Twitter has emerged as a tour de force in the world of social media.
Short, succinct, and to the point, Twitter is a great place to share thoughts and build your brand, but how do you craft tweets that get attention?
My guide today is for people who want to learn how to write content for Twitter and use the social platform to build their brand and enjoy a wider reach (part of our new #howtowrite series!).
Why Use Twitter?
Today, Twitter is the platform that intersects with all of the various directions of technology and content. Designed to offer rapid-fire updates and live streaming news and videos, Twitter is a social platform designed to cater to mobile users (an estimated 80% of Twitter’s users are mobile), and enjoy the maximum level of reach. Today, there are 500 million tweets sent each day, and Twitter is doing things each day to adjust its upward mobility and cater even more effectively to changing markets.
Changes to the 140 Character Limit
While some Twitter users have always loved the 140-character limit, others view it as impossibly restrictive and frustrating, Fortunately, Twitter took the bull by the horns and make a large step earlier this year to make the 140-character limit a little more flexible for its users.
Under the new Twitter limit increases, things like the @name that’s commonly used in replying to a tweet, all media attachments, and the retweet button on your own Tweets will no longer count toward the character limit. What’s more, users will no longer have to implement the @name to reach a specific followers. Instead, all Tweets that begin with the @name convention will reach all followers.
How to Write Content for Twitter: Follow These 7 Rules
To write content for Twitter that your readers actually want to engage with, follow these simple rules:
1. Be engaging.
Twitter doesn’t allow a bunch of room for chatter, so it’s important to be engaging and let your content rest on that. Since tweets are only 140 characters (not counting the recent updates to that limit), you’ll need to pack all of your efforts into a small space.
The best bet to be engaging in this type of climate is to speak directly to your target audience. When your Tweets are highly customized and personalized, they’ll have an easier time capturing your readers’ attention and will survive Twitter’s inherently short content lifespan (which is only 18 minutes) a bit more effectively.
2. Add a shortened URL.
While a typical URL will eat up all of your Tweet space, a shortened URL is a great way to drive twitter followers back to your site. With this in mind, use a site like Bitly or Buffer to shorten URLs and add them to your tweets. This will allow you to enjoy a traffic boost without sacrificing much room in your tweet in the process.
3. Use trending hashtags.
Hashtags are the skeletal structure of Twitter. To be sure your tweet performs as well as possible add a hashtag. Bonus points if it is a trending hashtag. In addition to branding your tweet, hashtags can dramatically enhance your visibility on the network and can easily make it so that other Twitter users can find you and interact with your posted material.
4. Add an image.
There are not many places in the world wide web that images don’t help content, and Twitter is no exception. In fact, Buffer reports that simply adding an image to a Tweet boosts retweets by 35% To help your tweet perform well, add an image, video, or GIF to the content you post.
In addition to grabbing reader attention, this simple addition will also go a long way toward boosting your post’s engagement and helping it make its way around the web more efficiently.
5. Talk to people rather than at them.
Twitter is a highly personal platform, and your tone will go a long way toward defining whether your Tweets welcome your readers or alienate them. To keep your tone helpful and friendly, be sure to talk with people rather than talking at them. While it’s easy to feel like the people on Twitter are some distant crowd you’ll never meet, thinking of them as your friends and relatives can help you craft a voice that’s welcoming and exciting.
Struggling with how, exactly to do this? Don’t fear. Think about conducting your Twitter engagement just like you would a conversation with a friend. Focus on fostering a back-and-froth and developing topics, ideas, and conversational directions that are interesting to your readers. While this is a tiny step, making your Tweets more conversational and personal can truly have a massive impact on how effective your Twitter presence is at generating leads and promoting engagement.
6. Add your sense of humor to Tweets.
Humor is a powerful tool on Twitter, and it’s great for drawing people in from various parts of the web. As a general rule, though, you’ll just need to be sure that your humor is appropriate and professional enough that it can be passed along the web without harming your company or your brand.
