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Twitter is rolling out a new feature that helps increase your interaction with others. The new Quote Tweet feature means big changes to how you can engage with people on Twitter.
Now you can add your comment to retweets much more easily. Your comment won’t be lost in the retweet, plus Twitter gives you more characters to add your comment and share your thoughts.
If you’ve ever tried to add a comment to a tweet while quoting the original tweet, you understand the frustration of the process:
• The original tweet may have used up nearly all of Twitter’s 140 character limit, leaving you precious few characters for your comment.
• Your comment gets confused with the original tweet, whether you added it before or after the retweet.
Retweeting without a comment used to be much more simple than quoting a tweet and adding your comment. Now that Twitter has improved commenting while retweeting, conversations on Twitter can be much more simple and engaging.
Retweets with Comments Are Much Easier Now
With this new Quote Tweet feature, retweeting while adding a comment has been made much simpler. Twitter announced its innovation in this tweet:
Say more with revamped quote Tweet! Rolling out on iPhone and web, coming soon to Android. https://t.co/Bcl3E859ne pic.twitter.com/fioAPPi0nW
— Twitter (@twitter) April 6, 2015
New and Improved Quote Tweet
Twitter’s new Quote Tweet feature makes retweeting while adding your comment easier and more visible.
116 Extra Characters for Your Comment
Bonus! Now when you quote a tweet you get 116 extra characters for your comment about the original tweet — the characters in the tweet you’re quoting don’t count against your 116 characters. Feel free to quote a tweet that uses up all 140 characters, Twitter now gives you 116 characters when you retweet so that you can express your thoughts in your comment.
This change not only impacts those who want to add comments to retweets, it means that you can feel free to use up all of your 140 characters when you’re crafting your tweet. Previously, you were wise not to use up your full 140 character limit to allow people to add comments when they quoted your tweet. Now you can max out your characters, and add images to your tweets, without concern about leaving characters unused for people who want to quote your tweets.
⇒ See, The Most Effective Way of Getting Your Tweet Re-tweeted (and How to Do It Easily)
Making Your Comment More Visible
Now when you quote a tweet, your comment will be at the top of your tweet and the original tweet will appear below.
The new Quote Tweet feature makes it crystal clear which is your comment and which is the original tweet. Previously, comments often blended into the text of quoted tweets.
How to Use the New Quote Tweet Feature
You won’t see a Quote Tweet button on tweets. Instead, use the Retweet button to quote a tweet.
Mobile
On mobile, tap the Retweet icon and you’ll be offered the choice of retweeting or quoting the tweet.
Choose Quote Tweet and add your comment.
Web
On the web, click on the Retweet icon, then add your comment in the space at the top. Click Retweet and your comment will be added to the retweet.
Availability
Twitter is rolling out its new Quote Tweet feature on the Web and in its iPhone app. The feature will be added to the Android app in the future.
Your Thoughts
Have you used the new Quote Tweet feature? Are you more likely to add comments to your retweets now? Have you even wanted to quote a tweet only to find you didn’t have enough characters to use for your comment? Have you been shortening your tweets to let other people use some of your characters for replies? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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* Bird image courtesy of Angie & Chris Pye via Flickr and Creative Commons
Hi Carolyn,
This is news to me. I haven’t quoted much on Twitter, but I believe that I’ll do it now. It’s much easier to be social on Twitter when you have more characters. I’m using Tweetbot on my iPhone and Meshfire on my Mac, I’m going to look to see how they’ve added the new feature.
Thanks.
Hi Jens, Yes, this is a very important development from Twitter but a lot of people don’t know it’s there. Being able to have 116 extra characters for your comment, plus being able to have your comment stand out is huge. More people will be commenting on tweets instead of just retweeting them.
Once people figure out this new feature, engagement is bound to increase. I know that I’ve just been retweeting instead of adding comments because usually the original tweet used up nearly all of the characters.
I believe Tweetbot does have this feature, but you’ll have to check it out and make sure. I haven’t heard that Meshfire does, but Twitter released the API for this feature so it’s bound to come to 3rd party services soon.
I just tested it on Tweetbot, and I found the option, but I didn’t get the extra characters. Maybe there’s a new update to Tweetbot I haven’t found. I need to look into it.
Hi Caroyln,
Informative post indeed 🙂
Yes, I read about this earlier, and was really thrilled! At least you can write a little longer and explain or share your feelings, and 116 characters are just apt! I have seen a few people already sharing this with me, though have yet to try it out.
Only thing they could add perhaps is an option to schedule such re-tweets, which presently have to be shared instantly I think as they are available with the re-tweet option only. Nevertheless, it’s wonderful to have this additional feature and I’d surely be using it too.
Thanks for sharing this with us. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena, Excellent point! I hadn’t thought about scheduling comments to retweets. You’re right, if you’re replying to someone in a different time zone you may want to time the posting of your comment and retweet.
Twitter has released the API for this feature so I hope that scheduling services such as Buffer and RiteTag add this Quote Tweet feature soon!
Hi Carolyn ma’am,
I recently learned about this new feature and I really liked it as previously we used to write a new tweet to add comments to the existing tweets while re-tweeting. This new change is amazing.
Thanks for sharing.
– Rohan.
Hi Rohan, I completely agree. This change is bound to greatly increase sharing on Twitter. Sometimes you wanted to add a comment to a retweet but couldn’t because not enough characters were available. Now you get 116 of your own characters to add your comment so it doesn’t matter how long the original tweet is.
