Twitter may increase character count

Sahail Ashraf posted on 15 March 2023

Twitter continues to make changes that are making it a slightly uncomfortable place to be. The latest idea will change the very nature of the platform.

As Twitter continues to experience the ups and downs of having one of the most mercurial business leaders in the world at the helm, some recent ideas that have been surfacing hint at even more changes that could change the platform beyond recognition.

Elon Musk likes to communicate with the rest of the world through the app itself, and he recently let slip that he’d like to increase the character limit even more for writing Tweets. Gone are the days of 120 characters in Tweets, it seems.

That’s what it was, right at the start of things. You had 120 characters to get your message across. The name of the process itself, Tweeting, conveyed the idea that you were meant to say something short and sweet. 

Then the character limit went to 280. The new suggested direction may well come as something of a shock, because Elon Musk believes the character limit needs to be increased to 4000. That’s right, 4000 characters as opposed to the 120 character limit right at the start of things.

The problem with this

The beauty of the old 120 limit was that it allowed people to jump in, make a comment or share a small idea or two, and then jump out. It was the perfect platform for news posts, for example.

The 280 limit was, let’s be honest, not too bad a thing either. Basically, it still had the brevity that Twitter users wanted while also allowing for a little more depth to Tweets.

The 4000 character limit? Well, there are some confused and angry Twitter users, let’s put it that way.

The 4000 limit has been put forward as a means towards allowing users to express themselves in even more depth. That makes sense, because as well as the ‘Twitter rant’ phenomenon, it can sometimes be the case that you just want to add more ideas to your latest news post. 

However, that extra depth means that Twitter is moving away from the original concept that made it so attractive to people. If it happens, it may alienate some currently loyal users. And they’ve been through a lot.

The conspiracy theory

There is a school of thought that suggests Twitter is doing this for monetary gain. Think about it. If people are spending more time reading Tweets because they are longer, that means more eyeballs on ads.

Twitter needs money. It needs to make sure that it continues to make even more money so that the fallout from the Musk decisions doesn’t end up taking the company into even choppier financial waters.

Having more ads shown simply means that more money will come in. 

And for marketers?

This could be one of two things for marketers. It could prove to be a headache, as a new direction for marketing on Twitter and more of a content burden. Of course, early adopters, brands that spend time creating high quality content, will see benefits because of being ahead of the curve.

But having yet more content to produce, along with the current debate around authenticity on Twitter, could make the company look even more desperate for money. It’s becoming a paid platform at a startling rate, and Musk must be hoping that the loyal users out there have a tremendous amount of patience.

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