Top tips on how to write for Twitter
14th February 2011Turned off by Twitter? Not enough to say on the bigger picture? Fear not… These simple hints and tips will help you lead a happier, healthier social media existence, benefiting both you and your clients.
Social media enthusiasm almost takes us all back to our school days. Who’s the most popular? Who’s getting the most attention? Who’s being talked about? To ensure you’re tweeting about the right things for your client, and the right things are being said about you, there are a few easy things to remember when engaging through social media.
1. Starting with the basics, if you write regularly for a client, be aware of when you are wearing your client hat, and when it comes off. Think about the time and the context before hitting send.
2. Use helpful hash tags on Twitter to signpost the most relevant content to your readers. Don’t go overboard and hash tag every other word – it’ll just get confusing. Link your comments back to the bigger picture and include a hash tag to the sector, or trend, and your comments will reach a far wider audience.
3. Do use hash tags appropriately. Don’t repeat the social media gaffe by designer Kenneth Cole, who tweeted: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo – KC.” Particularly offensive because of the use of the hash tag, which inserted it into the stream of political Tweets that activists and sympathisers were following.
4. Adding to this, comedy hash tags are a no, no. It’s not that big, clever or particularly witty to invent your own silly humour trend. The cool cats of media are definitely not doing this.
5. And finally, it’s nice to feel popular – improve your chances of having tweets retweeted by keeping what you have to say short and sweet. Leave enough characters free for people to pop in their own comments before the retweet – everyone likes to add their bit. Use signpost words to lure people into becoming involved with what you’re saying. Using “you” is a good one for this. And question words further engage the reader. What’s their view? Why? You’ll encourage responses and your comments will be spread far and wide.
So no more “ROFL”s and “3am donner kebab YUM”s please. Time to get tweet-interesting again…
