Twitter‘s Product Manager, Aliza Rosen, announced the social media platform has expanded its character limit from 140 to 280, so “every person around the world could express themselves easily in a Tweet.”
Rosen and Twitter’s Senior Software Engineer, Ikuhiro Ihara, conducted an experiment in September based on the notion that a user can articulate twice the amount of information in one character using tongues like Japanese, Korean and Chinese versus English.
They found that only 5% of tweets sent by focus group participators exceeded 140 characters, and 2% were longer than 190 characters. Research confirmed that the character limit differential upped engagement: followers, likes, mentions, retweets, time spent on the networking service and customer satisfaction without bombarding his or her timelines with incessant posts.
“People in the experiment told us that a higher character limit made them feel more satisfied with how they expressed themselves on Twitter, their ability to find good content, and Twitter overall,” said Rosen.
