Twitter data show most tweets from brands, publishers, celebs contain links

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Twitter plans to stop counting links against tweets’ 140-character limit. It’s a no-brainer move. People share a lot of links on Twitter, especially brands, celebrities and media companies — three of Twitter’s most important constituents.

Marketing Land pulled the 200 most recent tweets from the 300 most-followed brand, celebrity and media accounts on Twitter, as determined by social analytics firm Socialbakers. After setting aside replies and retweets, the 38,977 examined tweets show that the majority of all three categories’ tweets contain links.

No shocker there. Brands put links in tweets to get people to check out their sites in order to buy products or read up on whatever the brand is pitching in its tweet. Publishers put links in tweets to get people to check out their articles. And celebrities put links in tweets to promote content they’re publishing elsewhere — often their Instagram posts — as well as brands or organizations they’re in business with. And these three categories’ tweets are usually the ripest for being run as a Promoted Tweet.

Simple, sweet sips of delicious. #ColdBrew pic.twitter.com/oUQJlNouNt

— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) May 16, 2016

Still some space left in my Youth Fantasy Camp in Austin this summer…sign up: https://t.co/yxnY7jW3zj

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) May 15, 2016

This Unbelievable Chart Shows How B.S. Women’s Clothing Sizes Actually Are https://t.co/xghz21PjhA pic.twitter.com/i0hEflfGLG

— Cosmopolitan (@Cosmopolitan) May 17, 2016

Given how ubiquitous tweets with links are — and how frustrating it can be to condense a comment into a sentence — it’s also not a shocker that Twitter would give people back the 23 characters that links take up in their tweets, especially since Twitter has decided to keep the 140-character limit. Whether the move will get people tweeting more and bring new people into fold is less obvious.

About The Author

Tim Peterson

Tim Peterson, Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat's ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar's attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon's ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube's programming strategy, Facebook's ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking's rise; and documented digital video's biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed's branded video production process and Snapchat Discover's ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands' early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo's and Google's search designs and examine the NFL's YouTube and Facebook video strategies.