One of the things that drives me a bit nutty about using Twitter is reading tweets that end in “…”
I’m betting you’ve seen this too — the dreaded elipse that lets you know when a Twitter user has blown past the constraint of the 140 character limit.
What’s worse is that failing to learn how to properly use tweet anchor text to get more clicks on the links you share can really make using Twitter for content distribution a challenge for marketers.
If you struggle to keep your tweets brief, keep reading. I have 17 tips below that I think will help you right away.
Content Marketing Tips: Less is More
For those of use who love to use Twitter regularly, the 140 character limit forces our hand to adopt habitual brevity in a world where long-winded articles, posts, white papers and other delivery vehicles have a tendency overload us with too much information, too early in the buying cycle.
To some extent, the internet has made us all bit ADD. Agree or disagree? – Click to Tweet
Today, Twitter is now recognized by about 89% of the US population 12+ (Edison Research, The Social Habit).
You can expect that eventually, more and more people will be using twitter to communicate, share content from friends and brands and become ever more distracted by the onslaught of information online.
Want Better Content Distribution? Keep Your Tweets Brief
When using Twitter, keeping your tweets shorter will bring the benefits of higher amounts of click-throughs on links you share and also work to increase the amount of re-tweets you receive from your followers. Those two reasons alone can help guide your content distribution plan to better results when using Twitter as a channel.
Some of you might find these content marketing tips very basic. This post is intended to be a quick refresher course on the things you can do right now to achieve better content distribution on the world’s largest micro-blogging network.
17 Content Marketing Tips for Better Content Distribution
- Eliminate the word “and” in any tweet by using the + symbol or the & symbol.
- Show a relationship by using the = symbol. (Example: “It’s Monday. Coffee = necessary, right now”).
- Instead of responding with “Thank you for following me” messages, try simply responding with an emoticon like
or even : ). - Learn to vary your emoticons to show different levels of emotions in symbols, rather than through language. This list will give you some killer examples.
- Learn to read, understand and use shorthand abbreviations like FTW, IRL, NP and even OH.
- @peppercom reminds us that writing at a 6th – 7th Grade reading level will help to keep tweets short and sweet.
- Edit, edit, edit — whenever crafting your tweets, go back and see what your saying that’s unnecessary to get the point across. Delete those words.
- Delete multiple re-tweeters.Unless you have a specific reason to include them in the conversation, stick to keeping the tweet originators name as the person re-tweeted.
- @WadoobiePtC suggests trying to remove all of the vowels from some words. When you do, make sure not to overdo it by making the word unreadable.
- Make it a practice to shoot for 70-90 characters per tweet. Know that with your @name and a link included, it probably will push you over 100. Every RT will then add between 5 and 10 more charters depending on the length of the user’s @name.
- Instead of placing hash tags at the end of your tweet, try replacing single words in the tweet copy with the hashtag itself.
- Learn and memorize your magic re-tweet number.
- Use URL shorteners like bit.ly or Hoostuite’s ow.ly to shorten and track the click throughs on your links.
- Make sure to pay attention to the onboard character counters that are included in the twitter web interface and just about any third party Twitter tool. Stay out of the red and you’ll be fine.
- To save space, remove prepositions from your tweets (Twitter tip suggested by @alimd11)
- @jlmade says: “Don’t try to exhaust a point – there’s always another tweet.” Very wise words.
- Always eliminate your own user @name if retweeting or responding to tweets that contain multiple users.
There’s probably dozens of additional ways to shorten your tweets and become more effective Twitter users.
What are you suggestions? What’s working for you?
Let me know in the comments and I’ll add them to the post.
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Thank you very much for this very interesting project. I have gained some great insight from this to put towards the marketing of my new business.Twitter is all about adding value, if your Tweets are focused on the Receiver, rather on the Sender, you will get far better results.