Yesterday, Twitter announced it’s trialling a new limit of 280 characters. Only a limited number of users currently have the privilege of longer tweets and the announcement sparked questions, humour and general disapproval from Twitter users (no surprise there).

Here are some of our favourite tweets on #280characters

At Approach, we write on average around 120 tweets a week for our clients and sometimes the current 140-character limit can be frustrating, however, we do love that Twitter requires you to think concisely to get your point across.

So, what would an extended character limit mean for brands?

Pros

  • More space to talk about a product and its details
  • Opportunity to reply with more detailed responses to customer queries
  • The use of more hashtags to try and engage with a larger audience

Cons

  • More opportunity to ramble on without realising you’re doing it (we all do it)
  • A cluttered and busy Twitter timeline – at odds with the fact that the platform is easy to read and concise at the moment
  • It gives the not-so-nice-people of Twitter (ahem…Donald Trump) more chance to rant and rave

Our recent Approach Twitter poll revealed, surprisingly (!), that 57% of people said they were happy for the limit to be extended while 43% agreed they want their tweets to stay concise.

We’re just hoping an edit button is next on Twitter’s to-do list!

Image sourced from Flickr.