Longer Tweets : Will Twitter Gain Users Or Lose Its Identity ?
Ever since its inception, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) has been identified with the size of its messages better known as the “tweet”. The socalled Small Messaging Service, the Tweet is limited to just 140 characters by its technology. This favors short, specific and easy to follow messages, inspiring users to communicate their views briefly but fully. This has been Twitter’s unique selling proposition. However, reports suggest that the company is now considering doing away with this limit and allowing users to write messages as long as 10,000 characters. [1]. The size of tweets was originally designed such that they could be sent as text messages; since this requirement no longer exists, a change is possible. While more content can lead to higher user engagement, which has been a weak point for Twitter, it takes away the core feature of the social media network, which distinguishes it from other players. We believe Twitter’s implementation of this change will be the key deciding factor on how it impacts user engagement and the user base.
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Beyond 140 – More Users, Better Engagement?
Twitter has been looking at ways to improve user engagement and expand its user base. The company had around 320 million monthly active users in Q3 2015, a small increase from the 316 million figure in the previous quarter, indicating a slow rate of growth. The company claims of 1 billion monthly unique visits to sites with embedded Tweets, thus having a large “passive” user base. [2]. Compared to 1.55 billion monthly active users on Facebook, Twitter definitely is far behind. [3]. However, Twitter stands apart from Facebook due to the size of its messages and the ability users have to quickly copy tweets and spread them on other platforms. By increasing the size of the tweet tremendously, if Twitter loses this distinction, it might have to compete directly with Facebook which would probably be a losing proposition. Further, large tweets which take up too much of screen space and longer to read might lead to lower user engagement, as users might limit themselves to a less number of tweets impacting Twitter’s unique proposition of the ability to follow several tweets in a day, given their crisp nature.
On the positive side, however, by increasing the size limit of the tweet, the company might attract more users who shied away from the platform since they needed to share longer messages and used other media such as Facebook for this purpose. Some users might come back to Twitter if they formerly found the 140 character limit insufficient for their messages. A Cowan and Company survey of U.S. adults found that users spend an average of 42.1 minutes on Facebook, while this number is much lower at 17.1 minutes for Twitter. [4]. More content by way of longer tweets can help Twitter increase this time and engage users better.
How Twitter implements this change might be the key factor behind user engagement. Adding content without disrupting the existing framework might prove advantageous To Twitter, but it can lose its identity in the process. Twitter is walking the thin line of maintaining its unique product features while increasing content availability to capture a larger market. How well it can implement this change will be the deciding factor on how this impacts its user base.
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Notes:- Twitter considering 10,000 Character Limit For Tweets, re/code, January 5, 2016 [↩]
- Twitter Usage, Company Facts, Twitter Wesbite [↩]
- Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 3rd quarter 2015, Statista [↩]
- This Is How Much Time We Spend On Social Networks Every Day, Social Times, November 2014 [↩]