Twitter video is limited to 30 seconds long, if you upload directly from your mobile or by using twitter.com. But there is a way you can upload much longer videos to Twitter, and it’s completely free to do so. Video content is growing fast on Twitter. For example, research from Twitter shows that the majority of Twitter users (82%) watch video content on Twitter and most watch on a hand-held screen. A staggering 90% of Twitter video views happen on a mobile device, according to Twitter’s own internal data. But Twitter users don’t just lean back and watch video; they also lean in to create it. Twitter users are 1.9x more likely to have uploaded a video than the average internet user. Here are some more stats on just how much Twitter users love video: Twitter users love video But being restricted to 140 characters and just 30 seconds of video content means that you might be thinking twice and miss out on one of the biggest marketing opportunities for you brand. By using Twitter Ads and Twitter’s video cards, you can upload videos of up to 10 minutes in length and break free from the 30 second restriction. Sounds great right? Wait, it gets better. What’s more, you can add more information, such as a title, description and call to action, which is all far more information than you could ever add to a standard tweet if you were to upload a video in the usual way, or if you were to upload your video to YouTube and share it via Twitter. Ready to upload your masterpiece of a social video to Twitter? Here’s how. twitter video Accessing the Twitter video dashboard 1. Log into Twitter (nice to start with an easy task!) 2. Navigate to ads.twitter.com 3. If you haven’t used Twitter advertising before, you’ll need to enter your credit card details. Don’t worry – you’re not going to spend any of your hard-earned money here – this is just a step you need do in order to access Twitter’s ad features. The steps we’re outlining here are free as in beer. 4. Once you’ve given your payment details, you will have the option in the top menu to access ‘Videos’, which sits under the ‘Creatives’ tab. How to post videos longer than 30 seconds 5. You will be shown a popup modal that lists the Twitter Video Player Terms. Scroll to the bottom and check the “I agree” box, then click “Proceed”. How to tweet videos longer than 30 seconds Upload your video to Twitter 6. Now you’re in the Video section, you will see a big grey button that says ‘Upload your first video’. tweet videos longer than 30 seconds 7. Press the button and choose a video file from your computer to upload. You must own the rights to the video, so make sure the content and audio (including the music) is yours to use. twitter videos longer than 30 seconds Twitter video formats It’s worth pointing out here the format that Twitter needs your video to be in order for it to be eligible for upload. So before you get here, check that your video meets all of the following requirements: The video format supported for mobile apps are MP4 and MOV The video format supported on the web is MP4 with H264 format with AAC audio. The maximum file size you can upload on the web is 512MB Here is some more technical information: Minimum resolution: 32 x 32 Maximum resolution: 1920 x 1200 (and 1200 x 1900) Aspect ratios: 1:2.39–2.39:1 range (inclusive) Maximum frame rate: 40 fps Maximum bitrate: 25 Mbps Ok, now that’s covered, on with the video upload. 8. Depending on the size of the video, it may take some time to upload. Once it has uploaded, it has not been shared on Twitter but simply uploaded to your account. You’ll see that the breadcrumb trail says “Not tweeted”, so you know the video has not been tweeted yet and nobody can see your video until you choose to share the content with either a promoted tweet or a standard tweet. upload a video to twitter Compose the video tweet 9. Once the video has been uploaded, click the blue compose tweet button and you’ll be taken to the next screen. 10. Here, you’ll be presented with a few options to add to your tweet, including the main tweet body at 116 characters – much longer than your standard tweet with a link to a video. You can of course add hashtags and links if you want. You can also add a title, description and call to action to the video, which is all far more information than you could ever add to a standard tweet if you were to upload a 30-second video the standard way. You can also choose whether you want the tweet to be embeddable or not. compose a video tweet 11. You can even add a call to action to your tweet, either encouraging people to watch more videos from your twitter handle or to visit a website. Here we’re encouraging people to visit our campaign website after viewing the video on Twitter. add a call to action to a twitter video tweet Preview and publish your video 12. Once you hit ‘Save’, you’ll be given the option to preview your tweet before it gets published. Here’s what the tweet we put together looks like in preview mode. You can see how effective it is having a normal tweet, but with a lot more information around the Twitter card, such as the video title and description. twitter video preview tweet 13. If you’re happy with how the tweet like, you can go ahead and hit publish and the tweet will go out to all of your followers. Once done, you’ll be taking back to the videos dashboard in the Twitter ads console. You’ll also see a green alert that lets you know that your video tweet has been successful published. 14. You can now admire your work and see your tweet in the Twitter, or go ahead and embed the post in a blog post, like we’ve done here. More on how to do that below. Love this new #WeAreAllEngland#video from @BritishFuture. Find out more about it here: https://t.co/9Is9qFN4w4https://t.co/6wwrlhstVS — – ̗̀Ben ̖́- (@benrmatthews) May 23, 2016 How to embed your tweet 15. To embed your tweet, simply navigate to your tweet, then hit the “more” button, which is the three small dots in a row. The dropdown menu will then give you the embed code that you can copy and paste into the text editor of your blog. embed tweet embed tweet code That’s all there is to it! So that’s how you add a video to Twitter longer than 30 seconds, and it’s completely free to do so, thanks to Twitter’s ads dashboard. Plus, this method means that you can fit even more details and calls to action around your Twitter video. Want more tips on how to make the most of video on social video? Take a look at 10 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Facebook Video or the new Social Video offering from Empower.
