Twitter is increasing the character count of their Direct Messaging feature. What you need to know!

Since its conception back in 2006, the social networking platform evolved through many changes over the years. Whether you’re using it on your desktop or on a mobile app, or if you are using it for political advocacy, marketing or simply tweeting your thoughts and opinions, a defining characteristic of Twitter has always been its constraint. The micro-blogging service has always limited a user’s tweets to 140-characters.

Limitless…well not really

One significant change that Twitter has introduced is the Direct Messaging feature, which allows users to exchange private messages. Since its release, this feature – called DMs for short – has had mixed views. Some believe that it was a useful means to communicate with friends, family and potential clients without having to move to a different media platform. Conversely, some criticized this feature by describing it as useless because it was overrun with spammers who constantly sent generic advertisements to users, which were often ignored.

On June 11, 2015, Sachin Agarwal, Twitter’s product manager for direct messages, announced the company’s intentions of increasing the character count in the Direct Messaging feature from 140 characters to 10,000. Some people initially believed that this indicated that 140-character count would be abolished, which some argue would take away the defining characteristic of Twitter. “You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter. Nothing! Tweets will continue to be the 140 characters they are today,” Agarwal refuted in a blog post. Twitter explained that the DM change would be tested in the upcoming weeks before it is released to the public in July.

Evolving into a Messaging App?

When it was first released, DMs were only used to send a link or make quick, to the point conversation. While short chats were sometimes useful, it was still under constraint; other social media platforms like Facebook had no limits, and perhaps you had more to say in just 140 characters. If this were the case, however, you would be forced to split your lengthy post into multiple messages, something that required more time and effort and could be perceived as annoying. This caused users to become frustrated and would switch to different platforms like Facebook messenger to carry on a conversation.

2015 has been a big year of changes for the feature. Although not everyone uses the Direct Messaging services, this is still a smart move for Twitter. DMs have now become more flexible and useful. Back in January, Twitter gave users the ability to send group messages for multiple user chats, as well as the ability to allow users to embed and share messages easier. In the past, you were only able to send another user a DM if you followed them. In April, Twitter released an update that did way with this feature; however, you can still opt to keep it this way if you change your privacy settings.

Twitter has been forced to make these significant changes to the DM feature to both increase customer satisfaction and to compete against other messaging platforms like Facebook. With this new update, Twitter is trying to prevent this switch to other platforms and keep people on Twitter.

But is this the end or can we expect to see more changes to Twitter’s messaging capabilities in the future? Could this also mean that Twitter will eventually release a separate app in the same manner as Facebook? Only time will tell.

What does the Twitter Direct Message update mean for your Business?

Twitter has been evolving over the years to meet the needs of users. This revision by Twitter has the potential to benefit many businesses in regards to customer service. This change allows businesses to communicate with both potential and existing clients in greater detail through their company twitter account.

Brands can now respond to queries and complaints with stakeholders without having to switch to a different platform such as email or by phone, which clients might consider inconvenient. It also allows business to take the discussion off the public forum, which is still constrained by the 140-character limit. In short, these changes to Twitter’s messaging feature will allow your Brand to develop stronger meaningful bonds with your consumers and existing clients.

At Kraus Marketing, we try to remain knowledgeable to new and emerging digital trends and report to our readers. When the new Twitter update is released to the public, we will thoroughly test it and provide any further information about this and any other updates released by Twitter. To learn more about Kraus Marketing and the service we offer, contact us at (973) 998-5742 or visit us online at www.KrausMarketing.com.