Some Pointers On Tweet Writing

Mouse

Yes! You got that right! Tweet Writing is a thing! A thing that needs to be done and done well. The brevity of the messages take nothing away from their impact. Actually it is the combination of small length and big impact that make tweet writing tough. Now-a-days, people don’t judge other people by their wealth or appearance, they judge them by their character, all 140 of them! So it makes sense to think of tweet writing as a “fruitful” activity too.

Mouse

In the context of the above, it is important that a tweet is crisp, clear and brief. Crisp, because the attention span that a tweet gets is really small, you need to hold interest right away, or the moment is gone. Clear and Brief, well when 140 characters is all you get, you better be clear, if there is ambiguity or any loss of intent in writing, impact is quite contrary to what you imagined. And believe me, you don’t want to be managing a storm on twitter.

First up, it pays to have a script for your twitter character. Make list of things that you will and won’t say on twitter, irrespective of you being an individual or a company or a blog or whatever you are. And once you have that, stick to it like your life depends on it. Do not deviate unless it has been deliberated and decided upon. On twitter, you are what you say. So say it properly

Radical stances and statements are best avoided. Again, note that this is just a suggestion, if you are a brand that revels at being radical, by all means go for it! But in general, radical tweets invite radical responses and before you know it, people remember you on twitter for all the wrong reasons. And once that happens, it’s a sack or walk situation for the social media manager. Top of the mind brand recall is what we strive for and anything detrimental to that is a no-no!

Grammar is important! Many people forget that on twitter. The length being short should not take anything away from grammatical conventions. You don wan 2 b tweetn lyk dis 4 ur client! He’ll fyr u! Also remember, “Let’s eat Grandpa!” and “Let’s eat, Grandpa!” are not the same!

Think about your handle length and the tweet length when you write. You see, when someone wants to re-tweet you, if you have an optimally sized handle and a properly worded tweet, they can actually add their comments and “quote” you rather than just an RT. The “quote” is good for sentiment metrics as opposed to just an RT.

When tweeting links, use a good URL shortening service, one with reliable capabilities to analyze the hits that you got from twitter. That way, reporting and course correction for a campaign become easier. I prefer bit.ly for this, works like a charm and has all the bells and whistles!

One important thing, there have to be characters in different cases, upper and lower in your tweets, remember that! A tweet in all upper case is screaming at you and all lower is hardly talking to you ! So talk properly in the right tone.

My experience on twitter has taught me that you can delete a tweet from twitter, but not from people’s memory! So the time spent writing tweets correctly is well spent indeed! What do you think?

About Shakthi

I am a Tech Blogger, Disability Activist, Keynote Speaker, Startup Mentor and Digital Branding Consultant. Also a McKinsey Executive Panel Member. Also known as @v_shakthi on twitter. Been around Tech for two decades now.

View all posts by Shakthi →