Are you using Twitter to promote your brand? I am really excited about one of the recent changes Twitter made to direct messaging aka the DM. I can finally send one individual message instead of sending my friends four different messages to tell them about a birthday get together! Get the scoop on this change and more below.

Twitter Direct Messaging Goes from 140 to 10,000

Prior to the change, DMs had a 140 character count limit, just like tweets. This limitation was always an issue for brands that wanted to reach out to their customers via Twitter for customer service purposes. It was also an issue for people like me who have a lot to say and felt confined by only 140 characters. If this is you as well, I have great news, Twitter has announced that they are removing the 140-character limit from direct messages. This was Twitter’s statement about their character change.

“While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.”

The new character limit is now 10,000 characters which I am sure will be more than enough for you to relay your message. If it isn’t, then you have a bigger issue!

Benefits of This Change

• You won’t have to be as concise in direct messages to try to get across what you have to say.
• No more abbreviating words that can be misunderstood.
• Twitter users can now have an ongoing conversation and not be limited to how much they want to say.
• Brands can now bring their highest quality of customer service to their clients on Twitter, by having unlimited details in their DMs. This is an example of what can make your brand stand out from the rest in your industry.

Longer spam messages is the only con I can see so far from this Twitter change. This isn’t necessarily a horrible thing, because let’s face it, spam is everywhere and it’s just something we have to accept in the digital world. This negative can be easily remedied by choosing to block the spammer and they will not be able to send you messages again until you choose to unblock them.

While we are talking about Twitter Direct Messaging, let me share the news about another change they made earlier in the year that can definitely benefit you as a brand.

Who Can Send Who A Direct Message

In the past, you could only direct message people that followed you back. For example, if you follow Lindsey Lohan, but she didn’t follow you back, then you could not send her a direct message, but she could still send you a direct message because you follow her.

With the change Twitter made earlier this year, you can send Lindsey Lohan, or anyone else that has a Twitter account a direct message, even if you don’t follow them and they don’t follow you. The Twitter account you want to direct message would have to check “Receive Direct Messages from anyone” in settings to enable the feature. See example below:

Benefits of This Change

• Twitter is a great tool to promote your brand, listen to your customers and help them with any customer service.
• Enabling this feature will make it easier for customers to reach you and perhaps they will direct message you before shouting out their complaints on Twitter for everyone to read.
• If you are a brand and you want to reach out to all of your new clients and thank them, you don’t have to wait for the long “following game” to be able to message them.

Spammers. Spammers and spammers. As the only con stated for the first DM change, I also think is the only con for the second change. Being able to message anyone in the Twitter world can become dangerous because of the amount of spammers that are out there. No one wants to be bothered by annoying emails, or sales pitches on their personal Twitter account. Don’t be the brand or business that gets blocked because you are “attempting” to promote your business.

If you come along a spam situation and you don’t want to receive messages from a specific Twitter account, just follow the steps below.

• Locate the spam message
• Click the “more icon” (•••) and select “Flag as spam” or “Mark as abusive”
• Make sure you click to confirm

So, I rest my case. I love Twitter and networking. I am not looking forward to more spam, but I am looking forward to the longer and richer direct messaging experience now available to me. What about you? Want to learn more about Twitter? Click here.

#Twitter Direct Messaging Grows Up: The DM Goes from 140 to 10,000 by @ValerieVera10 #RocksDigital
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Are you ready to make your brand stand out from the crowd and engage with your customers through direct messages?

The post Twitter Direct Messaging Grows Up: The DM Goes from 140 to 10,000 appeared first on Rocks Digital.

You can read the LIVE blogs and view the Social Media Day 2015 photo highlights.

#RocksDigital Speakers that ROCKED Social Media Day Included:

• Eric Tung kicking off the Rocks Digital conference and presenting on “How to ROCK Your Digital Marketing and Content Strategy for Results”.

Eric Tung preaching the gospel of #contentmarketing at #rocksdigital Amen brother! pic.twitter.com/ykpL3vJbf4

— Tony Cecala (@tonycecala) June 30, 2015

The tweet mentioned above explains how awesome and interactive Eric Tung’s presentation was at Rocks Digital!

• Loren Baker, our first keynote of the day kept the energy in the room high with his presentation on how to “ROCK with Google: Integrated Content, Search, Social and Local Strategies for Branding.”
• Special guest, Chris Silver Smith engaged and grabbed the audience’s attention with his “Reputation Management” presentation. He has received a lot of feedback with the audience’s personal experiences.
• Martin Shervington wrapped up the conference with covering the unknowns of Google Plus and answering some questions the audience had.

