As from a few weeks ago, media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos and polls) and quoted Tweets will no longer be counted toward the 140 characters that make up a tweet. So what exactly does this mean?

Media doesn’t count as characters

Visuals are a really great way for tweets to stand out. A recent study by Twitter found that tweets which have visuals received 35% more retweets than those without. Until recently it has been tricky to convey a full message on Twitter and include a visual without maxing out the character count. Twitter’s new update allows for media to be added to the tweet without it impacting the 140 character count.  That means you have a couple of characters to play with when crafting your tweets.

You can start a tweet with a username

In the past, tweets that started with usernames were visible only to users who followed both the person tweeting and the person named. This old Twitter rule was extremely confusing and not easy to grasp. The recent update means that you can now start a tweet with a username without it being hidden from the followers that both you and the person you are tweeting share. People got around this old rule by starting tweets with a full stop. Many people are still doing this, showing their ignorance of the rule change.

Go ahead and quote yourself

How often have you had to tweet several tweets in order to get your full message through? Now with Twitter’s recent updates you can share two tweets by quoting the first tweet and then adding the rest of your message to the character count. Another cool update when it comes to quoting is the ability to retweet yourself. Have a good tweet that you feel went unnoticed? Simply retweet yourself.

There is no doubt that Twitter will roll out further changes. In a recent blog post they said, “We’re exploring ways to make existing uses easier and enable new ones, all without compromising the unique brevity and speed that make twitter the best place for live commentary, connections, and conversations.”

Until then, we’re enjoying being able to retweet ourselves and share more content without the character count being impacted.  Happy tweeting.

For more information, visit www.rogerwilco.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on Twitter.