Marketers and publishers know that expressing yourself within a confined word count is challenging. And, as the social communication landscape has evolved, many brands have turned to multimedia content—like GIFs and images—to express emotion, add personality and engage with their audiences both when composing messages and replying. For the past decade, Twitter’s (rebranded as “X”) 140 character limit has challenged brands and people to communicate and express themselves in new, creative ways.

Recently, we updated Sprout to account for Twitter’s enhancements to the way you use your 140 character limit. Those updates included saying more with multimedia, DM deep links and Retweets. Today, we’re excited to reflect Twitter’s latest character count update in the Sprout platform: the @handle of a user that you are replying to no longer counts toward your 140 characters. We’re thrilled about the changes and we’ve updated the entire Sprout platform so you can take advantage of Twitter’s new character count right away.

Say More With Replies

Starting today, when replying to a Tweet from the Smart Inbox, the characters in the @handle of the user(s) you are replying to no longer count towards Twitter’s character limit. With this update, Sprout users can say more when replying to Tweets, offering even more opportunities to engage.

Note: editing the list of @handles in the reply-to may impact what does or does not count towards the character limit, so pay close attention to the character counter when updating the recipients of your reply.

This update, along with the other updates outlined below that occurred late last year, strive to better continue the social conversation with your customers on Twitter.

Say More With Multimedia

When writing a new Tweet from Compose or replying from the Smart Inbox, any attached photos or GIFS no longer count towards Twitter’s character limit. Now you can share great visuals with your Tweets and still use the full 140 characters to add personality and context.

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Don’t worry, Sprout’s Compose window and Twitter reply screen still make it super easy to add media. Just simply drag-and-drop images and GIFs into Compose.

Say More With DM Deep Links

In February, Sprout was among the first to introduce the DM deep link–a seamless way to transition a conversation from public to private on Twitter. This prompt makes exchanges between customers and brands easier. It also simplifies the workflow for customer care agents who want to leverage more character space to resolve an issue or may need to gather private information from a customer, like an email address or confirmation number.

Adding a DM deep link when replying to a Tweet from Sprout will not count toward your 140 character count. Keep in mind that you will only see the Add DM Link button in your Twitter reply screen if you have configured your settings on Twitter.com to allow for anyone to DM your business.

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Say More in Retweets

Retweeting is a common form of communication on Twitter. The action demonstrates a validation of another user’s’ thoughts, opinions or the content they’re sharing. That being said, sometimes the standard Retweet doesn’t quite express your  own sentiments as fully as you’d like. That’s why, when Twitter revamped the traditional quote Tweet, Sprout’s Retweet with Comment action was born.

Now when you go to add your own comments to a Retweet from Sprout, you’ll be able to communicate with the full 140 characters.

Need We Say More?

At Sprout we’re proud to work closely with Twitter to build tools that help businesses better communicate with their customers. As the Twitter platform evolves, we’re committed to keeping pace with the changes and reflecting those updates within the Sprout platform—from the ongoing Direct Message updates (expanding character length, adding images, gathering Customer Feedback) to accessing powerful data and insights. With more room to express yourself, why not get to Tweeting?

Use of Twitter nomenclature across Sprout refers to newly rebranded X platform and related terminology.