June 2016 has been a busy month for Twitter (or so one might assume). In the last ten days of the month, the social network announced three new features that demonstrate its focus on attracting and retaining users… even if it's sometimes "inspired" by other platforms.
Here's a summary.
1. You can now upload videos of up to 140 seconds to Twitter.
And thank goodness, because it was about time: the 30-second limit had phone number library been too short for a while . Even more so considering that on Instagram (Twitter's major competitor), videos can last up to 60 seconds, and on Facebook, no less than 120 minutes. Now the limit has been extended to 140 seconds, with the option to choose (in the case of previously created videos) a shorter fragment: for brand and corporate audiovisuals, it therefore offers greater flexibility . As before, the video can include a call to action to redirect to an external website, a title, and a description. And be careful, because Twitter has announced that the length of Vine videos will soon be extended as well . With the new features also introduced on Periscope , Twitter thus reaffirms its commitment to audiovisuals.
2. New Twitter Dashboard
This was the latest addition of June, and the one I liked the most after the videos. The company introduced Twitter Dashboard as a free tool specifically aimed at brands , to facilitate the management of corporate accounts. While it's not a marvel, it includes a feature that (again) competitors like Facebook have been providing for some time: the ability to schedule tweets from Twitter itself . There's no limit to the number (the free version of Buffer only allows a maximum of 10), and it also offers the ability to schedule images, GIFs, etc. (an option also offered by Hootsuite). In addition, Twitter Dashboard adds a simple option for monitoring terms related to the brand (very simple, to be honest) and new audience statistics, tweets, impressions, new followers, and replies, allowing for comparative analysis over the last week, 30 days, or 60 days, and as a complement to Twitter Analytics .