Author: Chris Herbert, B2B Specialist & Founder of MI6
Audience: Twitter users, social media beginners, marketing professionals, community managers
Microblogging using a service like twitter gives you the chance to provide your followers with “bursts” of information and thoughts (<<< that’s 131 characters already.) Since you’re limited to the 140 characters your tweet needs to pack a punch to get someones attention.
Tips to putting together a great tweet
- 1) Make sure what you tweet would be of value to your followers
- 2) Always give credit to the source(s). This might be the author of a great article as well as the person(s) who may have originally tweeted it. If the author of the article is on twitter always try to use their twitter @handle. Note to authors: make sure your twitter @handle is easy to find on your site
- 3) If you are sharing a link or @’ing someone make sure the links work before you tweet
- 4) Be prepared and accept that someone may modify your tweet a bit to add context, thoughts and to save character space. There are some that say the tweet “copy” shouldn’t be changed. However, as long as the person includes your @handle on the tweet and is professional I have no issues with modifications.
- 5) Add context to the tweet (especially if you’re retweeting). Give reasons why someone should read it. Think about why your audience is following you. They may appreciate you looking through a specific lens and providing your perspective.
- 6) Add personal note when/where appropriate.
- 7) Make it as simple as possible for your tweet to be retweeted. There are two easy ways to do this. Try not to use all 140 characters or accept the fact that someone who retweets you may need to modify the tweet
Here are some examples
I like how James Bunting gives reasons as to why someone may want to read an article he cites.
The tweet below, from Telesian Technology, includes a note of thx and the response “cool”. Simple but effective.
If you have examples you’d like me to share please leave a comment below with a link to an example. Please share the reasons why you think it was a great tweet. Depending on the # of responses I’ll either add to this post or create a new one.
