New Twitter long-form narrative option expands online publishing opportunities
Mark Dodick
Versatile communications professional ? Acclaimed content marketing, editorial & research capabilities ? Multisector experience
A new Twitter feature now in field testing with selected users shifts the dominant microblogging social media platform from its original quick-hit news orientation to also become a channel for presenting story-length content.
?As reported by various sources (https://yhoo.it/3OmiKXy), Twitter Notes allows users to publish longer form posts (including rich formatting, embedded images, etc.) that cannot be properly captured by threading together multiple tweets.
?The expanded content capability means Twitter Notes competes with proprietary website blogs and third-party platforms, e.g., Medium.com. The company has also launched a new handle, @TwitterWrite, that focuses on writing and supporting writers.
?This is an intriguing evolution given the obvious ascendance of imagery online, including Twitter itself: a visual tweet is much more likely to attract attention. Yet Twitter – which began as a vehicle that allowed 140 characters max (since doubled) – has identified a market appetite for sharing and consuming more text.
?That narrative still has the power to engage reinforces the unique value of verbal content for conveying experience, expressing emotion, and capturing abstract ideas. A picture may well be worth a thousand words, but sometimes words can speak more persuasively.
?To stay relevant and retain audience loyalty, all media must evolve and often adopt or mimic the strengths of other formats. It will be interesting to see the impact this change has for content consumers and content creators.