For an example of a company that does this well, and always has, consider Innocent Drinks. The UK-based juice brand has virtually built its identity on a sly sense of humor, and Tweets like this one abound on the company’s Twitter profile:
ATTENTION EVERYONE: it’s cold. Best to wear everything you own and, if possible, find a bear to hold close to you for the next 5 months.
Twitter relies heavily on viral words and phrases that tell people what to do and when to do it. To use these in your Tweets, check out a list of the most-used viral words and phrases and incorporate them into your Tweets. While it may seem like a simple step, this can go a long way toward making your Twitter presence more engaging and compelling for your readers.
How to Write Content for Twitter: Simple Tips to Get You Started
Learning how to write content for Twitter is a process, but these simple tips are ideal for anyone who is new to the game. By being engaging, speaking directly to your readers, and making use of the viral nature of Twitter, it’s easy to craft a Twitter presence that improves your brand and helps your company stand out online.
Need social content that will knock your readers’ socks off? We do that! Our talented Social Media Experts are super creative, and in demand with our clientele. Check out our social media services!
If that weren’t impressive enough, there are 2 new LinkedIn members added each second.
As such, LinkedIn has quickly become one of the best platforms out there for content writing, and it’s a great place to gain leads and build recognition for your company, cause, or topic.
Like all things, though, learning to write content for LinkedIn is a skill, and you’ve got to develop it in order to excel at it.
With that in mind, here’s a simple, one-stop shop to help you get started crafting content for LinkedIn, in my next #howtowrite blog post in our series.
10 Tips for Writing Content on LinkedIn
To write great content on LinkedIn, follow these ten simple tips:
1. Tailor your voice to LinkedIn’s demographic.
The audience that uses LinkedIn is geared toward the world of professionalism and business, so it’s wise to treat them accordingly. Instead of writing your LinkedIn posts like you would for Facebook or a similar platform, be sure that you’re gearing them toward the unique community LinkedIn offers.
This means keeping your content on-topic, professional, and authoritative. It also means ensuring that you’re adjusting your voice wherever and whenever needed to continue meeting your reader’s requests and demands.
On LinkedIn, just like any other social media platform, it’s critical to learn to post often enough to get noticed, but not often enough that you bother your colleagues or drive leads away. Keep in mind that LinkedIn uses an algorithm that determines what shows up on network updates, and that posting too frequently can damage your impression numbers.
To determine how often you should post, consider LinkedIn’s top influencers. While they post several times a week, they’re not posting each day, and they have a deep understanding for their natural publishing maximums. To put this another way, you never want to post so often that you fatigue and bore your readers!
3. Add visuals to all of your LinkedIn content.
The more visuals you can add to your LinkedIn content, the better. While you don’t want to turn the material you publish on the platform into a storybook, it’s smart to accent each post with a relevant visual, since this will help ensure that your post is featuring nicely in LinkedIn’s publishing algorithm, and that it’s as attention-grabbing as possible with your audience.
4. Pay attention to your headlines.
Headlines, in the world of LinkedIn, are essential. To perform as well as possible, they should be attention-grabbing, short, and to-the-point, but they should also give the high-level professionals that populate the LinkedIn platform reason enough to click.
If you’re confused about what makes a great LinkedIn headline and what doesn’t, take some time to consider the headlines of top LinkedIn influencers for an example. Take, for instance, this HubSpot headline, which features numbers to grab attention, a valuable promise, and an image to complete the post:
5. Keep your posts to the right length.
Post length makes a big impact on LinkedIn. While it’s a platform that’s more geared toward longer content than Twitter or a similar social platform, it’s also smart to remember that the right length content makes all of the difference. With this in mind, keep your LinkedIn posts to the right length.
In addition to ensuring that people will read them, this will also go a long way toward keeping you on-topic and deeply involved with the material you write about.
