1. Facebook in 90 Characters or Less

    By @maxwell_mozes

    Facebook has been throwing curve-balls at marketers for the past month or so.  Not only is Timeline rolling out for brand pages, but Facebook is now shortening the character limit on their ads.  Instead of 135 characters, advertisers will now be limited to 90. This is a problem.  Why?  Look:

    This is a Facebook ad.  It currently has 119 characters.  With the new limit it will read: ”Improve your closing ratios by earning your National Apartment Leasing Professional certif”

    You lose the call to action of “Enroll Today!”  This creates extra work for marketers as they will have to go back into their work and edit the copy so it includes the information that want.  

    Beyond that, they better make sure the picture is super eye catching and intriguing. Because of the reduced character limit, the creative is going to have to make up for what you can’t say in text.  Maybe we’ll see a trend of marketers putting text in the picture, though if they do that all it really means is they don’t have the skill or patience to say the same with less.   What do you know, some people do it already:

    Staying concise while still communicating effectively is difficult, as seen by this quote attributed to Mark Twain:

    “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I’ve written a long one instead.”

    The coming generations are being trained to think in 50 - 200 character phrases; whether it’s a text, a tweet, a pin, or a post.  What do you think in?

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