These are the four key takeaways from Twitter's move to test longer tweets (TWTR)

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Earlier this week, Twitter announced it would begin testing 280-character tweets, a significant increase from its longstanding 140-character limit.

The new limit will be tested out on a small subset of Twitter users and will not include Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, because it's possible to convey more meaning in fewer characters in these languages.

For example, less than 1% of Japanese tweets hit the 140-character limit, while nearly 10% of English tweets did, according to Twitter. Should the change rollout for all of Twitter, it would have massive implications for the platform's users.

Here are four potential impacts on Twitter doubling its character limit:

• Engagement may rise. A higher character limit loosens the creative restraints on users and gives them the opportunity to be more expressive. Because they can relay much more information in a single tweet, they may be inclined to post more often. User growth was flat in Q2 2017, making it especially important for Twitter to increase time spent among the users it currently has. Nonetheless, a 280-character limit is still a far cry from an unlimited character count, preventing the change from turning Twitter into a full-fledged blogging platform. 
• It could encourage brands and advertisers to spend more on the platform. The added space may give brands and advertisers a better opportunity to convey their message to users, which could make them more inclined to run Promoted Tweets. Additionally, a more engaged user base could further entice ad spend on the platform.
• However, the changes probably won't be embraced by all users. Even if overall user engagement increases, some long-time and power users are bound to be turned off by the change. They may not be able to scroll through their feeds and digest tweets as quickly, because longer tweets take up more space on a screen. This can detract from Twitter's core identity as a venue for succinct posts. Twitter has historically been different from other social platforms because of the brevity of its content and posts, and the changing character limit could frustrate long-time and heavy users of the platform who have become accustomed to catering tweets to the 140 character limit. 
• It could signal Twitter is open to more changes moving forward. Such a significant change may indicate Twitter will begin to take a more aggressive approach to attract new users and boost engagement. That may be for the best, since the platform is struggling with user growth and its ad revenue declined year-over-year (YoY) for three straight quarters. 

Research behind the news

We can expect Twitter to test other ways to engage its user base, to win the trust of new users, and to monetize the ever-increasing push to video on social platforms. That's why BI Intelligence has put together three detailed reports on the landscape of social media today: The Digital Trust Report, The Social Media Demographics Report, and The Social Video Report.

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