Is Twitter Marketing Having an Online Identity Crisis?
Rumors have abounded this week that Twitter is considering rolling out a new limit for tweets by the end of the first quarter of 2016—to the sound of 10,000 characters. This is a significant boost from the current limit of 140 characters. While longer tweets seem like a logical step to many, with the potential for serious commercial benefits, others feel that Twitter is suffering an identity crisis. Considering the fact that Twitter’s stock price hit an all-time low this week, dropping to $19.98, investors could be getting jittery about the potential for change. The decline in stock price currently brings the company’s value to around $13 billion.
Twitter plays an important role in many social media and online marketing campaigns, but a lot of that is based on the simplicity of its rapid fire messages. 10,000 characters is practically a blog post—and while the rumors point to a “read more” button at the end of the shortened content at the beginning of the tweet, this puts it in a different realm. Will users still be able to see a list of tweets without scrolling? Will they still experience the instant gratification of reading a quick celebrity tweet or message from their favorite brand?
if you remember, you used to be able to check Twitter on your phone and see a whole list of tweets without touching the screen. Now most tweets include some form of media, which tends to add a lot of value for many users. For others, it requires a little more work to get what was once a quick fix from checking Twitter.
Change is good and evolution is often necessary to grow as individuals, as a company and as an industry. Yet when a product of any type, from a social media site to a coffee, strays too far from its original form, users tend to lose interest and loyalty. With too much deviation, they may stop using it altogether.
Thoughts?
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