By now, I believe we can agree that Twitter is an invaluable tool to push your content to your prospects. According to Twitter’s blog, there are approximately 600 tweets per second. Your competition all of a sudden isn’t just your direct competitor, but it’s also the millions of people who use Twitter. Your link could easily get lost in the thick bouillabaisse of micro-blogging.
Here are some quick tips on improving your tweets so that they will get you noticed and lead to clicks.
1. Shrink Your URL
This can be done with the help of Tiny URL or Hoot Suite. This helps free up some space, giving you more room to write a tweet that will interest people. Another advantage is both of these services are free and allow you to track how many people you’ve converted. You will be amazed at seeing what worked and what didn’t.
2. Don’t Automatically Push a Scheduled Post with a Third Party Application
It’s one of the most attractive features of HootSuite and TwitterFeed, and one of the worst things that you could do. Yes, it’s convenient to have your newly scheduled post automatically show up on your Twitter feed, but the down side is that you will not be able to customize your tease. The simple solution for Word Press blogs is to copy the permalink and shrink it in HootSuite. Then you can schedule a custom tease to break the moment your blog post is set to go live.
3. Avoid Text Lingo
A friend of mine put it so well on her Facebook status: “If it’s funny, laugh, don’t say letters at me.” You’ve written a well-crafted article, proofed it several times and had someone else look it over before you publish. So the last thing that you want for your tribute to the English language is to have something like “LOL” or “ur” in your tease. If you want people to take your work seriously, don’t give someone an excuse to disregard your writing before they’ve had a chance to click.
4. Don’t Give Away the Store
When you watch a show on TV, you’ll sometimes see a short teaser for the nightly local news. The anchor will appear and make a quick statement or ask a question that prompts people to stay tuned for the news. The anchor won’t tell you too much about the story; not only because he/she has 10 seconds, but the goal is to get people to watch the news. This is the same approach you should have for micro-blogging. If the tweet itself tells me all that I need to know about the story, and I’m not going to click the link.
