What is a tweet?

A tweet is a short message and can contain up to four photos, a GIF, a video or text. A tweet is posted on the social media platform Twitter. This was originally developed in 2006 as an SMS-based platform, which is where the character limit of 140 characters until 2017 came from. The microblogging service's character limit has since been increased to 280 characters.

Tweets are also referred to as microblogging, as they are a combination of instant messaging and blogging. Similar to Instagram, you can also use topic-relevant hashtags on Twitter to tag your tweets. The optimal length of a tweet is approx. 100 - 150 characters. Tweets can be sent both immediately and at a later time by either saving the short messages as a draft or sending them at a scheduled time using the calendar symbol. You can also set whether all Twitter users or only certain groups of people can read the published tweet.

Short messages can play a role in search engine optimization (SEO), as tweets are read into the Google index, which in turn generates social signals. These social signals are less important for the ranking of a website than on-page optimizations, for example. However, if it is not just about follower numbers of the account, but about direct mentions, links or recommendations of a company, social signals have a positive effect on the credibility of a company and therefore on its website.

As part of social media marketing, optimizations can also be implemented within your own Twitter account, e.g. through the use of hashtags, a fully completed Twitter account including relevant keywords and website URL or through regular tweets as well as replying to tweets from other Twitter users or retweeting. It is also possible to place ads via Twitter. Follower Ads, Promoted Ads and Trend Takeovers are available as advertising measures.