response.
Thank you Sheena. No I do not think this will harm any relevant data in Google indeing. If anything it will increase greater awareness and better rankings within the search engines. Remember, the use of social media and how often your content and links are shared on social media, will have a positive impact on website rankings in search engines.
Hi Robert, this is interesting article i’m not sure if i like this idea of 10000 words tweet. i’m a new user of the tweeter and still learning the process for posting there. It look like this will apply only for Direct Messages – is there a way you can elaborate on this. for example what is direct message? how one should use it?
thank you
Yes, this change is only for Twitter Direct Messages. This does not change the 140 character count of regular Tweets. A Twitter Direct Messages is the same as Facebook Messages or Google Hangouts. You basically can send a direct message to any of your followers with up to 10,000 characters long. The Twitter Direct Messages used to be (still is as of today 07/03/15) 140 characters long, the same maximum length of the regular tweets.
Though 140 characters for tweets are acceptable, Twitter feels (and so do many other people) that 140 characters does not give enough space to send a message to anyone. Being that other social media networks have direct messages of far more character lengths, Twitter needed to make changes in order to stay relevant with other networks that would take away its members when it comes to sending direct messages.
Hi Robert,
As always a very interesting post and honestly I didn’t know that Twitter changed the number of characters in direct messages. I also have to admit that I just started with Twitter and it is indeed not easy to focus your thoughts in 140 character tweets, but I will get used to that rather quick.
Until now I haven’t used direct messages why I am not really concerned about that, but when you say Google want to index direct messages is this legally allowed? I am not sure if I would be a good if they publish private messages. With Twitter, it will not be that big of a problem because it is a platform mostly used for business purposes.
What do you think will be the next big changes from Twitter?
Cheers
Manuel
That is a good point Manuel, I didn’t really think of it in that respect. Now that you say that you wouldn’t feel comfortable with Google indexing your private messages on Twitter, I can now see that as being true for me too if I was using Direct Messages for that purpose. Though I will be using DM for business purposes, I am sure that most people would use it for personal topics and yes, not something that Google should index.
But the fact that 140 character count tweets are being indexed, that is still a great benefit to the internet marketer. I personally would like to see the character count of the tweets to be increased as well by about 15-20 characters. That would help with people like me to express a little more about what they are marketing on Twitter, and this will give Google more to index. But who knows, it may happen as there are many future Twitter changes in the pipeline coming out by the end of this year.
Thanks for your comment Manuel and expressing your reservations about Google indexing DM. It made sense to me.
Robert
Awesome! However, I do wish they would up the count on tweets 10-20 characters (which is always what I seemed to type, lol). Thanks for the head’s up. I need to go back and try to find my password. O_o
~ Melinda
You are welcome Melinda. I do agree that the character count for the tweets would be nice if they were increased. I know for me personally I like to reveal a little more of the benefits for what I am promoting. There are so many benefits to what I am promoting on Twitter that it would be nice to list more than two of those more than 2 dozen. An extra 10-20 would definitely be quite a delight. I hope you find your Twitter password. 🙂
Interesting post Robert.
I must admit, I’m not as familiar with direct messaging as I am with general tweets. Do you have a post about direct messaging, and why you’d use it over a tweet directed at a particular @user?
I actually found it odd when I started using twitter that you could only use 140 characters. Then I discovered Bitly, shortened my links and it was much easier. I still think 250 characters would be easier to get a message across sometimes.
Cheers
Hello Nigel, I too found it a bit odd when first starting out on Twitter. Getting used to being direct and to the point is the opposite of writing website content and required me to adjust to the different way of getting my point across. Yes, 250 characters would have been better, but maybe that may change in the future. Change is in the air at Twitter lately.
No I do not at this time have any information about Twitter Direct Messaging on my website as of yet. Once this new feature goes into effect in July and I have utilized it for my SMM purposes, I will be writing another post on the benefits of using the new and improved Twitter DM. Thank you for your comment.
Hi Robert
I’ve been reading about twitter changes, character count and so on via many different venues. However, Your brief explanation is explicitly clear.
Thanks once again for your endless stream of useful information.
Joseph
You are most welcome Joseph! I am happy that I was able to clearly articulate the upcoming changes to Twitter Direct Messages. I feel that it will greatly boost the Social Media Marketing aspect of Twitter in that we will no longer be tied into a limited 140 character count message, and can better offer our potential customers more information to help them better understand what we have to offer.
I have not been a big fan of twitter for this very reason, they do not allow much content to be shared and now 10,000 characters is so large you can almost send an e-book.
I salute them for making the change and I will begin using twitter a lot more.
Thanks for the article Robert, you are always right on time.
San
I do agree San that the 140 character count can be somewhat intimidating. At first I couldn’t wrap my mind around it but then when I learned how to be more direct and to the point, it became easier for me. However now with Direct Messages changing to 10,000 characters, it certainly will change how I use Twitter for my Social Media Marketing efforts and I hope that Google will be indexing these larger messages, because this should help the SERPs of many websites.