6. Use quality links to improve your content.
Links make a massive difference in the success or failure of your LinkedIn posts. To make them as good as possible, use links to demonstrate your points, showcase key sources, and reach out to relevant sites.
Keep in mind that you don’t want to “link stuff” your content, just to showcase your ability to do it, but you DO want to be liberal about your use of links, and ensure that you’re doing what you need to do to show your readers and Google that you’re capable of linking well.
7. Complete your LinkedIn profile.
Your LinkedIn profile is one of the first places people will land when they’re looking for information about you and your company. With this in mind, be sure that you’ve completed and optimized your profile accordingly. This means that your profiles should feature a relevant profile picture, all your relevant contact information, and a complete list of recent accomplishments and skills. Don’t forget to update your profiles as needed to ensure that it stays current.
8. Publicize your posts.
LinkedIn posts can make a splash both inside and outside of LinkedIn. To get as much traction as possible from each post you write, be sure to publicize it both on LinkedIn and outside of the platform. This will help gain as much traction as possible for your post, while also ensuring that it gets the audience it deserves.
9. Embed relevant video information.
If you have a relevant video or SlideShare presentation that you can add to your LinkedIn profile, do it. In addition to helping you earn a broader audience, a step like this can go a long way toward building your authority on LinkedIn, and helping you stand out as a leader in any given field.
10. Adjust as needed.
The final tip for how to write content for LinkedIn is to adjust your strategy as needed. LinkedIn, like all social platforms, changes on a regular basis and your strategy will be best off if you can adjust it whenever it isn’t working, or isn’t working properly.
Keep in mind that the LinkedIn audience is unique and discerning, and the more willing you are to optimize your content for them, the better.
How to Write Content for LinkedIn, The Easy Way!
While writing content for LinkedIn may seem hard, these simple tips make it easy and effortless. As one of the most valuable networking and connection platforms out there, it’s clear that LinkedIn is far too important to pass by, and marketers who learn to write effective content for the platform will fare well both now and in the future.
Do you need a skilled writer to help you craft quality content for your social media platforms? Check out our Content Shop to learn more today!
Social media has become a massively valuable platform in recent years.
With millions of active monthly users, an incredibly diverse base of users, and reach to virtually every corner of the earth, it’s clear why the various platforms in the social media family, ranging from Facebook to LinkedIn, have stood out as such valuable and relevant places to share content.
But how, exactly, do you craft content that performs well on these diverse and different platforms?
In one of my first #howtowrite series, I’m here to share with you!
Read on.
How to Write Content for Social Media: 10 Tips
Since social media is such a varied and unique environment, it’s critical to ensure that you’re writing the right content at the right time. Here’s how:
1. Optimize what you write according to the platform you write it for.
Twitter is different from Facebook, which is different from Google+, which is different from Twitter! To make the most of writing content for social media, it’s critical that you take the additional time and effort needed to also optimize the content you write for the various social platforms for which you write it.
For example, do you know which of your readers frequent which platform? Do you know how long content should be for said platform, or how to present your content so that it performs the best it can on a given platform? If not, now is the time to learn. Optimizing content for the platform you publish it on is critical, and it’s essential to master this skill accordingly.
Images are as critical for social media content as they are anywhere else. To make the most of your social content, fill it up with images once you’ve written it. Beautiful stock photos, in-depth screenshots, and even personal pictures can go a long way toward improving your content and making it feel more approachable and friendly for your readers.
To understand why this is so important to good social media content, think for a moment about how you regard posts with images vs. posts without images in your own social media news feeds. Which are more likely to get your clicks? If you answered “posts with images,” you’re not alone.
While people only remember 10% of what they read, they remember 65% of what they see, and pairing a relevant visual with your social media content can help it stick in your readers’ heads.
3. Keep your audience in mind.
Your audience is critical when it comes to social media content, and if you don’t know who they are there’s no way you’re going to be able to address them properly. With this in mind, do everything you can to build targeted personas, research your audience, and develop a solid understanding of who they are and what they care about.
