As most marketers will already know, Twitter recently made the biggest change in its history by increasing it’s maximum character count. But you might not know that HubSpot, an inbound marketing and sales platform, reacted in record time, updating its social media tool just 48 hours after Twitter launched this change. Why was it so important that they reacted so fast?
To understand that, let’s look at what’s actually changed, why Twitter has made the change, and what it means for you.
Twitter is first and foremost a communication tool, and research showed that users were running out of characters before reaching the end of their messages. Time was being spent meticulously editing tweets, resulting in users losing the weight behind the message they were trying to convey and, ultimately, not being able to communicate effectively.
The social media platform believed that doubling the character count would allow individuals and companies to communicate more effectively, without having to sacrifice impactful words that would enhance their messages. It would ultimately improve the user experience.
Many companies across the world use HubSpot to manage their full marketing strategy – from creating landing pages and blog posts, to marketing automation and social media publishing and monitoring. If the connection between HubSpot and Twitter was to be compromised, i.e. the social media tool not allowing users to Tweet with the new character count, the whole HubSpot user experience would therefore be compromised.
In the modern world of interconnected applications, the leading apps need to be nimble – reacting to changes in the ecosystem immediately. If they don’t, they risk behind left behind by more proactive competitors.
So, what can we learn from this? User experience is everything, and we must listen to our customers and react to continually improve it. And reacting in a timely manner is also critical to enhancing customer experience, and enabling your business to stay ahead of the competition.
In light of this recent Twitter update, us marketers must remember to focus on the art of effective communication, and not just use the full character count for the sake of it. Always be clear, clever, concise in how you craft your Tweets, and don’t be tempted to ramble and add in unnecessary words if they’ll have little impact.
