Blog Post By: Ian J. Jennings, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Baer Performance Marketing
If you use Twitter or read internet news of any sort, you’ve probably heard that Twitter has reportedly decided to stop counting links and photos against the 140-character limit currently imposed on tweets. This will be the first change to the limit since the company’s founding in 2006. For Facebook power users and Twitter-haters, this news induces a very large yawn, or simply continued disuse of Twitter. Advertisers, on the other hand, are having a very different reaction.
An extra 23 characters is prime real estate for companies and their marketing departments to influence customers. Where “adver-tweeters” were once forced to choose between an eye-catching picture or link to a strategically designed landing page, now they can freely tweet catchy pics and .coms to their heart’s content.
What does this mean for businesses?
- Expect a marked uptick in strategically placed native ads within your feed as advertisers try to capitalize on the added real estate. They’re not wrong. Every business should be devoting added attention to Twitter now. This change will not only make advertising on the platform easier, it should attract new users, and new users means new potential customers.
- More pictures and video. This change wasn’t random. Twitter wants more content in your face and under your thumb as you scroll through your iPhone. Twitter makes its money with advertising, and advertisers know consumers are lazy. They want video and pictures, and now they’re going to get it in spades. Up your Twitter activity. Focus more on short lead-ins to explanatory and eye-catching pictures and video. Link to your preferred landing page on your website, and use an interesting image or video to get users to click. You now have the space for it.
- Periscope. Twitter acquired the live video streaming app shortly after it was created and has been slowly bringing it along since. With Twitter users soon to be familiar with more multimedia content in their feeds, it’s only a matter of time before they see live streaming ads and marketing stunts beamed directly into their feed. Twitter implied as much when they recently enabled Periscope to stream live directly into Twitter timelines. Get familiar with Periscope, and start thinking about how you could use it to grow your business. If you want someone else to think about it for you, we have someone in mind.
If this sounds interesting (or overwhelming) to you, and you want to know more about how we can help you with social media strategy, advertising, and all other facets of marketing, call 920-632-7648 to let the BPM team help you in your quest for more effective marketing!