In addition to allowing you to tailor your content more effectively, this step will also help to ensure that the posts you publish on social media will have a wide, broad reach with the potential to extend well beyond your audience.
4. Keep it about other people.
Social media can be an echo chamber for narcissism, so it’s important to keep your content focused on other people. If you’re one of the many social media users who finds it tough to contend with other users who publish self-centric posts on a regular basis, take heed.
Instead, keep your posts broad and externally-focused for the best result.
5. Become a master of headlines.
Social media headlines are critical to your click-through-rate, and they can make or break the success of your content. With this in mind, follow the best practices for stellar headlines. In addition to earning you more clicks, a simple tip like this can easily boost the success rate of all of your social media content and ensure that you’re as close as possible to going viral online.
6. Experiment with different content types.
Social media is a great place for all sorts of content types, ranging from articles and blog posts to videos and infographics. To build a well-rounded and unique content strategy, try your hand at all of them.
In addition to giving your fans something to look forward to, this approach will also help expand your content horizons and teach you what works best with your audience and what doesn’t!
7. Address your readers.
Social media works best when its personal, so don’t be afraid to address your readers directly. The personal “you” makes more of a splash in the news feed than anything else, so it’s smart to include it.
8. Cover trending topics.
Social media is an excellent place to tap into current events and web-wide trends. In addition to the fact that these things will generally perform well with readers, social media content has a relatively short lifespan, so using it to cover current events is a great move.
With this in mind, don’t hesitate to look to trending hashtags, news sources, and industry events to come up with topics for your next batch of social media content.
9. Keep it concrete.
Social media isn’t a place to get obscure and experimental with your headlines or your content. Since people skim through social media feeds so quickly, concrete, tangible, unique headlines and topics will perform the best. Don’t forget to give your readers something they can hold onto.
10. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
If readers click your title expecting one thing and they get another, they’re bound to be disappointed, and rightfully so! With this in mind, make sure your headline and the content beneath it deliver what’s promised, and don’t be surprised if your CTR drops when this stops happening.
Learn how to Write for Social Media & Gain Serious Brand Attention
Social media continues to grow, and learning how to write content for social media is more critical today than it’s ever been before.
When you ace your social media content, it’s easy to attract readers, develop your brand identity, and spread ideas worth sharing.
It’s also a great way to build an ongoing following that supports the goals and long-term objectives of your company.
Go anywhere these days, in fact don’t even leave your home, and what do you find? No, it’s not infomercials for the next great cooking gadget that solves a problem that never existed. It is references to social media. Every company, business, person, dog, cat, and mythological creature has a social media presence. A few years back parents were mad at their kids spending countless hours on a certain social “space”. Well it has expanded from that and now the parents and grandparents aren’t questioning kid’s social media usage, they’re sending the kids stupid jokes and photos.
Yeah that’s right, social media has spread to the masses. You have it, your grandma has it, your nephew has it, your employer has it, and your favorite store has it…notice a trend? A recent article by Fast Company about social media usage statistics provided some staggering figures. Some of the facts like “Social Media has overtaken porn as the No. 1 activity on the web” are just funny, while others like “93% of marketers use social media for business” show us the direction commerce is going.
Regardless of if you are using social media for personal usage, to promote yourself, or to promote your business, it is an interracial part of the way people relate and communicate and is here to stay. So how can you use one of the most powerful communications ever to your benefit? Read on and find out.
20 Tips For An Awesome Social Media Strategy
1. Integrate your web presence with your social media content
Let’s face it, you have your email address, perhaps you have ten email addresses. They are easy to get and free. You also have a web site. These days you can build it yourself for free, no knowledge necessary, or you hire an HTML expert to do lots of confusing stuff and build a site that dominates all. So how exactly do you get the customer or client from your email or web site, to your social media? Let’s face it; you and your business don’t look so stellar with only 12 followers. People judge this stuff, if a teenage girl has 300 followers, than your seemingly successful business should have tens of thousands.
