Whether you’re a Twitter newbie or a self-confessed ‘Tweetaholic’, there’s always room for improving how you write your 140-characters-or-less message.
And how you construct a tweet from your personal Twitter account should be different to how you write one from a corporate Twitter account. When tweeting from a business profile, anything you write will reflect on the brand, so a little extra care should be taken.
That said, tweets should educate, enrich, entertain and engage. So you shouldn’t sound too stuffy or constrained either. Finding this balance isn’t difficult, but it’s worth looking at some best-practice guidelines…to ensure that what you write is not only useful, but also that it doesn’t land anyone in hot water.
Dull tweeting won’t affect a brand too much (at least, not in the short-term), but controversial tweeting might. So first up, here’s…
…what not to do
Every Tweet is public If you do nothing else, remember this one key point: all your tweets are public.
With that in mind, don’t write anything you wouldn’t want published as a newspaper headline – that is exactly where your tweet could end up if you’re not careful.
This happened to Kenneth Cole recently, when one of its tweets made light of the unfolding political upheaval in Egypt. And many other big brands have committed some high profile social media faux pas too.
Strictly legal
What exactly constitutes ‘proper’ or ‘improper’ tweeting will depend on your industry. In the gaming industry, for example, it’s illegal to make any reference to children, regardless of how tenuous or innocent the connection may be.
So if you’re representing an online casino at an event, it wouldn’t be appropriate to say ‘Hello everyone, anything exciting planned with the kids this Bank Holiday Monday’?
Such a comment isn’t directly linking children with gambling, but any reference to children is not allowed under any circumstances.
Other industries may have similar regulations in place – this should be factored into any tweeting you do on behalf of a business.
Links to external content
With tweets, you’re limited in terms of how much you can write. For this reason, you may need to link to external websites, videos or images to illustrate a point. All the rules above apply to any external content you link to – so always check the content first before posting a link.
Defining ‘offensive’
What constitutes ‘offensive’ is entirely subjective, but regardless of your personal tastes it should be reasonably obvious what is broadly considered offensive.
So you’re best moderating your language…so no profanities. And avoid anything potentially divisive relating to politics, religion, gender, race, disability and age.
Now that we’ve covered what not to do, here’s a look at….
…what you should do
What positive steps can you take to ensure you get the most out of each corporate tweet that you write? 140 characters is great…125 is even better
Remember, you only have 140 characters to play with…including spaces. If you can produce a text in 125 characters, this is even better. This means anyone that retweets your message has space to credit you as the original tweeter.
For example, adding ‘via @yourcompany’ into a tweet consumes quite a few extra characters, so if you can allow extra space, great. If this is to the detriment of your message though, feel free to use your maximum 140-character quota.
Get more ‘bang’ from your tweets
With character-restrictions in place, you will need to use your space wisely. If you include a link in your tweet, ensure you shorten it first, using a service such as http://bit.ly, http://goo.gl or http://tinyurl.com.
Abbreviations and other contractions can also save you space…but only use them if you’re certain the reader will understand them.
‘LOL’, for example, is generally understood, and can save you a lot of space saying ‘that was funny’.
Treat Twitter like a conversation
Imagine each tweet is a conversation piece – you want to encourage interaction and engagement. So rather than simply saying ‘I’m so tired today’, say why you’re tired, or invite questions. ‘I’m so tired today…I really shouldn’t have stayed up so late playing poker. Any tips to perk me up that ISN’T coffee’?
Also, restrict yourself to one thought per tweet – it helps keep the conversation flowing. This is particularly relevant when tweeting as part of a live event.
Writing rules
Try and be as accurate as possible with your spelling and grammar, but don’t worry too much about making typos. Most people understand that tweeting is transient and immediate, therefore you can get away with a few errors here and there.
Hashtags and handles
This is probably the most important element of effective tweeting. If you wish to direct a tweet to a specific person, use their ‘@<name here>’ handle, this will probably be most relevant when you’re replying to someone who has already tweeted you.
Hashtags helps centralise a Twitter conversation. So if you are tweeting as part of a live event or conference, you will probably have an official ‘hashtag’ which helps bring all the tweeters from other organisations together.
Remember, the key to successful tweeting in business is to offer value to your customers and other followers. Tweet often – but only if you have something relevant and interesting to say. And treat Twitter like a conversation if you can – ask questions, engage…but whatever you do, don’t offend.
