Twitter is, in essence, a headline service and, like every other form of digital communication, it’s all about the power of that headline or subject line to compel you to take action. If it doesn’t compel it won’t get acted upon.
In reality Twitter is a continuous news feed where the new’s items are whatever the twitter poster thinks is valuable enough to throw on the feed. If you want to catch your follower’s attention and, in particular, if you want them to click through to something else (or @ or RT) then you need to consider if your post (a.k.a. the headline) provides a compelling enough call to action.
Here’s an example:
The first image is a Twitter post from a friend of mine and someone I follow. He recently left a tweet promoting his latest email newsletter (ezine).
He doesn’t say what his ezine is about and, unless I know him and even if I do, he probably hasn’t provided me enough information to compel me to click through to the link he’s provided.
The next image is how I changed his message when I retweeted (RT) it; in order to give it exposure to my network.
I’m not going to say that this is a brilliant Tweet but I looked at his email newsletter, captured the gist of his message and gave a reason for people who employ young workers to click through. As my friend speaks to companies that employ lots of young workers, that’s the audience he wants to reach.
Creating Effective Twitter Posts
Here are 4 simple rules for creating compelling Twitter posts:
- Make your tweets compelling if you want to inspire action. Think of the tweets you reply to (@) or retweet (RT). They inspired you in some way to invest the time in reading and responding. You can use a tool like Twitter Grader to find out who the Twitter elite are in your area, or across the board, for inspiration by example. Apply that call-to-action mentality to constructing your twitter posts.
- Offer more value than you receive. Sure, it’s perfectly fine to post, “Just had a great cup of coffee.” but it’s better to post, “Just had a great cup of joe at Joe’s Cafe in Columbus. If you’re in town, it’s worth the trip.” Add a picture you took at Joe’s and uploaded using Twitpic to make the post even more valuable AND compelling!
- Ask for Retweets, nicely. The reach of any given post is limited to the number of followers you have accumulated times the number of followers you have who choose to RT you to their network of followers. You can increase the number of RTs, hence the reach of your post, by simply adding “Please Retweet” to any message that you’d like passed along. Now, seriously, only make the request on stuff you feel is valuable enough to RT.
- It’s okay to Repost. If you have a question you really need answered or information that you strongly feel deserves the broadest possible audience then, by all means, repost it. Rule of thumb (I can’t remember whose rule or whose thumb
says reposting every 8 hours is about right. After all, so many twitter posts stream by unseen or unread so chances are your twitter posts will be exposed to a new audience each time you repost.
If You Need Help
There are so many great resources on the web or contact me, I’m happy to help. tom.gray AT gemsolv DOT com. Oh, and please feel free to follow me on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/tomjgray!