That is going to be extremely useful and spur engagement on Twitter. I hope you enjoy this new Quote Tweet feature, Rohan!
Hey Carolyn,
This is absolutely fabulous news! I didn’t notice anything yet, but you bet I’m headed to my mobile Twitter and check it out now! Thanks for sharing it with us!
Hi Bren, You’re right, this news is fabulous. How many times have we just retweeted without adding comments because the original tweet was nearly 140 characters? You’d either have to modify the original tweet or send a comment without quoting the tweet.
Now you have 116 of your own characters to add your comment. Plus, your comment will stand out and not get lost in the original tweet.
I hope you enjoy using Quote Tweet, Bren!
I love the new feature because of the extra amount of characters allowed when responding! Thanks for the great article! Lisa
Hi Lisa, Yes, there’s a lot to love about this new Twitter feature. You get your own 116 characters and your comment will stand out. Such a fantastic update, you kind of wonder what took Twitter so long to add this feature.
It is funny that I have noticed the new feature, yet I almost never use it. I feel a little weird about leaving the note box empty though.
Hi George, Yes, you can still retweet without commenting. No pressure. But if you’re retweeting something to the world, this is your opportunity to share your thoughts.
Give the Quote Tweet feature a try and see if you like it. If you don’t want to leave a comment, you can just retweet without a problem. Either way works but now you have better choices on Twitter.
Very helpful – I wasn’t quite sure how to use this new feature, Carolyn!
Appreciate the info,
Sue
Hi Sue, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, many people would miss this fantastic feature because there isn’t a Quote Tweet button. I’m glad you’ll make good use of this, Sue. Adding a comment to a retweet will help increase your engagement on Twitter.
This is such a useful tool! I never liked the “quote tweet” concept but this makes things so much simpler. I had no idea that Twitter released this and am definitely going to use it! Thanks so much for sharing. 🙂 Does this make it more likely that my favorite celebrities will see my comments on their tweets? 😉
Hi Arielle, I’m so glad you like this tool. You’re exactly right, this makes your comment stand out and be noticed more easily.
Funny you ask that question. Tonight I quoted a tweet by an author of an article in a major publication. I added the comment “Excellent read” to his tweet sharing his review of the premier of Game of Thrones. The author favorited my tweet immediately, which probably wouldn’t have happened before this new feature. First, I rarely added comments to retweets. Second, my comment would not have stood out.
Interaction will definitely be more frequent with this new feature. I hope your favorite celebrities take notice!
Hi Carolyn, I had read this one other place but I’ve had this feature on my Droid for at least a year. I love it! It gives you an easy and quick way to add your own comment on tweet.
I had wished it was available on desktop, I will have to check later today if it does. That would be great. I also can do the same thing with the buffer app. Maybe Hootsuite too?
But having it on mobile has been great, I’d highly recommend using it.
Thanks Carolyn and have a great day!
It seems even Twitter is following up on the competition and releasing new updates to make themselves better and am sure it will make it easier to use Twitter.
i am So happy with increase no of characters. It happened mostly every time with me, when i was forced to reduce my comment size, which is very tuff to me to express my feel in lessen length.
I had pretty much gave up on twitter it just seemed like a bunch of shouting to me and I couldn’t interact with anyone. I have followers but I couldn’t build a relationship with them. This could pull me back into the twittersphere. Just when I was getting out they pull me back in.
Hey Carolyn,
Okay, that’s cool and I’m thrilled about that too because I’ll usually just start over because there is never enough room for me to say everything that I want. I’m going to have to pay attention to this now because I wasn’t really aware of this until you shared it.
Love that I get an extra 116 characters. I think I’ll head over to Twitter and check this out.
Thank you for keeping us in the know.
~Adrienne
Hi Carolyn
So with commenting on a retweet we can serve two purposes easily; to let the receivers know we have already read that stuff and also we can build good relations with the person whose tweet we are resharing.
It means now Twitter has the same option as we have at Google plus and FB to add our views while sharing others stuff.
Thanks a lot for sharing this quite latest info.
Hi Carolyn.
Thank you for letting us know about this feature. I certainly didn’t know about it.
It looks to be very useful as I quite often add a comment to things I retweet. When doing trying to do this, I have sometimes been thwarted by lack of available characters.
Now I shouldn’t have that problem. Hurray!
Have a great week.
Jo
Hey Carolyn,
This is good to know. I never tried adding to a tweet with that many characters already taken. Whenever I see this I usually just retweet it or skip it. But that’s great that Twitter has give us an extra 116 characters to comment on a tweet! I’m going to have definitely put this to use!
Thanks for the share!
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for sharing this new feature of twitter,
It will surely make easy to twitter users.
Good that you explained it well in this post.
Keep sharing.
Have a good day.
I am bookmarking this to study more about it.
Best
~ Phil
Hi Phil, Yes, I’ve found the way I respond to tweets has changed dramatically with this new feature. I’m glad you’ve discovered it too and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!
Well I think I just came to know about this twitter quote feature and it will be quite helpful and very cool.
Thanks for bringing light on this feature.
Hi Christy, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, the more people who take advantage of this feature the better. I recently saw someone reply without using this new feature and the reply was very difficult to read. This new Quote Tweet format makes both reading and writing comments to tweets easier for all!