Establish an email newsletter, or if you have one, great. Now be sure that each issue not only provides links to your social media content but also references it. Tell the readers that if they go to your page and complete some function there is an incentive. Say this “visit us on ____ (insert your page info) and comment on _____ (whatever creative thing you come up with) and receive a 30% coupon code.” Now you are enticing them to go to your page and rewarding that effort. Try it.
2. Open up your perspective
You’re not dictating to the board of directors here, you’re talking to the everyday average Joes and Janes that frequent your business. Sure they’re smart but social media is about being social, not suit and tie stiff in the board room.
3. Give them a path to follow
Add buttons and links to your site. Every social media provider has predesigned HTML buttons that you can customize and pop in your site in seconds. Don’t hide them on some random subpage. Put them right there on the main page of your web site. Go ahead and do it, I’ll wait.
All done? What you have just done is invited your customers and clients to join you. People love to feel like they belong. Getting them to join in on your social media content makes them part of your business and not just a client. And think of it this way, if one person likes your page their friends will see it and be lead to check you out as well. They are called followers for a reason.
4. Relate, don’t dictate to your followers
Nobody will ever doubt the power of advertising. However, social media is more of a relaxed media. Relate to your customers. Be one of them, not a dictator. In fact, Social Media Examiner talks about accessing and knowing your audience. Seeing as they are not just a number, make people feel welcome at your business and make them want to return.
Let’s say you own a restaurant, if you actually own one even better. Ads talking about your new dish or sandwich are great. However putting up a post about it and discussing it is better. Tell them the process behind it, where you came up with the idea. Show them a video of you making it. And post photos! People love photos, why else would Instagram exist? Get creative with some photo editing and include power words in your photo. Show them the sandwich with bold words talking about its attributes.
The point here is not to lay down a sales pitch; people know when they’re being baited. Relate to them, imagine you are your customers and share with them.
5. Involve your entire workforce
Are you a one man (woman) show or do you have an entire staff at your disposal? Your social media content should always be fresh and up to date. Who has gone to a page for their favorite restaurant or store only to see their last post was six weeks ago? If you are too busy to stay atop it then consider enlisting a social media content person. As a primary or additional job function they will make daily posts about sales, specials, and everything that’s breaking news for your business. People enjoy fresh content and they enjoy interaction.
6. Know what they know
There is a chance that people on your staff have special skills you didn’t even know. Is the guy in the mail room a part time filmmaker? Well enlist him to make some video content. Does your waitress dabble in graphic design? Ask and you may be surprised. These are assets you already have on hand and it can be vastly cheaper than hiring outside professionals.
7. Know when you need help
What if you are not a writer though? Yeah maybe you can cook a gourmet dinner with just water, salt, and a mint, yet you are far from a wordsmith. The internet has a solution to everything, even to your social media content writing problems. Before you think it sounds crazy, check it out. Having someone do the leg work for you is way better than a Facebook page that looks like a ghost town.
8. Give your customers/followers their 15 minutes of fame
Imagine this scenario; a woman patronizes your coffee shop every morning. She is a dedicated customer to you and your brand. Grab a picture of her and post it online. Not only will it make her day, but it tears down that wall. Social media content is all about tearing down the walls of society. It’s about letting others into your world.Customers will feel valued if you make them feel like they are part of the family and not just a client.
This is also a perfect opportunity to reward your social media followers. Hold contests and include them. Make them earn some great stuff but make it fun.
9. Stake your claim
About twenty years ago it was a popular trend to buy up popular names as domains. You could have scored WalMart.com for a few dollars. Wal-Mart would have to come in and pay you to get their name for their web site. Maybe you bought it for $10.00 and now can ask the moon for it. Unfortunately, those were the days when the internet was just emerging as a powerhouse. Nowadays domain and now social media names are getting snatched up. Go to Facebook or Twitter and try to find your friend Bob Smith. You’ll have to sift through Bob Smiths until next Thursday before you find him.
