0 Twitter Stick to 140 Characters

You have to stick to 140 characters, right ?  That's  all give you, and they do it for a good reason. Being starved of space stops with waffling and sparks your creativity. It's what  Twitter is all about.

Well, yes and no.

Twitter give you 140 characters because that's all that can fit through SMS  systems. If mobile phone companies could handle message of  200 characters  then  that's  probably  how  long our tweets  would  be.

Even though the limit is fairly arbitary, it  does make sense to keep to it as much as possible.

The alternative is to show half-complete tweets and offer links for people to continue reading or break messages up so that they're  sent for  several tweets. There are even services such as  TwitLonger that allow people to post  messages  as long as they like with the first 140 characters appearing as tweet.


You can see all of these things happening sometimes on Twitter, and they rarely look good. Readers expect the content on Twitter to be small. They expect to be able to read and absorb it in one bite. These are content snacks, not three course meals with coffee.

Writing a  thought that takes more than 140 characters and  spreading it over three or four tweets is giving people more than they want. It also makes you look like you're  dominating the conversation.


Chat with a friend, and you' will take turns speaking. You''ll speak your friend will respond, and then you''ll continue. Keep talking without giving your friend chance to offer his response and you'' start to sound rude.


Multiple tweets can have the same  effect upon Twitter.


Again this doesn't mean you you should never break up a long tweet. And it certainly doesn't mean  that you shouldn't post one tweet after another.


What does it mean is that you should be aware of the effect  you can create in timeline when you do either.