Julia Garza Social Media Tips: Twitter Allowing You to Do More with Your 140 Characters: This Week in Blogging

Welcome to This Week in Blogging – the show where I share some of the latest things that happened in our industry with a blogging twist.

Twitter isn’t expanding the 140 character limit, but they are doing this

Twitter Allowing You to Do More with Your 140 Characters: This Week in Blogging

Todd Sherman (senior VP of Twitter) announced in a blog post on Tuesday that Twitter is working on allowing you to express more in 140 characters. How are they doing this?

Replies and media attachments won’t count towards that 140 character count. Yes, you read that correctly. When these features roll out over the coming months, replying to that Twitter user with the ridiculously long name won’t affect what you are able to say.

And if you attach photos, GIFs, videos, polls or quote tweets, you will still have an entire 140 characters to work with.

He also announced two more things:

You will soon be able to retweet and quote yourself. This is a great way to extend a conversation or even share a new thought about something you said earlier.
When you reply to someone’s tweet with their username at the front of your tweet, this will be seen by all of your followers. You no longer have to try to trick the system by adding a dot in front of your @ mention.

What this means for Bloggers: If you use Twitter as a way to drive traffic to your blog, you’re now able to express more in your tweets. With a limit of 140 characters, every character counts. This is a great way for Twitter to allow you to do more without removing the limitations that make Twitter what it is.

Updates in the Live Video Scene

There has been a lot happening with live video in 2016. Well, this week was no exception.

Chewbakka Mom and Facebook Live Improvements

I’m sure you’ve seen it by now – the Chewbakka Mom video. On Thursday, May 19th, Candace Payne took to Facebook Live to express her joy after buying a . . . well . . . never mind. I’ll just let you watch it:

In the week and a half since posting this video, it has been viewed over 150 million times, breaking the record for the most-watched Facebook Live video to date.

Also, on Monday May 23rd, Techcrunch revealed that Facebook is working on an “Engagement graph” for live video that shows you when viewers were most engaged during a live broadcast.

This will allow you to quickly and easily skip to the most engaging part of a live video broadcast.

Periscope Updates App with New Feature

Periscope updated their app and it now allows you to permanently save all of your live broadcasts by default.

It's here! Update your Periscope app to permanently save your broadcasts by default (no #save needed). pic.twitter.com/Tv8O48jImQ

— Periscope (@periscopeco) May 25, 2016

This makes it way easier to repurpose your live broadcasts and use them to get additional exposure.

What this means for bloggers: If you’re a blogger and you haven’t even considered this live video stuff as a way to engage with and even grow your audience, I think it’s time to pay attention.

Going live and engaging directly with your audience and/or your potential audience is such a great way to connect. Whether it’s Facebook live, Periscope or another platform, I encourage you to see what it can do for growing your blog’s audience.

What’s happening with Blab

Over the last few weeks, there has been a whole lot of talk among blabbers about whether Blab is dying especially since their launch of the new Bebo app.

Shaan Puri the founder and CEO of Blab, hosted a Q&A on Blab where he addressed those concerns in a way that raised even more concerns for some.

The take home message of what he said was that they are not focused on Blab’s usage as a broadcaster platform.

Instead, as is mentioned on their homepage – “Blab is where you go to hangout with your crew.”

Blab IM

For more details on Blab and where it’s going, I encourage you to check out this article on The Social Media Hat.

What this means for bloggers: If you are using or thinking of using Blab to host your podcast episodes or any other show with the hopes of building an audience and growing your blog, this is a good time to change your mind.