R u ready 2 tweet? With just 140 characters, it’s tempting to use texting shortcuts in your Twitter tweets. After all, every character counts, right? Wrong. Unless you’re a teenager or a rap star, approach writing Twitter tweets just as you would any other professional business communication. As a business professional you understand that your words count. While you may only have room for a sentence or two on Twitter, how you word your tweets speaks volumes.
Grammar, spelling and punctuation matter on Twitter just as in the real world. Proof read your tweets before hitting the enter key and save yourself the embarrassment of sloppy messages. In fact, because of the 140-character limit, Twitter can actually help you improve your writing. With the limit, you are forced to write concisely. This means editing out unnecessary words and writing descriptively.
For example, if you want to tweet about the results of a new survey, your first draft might look something like this:
Acme Widgets ranks number one in customer satisfaction according to a survey released yesterday by the folks at Customer Satisfaction Magazine.
At 143 characters, this tweet is almost within the Twitter limit. However, if you plan on linking to a Webpage listing the survey’s results, you will also need a minimum of 17 characters for a shortened URL. Clearly, this tweet needs to be edited. The following edit trims the tweet down to 115 characters which leaves plenty of room for a short URL:
Customer Satisfaction Magazine’s latest survey results are in: Acme Widgets is number one in customer satisfaction!
Now, consider how your tweet would look if you used texting shortcuts:
Acme Wdgts rnks #1 in cstmr satisfctn fr da flks @ cstmr sats mag!
Not only is the above example more difficult to read and unprofessional looking, it also affects how your tweets will rank in Twitter Search results. For example, if a user is searching for your company, Acme Widgets, they will enter your company name in the search field – not “Acme Wdgts.” Likewise, if the user is looking for “customer satisfaction,” he won’t enter “cstmr satisfctn.” By taking shortcuts, you are missing out on being found.
In addition to using complete sentences and proper grammar, spelling and punctuation, take care not to overload your tweets with hashmarks. Hashmarks (#) are like keywords or tags that allow users to join in topic-specific conversations. When used sparingly, hashmarks can be effective. For example, if you’re hosting an online discussion about a specific topic, instructing all participants to use the same hashmark allows everyone involved to view a stream of related tweets.
Some Twitter users use hashmarks in an attempt to rank higher in Twitter’s search results and become more discoverable based on keywords. For example:
#Customer #Satisfaction Magazine’s latest #survey results are in: #Acme Widgets is number one in customer satisfaction!
When hashmarks are used with SEO in mind, not only will your tweets look spammy, your followers will perceive your tweets as pure promotional devices and will likely unfollow you. So this approach is not recommended.
Take the time to carefully compose your tweets and then proof read and edit until your tweets are worth sharing with your followers. You’ll appear more professional and your tweets will be much easier to read.
I would love to hear your experiences of Twitter use, please add them to the comment section below. Thank you very much.
Small business
Small Business owners are largely forgotten. Thats why I only focus on them. I have experience several members of my family file bankruptcy due to small business failures. I also I suffered through 2 destroyed businesses due to failure however, in my failings I have learned some of the secrets to success. (Who can say they know it all?)
What I like about small business owners is that they are not afraid to take huge risks and lay it all on the line. But, I agree they do need a lot of help with their marketing. I think having them go the social media and email route is not only the least expensive but its also the most effective. Thanks for the stats!
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com