Listening to the @MartinSherv – messiah of @GooglePlus at @RocksDigital #RocksDigital pic.twitter.com/MywZPdUogF — Grant Wickes (@gwickes) June 30, 2015

To see the rest of our awesome speakers at the 2015 Rocks Digital Conference visit our website!

Rocks Digital 2015 Break-out Session Speakers

After lunch we broke-out into smaller sessions so our attendees could have more of a one-on-one with the speakers. Conference attendees had five rooms with different speakers and topics to choose from, depending on what topic in the digital marketing industry they wanted to learn more about.

Topics Covered in Break-out Sessions

• Social Media Monitoring
• Content and Branding
• Increasing Sales
• Website Development
• Video Marketing

Social Media Day 2015 Tweetup

I have noticed people in the digital marketing industry love to network and socialize! Well this conference had plenty of networking opportunities and a big thank you to Bernadette Coleman and Lissa Duty for having an onsite happy hour for their guests, speakers and their team!

Wow, yesterday was so much fun! Thanks @LissaDuty, @AdviceGroup and anyone who had a hand in organizing such a great event. #RocksDigital — Harrison Blum (@HarrisonBlum) July 1, 2015

This was the first time I’ve attended a digital marketing conference. I loved the comradery and culture everyone shared. My favorite part of the Rocks Digital Conference was knowing how much knowledge was being shared with others and the amount of fun and excitement you can have all at the same time!

The Calm AFTER The Storm

The busy chaos that goes into planning and organizing a HUGE digital marketing conference gets overcome by the feeling of knowing that your guests are having a great time at the event you helped put together. Knowing that all your hard work has paid off is just the best, indescribable feeling in the world! For all of those that missed out this year, I encourage you to mark your calendar for next year’s conference on June 29 and June 30! Hope to see you next year!

Get the #RocksDigital 2015 Conference Recap by @ValerieVera10 #DigitalMarketing #SMDay
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These are just a few of the highlights from the #RocksDigital 2015 Conference. Comment below your favorite moments!

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Facebook Instant Articles is the newest addition to Facebook. What is Facebook Instant Articles you might ask? Well, Facebook has given the opportunity for publishers to post their articles onto Facebook’s news feed. You can watch the cool video on the introduction which shows National Geographic teaming up with Facebook to create Instant Articles. The video explores how National Geographic has always tried to emphasize the visual aspect with their photos and will now take it to Facebook’s news feed.  Instant Articles makes published articles easier to read and watch by making videos alive and interactive. The pictures and videos will now load 10 times faster than the average mobile website.

Let’s face it, if you click on an article and it takes forever to load, what are the chances you will wait for it? Probably very slim because you know you have more options elsewhere. This is where Facebook Instant Articles will come in to fix this issue.

Sounds interesting, but how does this affect your business? Let’s explore.

User Experience with Facebook Instant Articles

• Speed- The articles load instantly on your Facebook news feed.
• Easy to read- Instant Articles will take hard to read HTML and RSS feeds and scale them to your mobile devices, making an easier experience for the viewer.
• Picture movement- Users can touch the photo and move their mobile devices side to side to see the whole image.

How Facebook Instant Articles Creates A Better Visual Experience

• Animated maps- Instant Articles has created a 3D like map that is similar to google maps. You can zoom in and out of locations where the photos were taken.
• Image quality- The quality of the photos and videos being shown are capturing and vivid. The videos that play on auto-play show great detail and make the picture look crisp.
• Drive engagement- Facebook users can still like, comment and share the pictures, videos and articles with their friends just like any other post.

Now to the question everyone is asking. How will the publishers, like National Geographic, profit from this? If Facebook is making it easier for users to read news and get their social media fix on the same app, then why would we need to go to the publisher’s page, will that now be seen as a waste of time?

The Pros of Facebook Instant Articles

• Publishers will still control what is being published and how their business model will look. They will also be in control of their own analytics platforms.
• Facebook offers publishers to display their own ads and publishers would take 100 percent of the revenue from those ads.
• Facebook then will fill unsold spots and take 30 percent of the revenue from those ads, and the remaining 70 percent will go to the publishers.

The Cons of Facebook Instant Articles
There are some people who think Facebook Instant Articles could lead to some negative issues in the future. These issues stem from the fact that Facebook has been known to change their rules and change up the news feed whenever they choose in the past. If Facebook decides to change Instant Articles in the future, these potential changes could likely affect Facebook users and also the publishers of Instant Articles.

We will have to wait and see, but as technology moves forward we must be able to keep up with new developments and various social media trends.

Learn about #Facebook Instant Articles by @ValerieVera10 #RocksDigital #SocialMedia
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Have you noticed Facebook Instant Articles in your newsfeed yet? Are you going to be using Facebook Instant Articles? Let’s discuss!

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