10. Get unique and stand out
People need to find your business as fast as possible and they can’t do that if they’re sifting through 500 similar names or some obscure name that has nothing to do with you. Consider this:
Grab up your company name as soon as possible. Don’t be stuck after the fact because someone else grabbed it up.
If your name is taken then get unique. Why do you think so many celebrities go on Twitter as @TheReal____ (insert your favorite singer/actor). If you’re restaurant is called Sanchez Mexican Grill it may be taken. So become EatSanchezMexicanGrill. Adding the simple word ‘EAT’ sets you apart.
11. Hear the voice of your followers
You decide the image and voice of your business, as well, you should, it’s yours! There is a flip side to that though; you have to give the people what they want. Ask opinions and ask for ideas. Let your customers have a voice and suggest things. Do they want more gifts always from your Facebook page? Do they want to see photos of your daily specials on Instagram?
Jay Baer a social media expert on Convince and Convert says it best when talking about an 8-step social media strategy: “Listen and compare.”
12. Stay up on what’s up
A few years back itseems like Myspace was poised to take over the world.Then along came a startup social network known as, anyone? Yes, Facebook. And, it literally blew Myspace out of the water. Coke and Pepsi have battled it out for years; the internet though is proving ruthless. What is popular this morning may as well be a ghost town by tomorrow night. Look at it this way, if people can become overnight millionaires using the internet, the empire can fall just as fast.
13. Get the jump on trends
Stay up on what the new developments in social media content are. This is a time when trends are worthy. Get on board with whatever the next big thing is because people want to find you. In fact, register accounts and reserve your name over all platforms just as a safety net. After all, it is free; if the site fizzles then all you lost was five minutes and a few key strokes.
14. Get interactive
One of our recent blogs on social media writing tips mentions using a call to action. Think about your own Facebook or Twitter usage? Do you read each individual post or do you scroll through and just browse. Success in business is all about being seen and exposure. You are losing exposure if you’re just a random post in a long scrolling line.
Reach out and grab your audience. Require them to click links to your site. Make them stop to watch a You Tube video. Post a crazy picture that begs attention. If your customers and fans need to complete tasks and be interactive, then you are a speed bump in the scroll.
15. Never be without
What, no sale going on? No new dish at your restaurant? Then what is there to talk about? As stated before, don’t let your social media content dry up and look like a ghost town. Make a list of alternative posting materials. How about a poll? One of my favorite nutritional supplement companies often goes on Facebook and asks their fan base what they are working out today. “Who has a leg day today?” As silly as it sounds it gets people talking and is better than nothing.
16. Acknowledge the die-hards
We are talking about that guy or gal who is on your company Facebook all the time liking your photos and participating in your polls. They retweet all your big news; they share your voice just because they love your brand. Well give them their due. Establish a Fan of the Week. Showcase their photo, give them an incentive, etc. Come on, show them the love back.
17. Coverage
Just as you shouldn’t let your social media content hit a standstill, you shouldn’t ignore the people who are trying to be social. If you get messages be sure to respond to them personally. Answering questions and addressing concerns mean a lot to people.
18. Censor yourself
Sure, freedom of speech is good – but to what extent? Keep commentary about politics, religion, and personal opinions out of your posts. If you wouldn’t say it to customers in your store, don’t post it online.
19. Weigh the cost
If web design and hosting isn’t in your budget then guess what? Social media is free. Within the last couple of years Facebook and Twitter pages are visited more frequently than actual web sites. It is perfectly fine to maintain your web presence through just social media.
20. Have fun
Social media is a powerful online tool for your business. Don’t get overwhelmed by it. Just have fun with it. The more fun you have putting into it, the more fun your followers get out of it.
Now go implement these things and see what it does for your business.
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