How do you improve your Twitter writing?
14 January 2010 at 11:12
This post is intended for those of you new to Twitter, or those who set up a Twitter account but haven’t been back for months…know the feeling… If you’re a fully paid up Twitter nerd, this probably isn’t for you, but the occasional reminder never hurts.
So, a few simple pointers to help you write your tweets:
- Twitter is a great place to improve your writing skills. It forces you to edit your thoughts, be concise, and get to the point. Apply this guideline to your other promotional writing, such as brochures, advertising, web pages, email marketing.
- Keep it simple: remember, you only have 140 characters (not words, not letters: every symbol, space, number, comma counts).
- Use words that are shorter and more descriptive. Keyword: Verbs – like herbs, they’re good for you when crafting your Twitter message, better than adverbs or adjectives here.
- Punch: don’t waffle, you haven’t got the space or the time. Make each tweet a single message, one idea that captivates your followers and convinces them to click your link or retweet (RT)….which leads me onto a key point…
The importance of Twitter links
Link always: for personal tweets this isn’t so vital, but is MY life really enriched by the breaking news that you’re ‘having a cup of tea, wonder if there are any biscuits, the cat’s nice’…? Increasingly, those of us who use Twitter for business have grasped the importance of linking, either to a third party article or comment or back to our own website or blog.
Links channel traffic: following on from that last point, I don’t use Twitter as a standalone marketing tool. It’s ideal as another link in the message chain, a bus stop en route, so use it to engage your followers and take them with you somewhere else, for example by tweeting the title of your latest blog post, a news feature on your website, new stock on your online product catalogue, etc.
Next time
In our next post we’ll look at how (on earth) you manage to juggle social media tools for the benefit of your business and not spend all day / night doing it. Meanwhile, see if we’re following our own tips (and do follow us, we’ll follow you): Utopia Twitter
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