No more are the days of cramming your Tweet into 140 characters. With its most recent character limit update from 140 to 280 characters, Twitter hopes to see an increase in engagement across the platform from users and brands.

The recent decision to double character count stems from data they analyzed in the English-speaking market. Twitter found that 9% of tweets in English hit the 140-character limit, which is a large amount of the user base struggling to express themselves in a tweet. When given 280 characters through Twitter’s recent tests, 1% of users hit the character limit and engagement increased across the platform.

Brands now have the opportunity to leverage the character limit revision through organic postings and promoting organic tweets, but other paid products such as website cards will be revised in the coming months as Twitter gathers more usage data. So, this leaves brands questioning how they can take advantage of the new update? Here are a few ideas:

• Expand your message to take up more of the feed
• Tag partner brands to increase the engagement from your target market
• Connect with your audience in a witty and humorous way

These are just a few of the examples brands can leverage as they think about new ways to approach the 280-character limit.

Let us know below – what are your thoughts of the recent Twitter update?