So you want to use Twitter for your social media marketing strategy. What should you tweet about? How do you write a great tweet that will get your followers to take action?
The art of writing a great tweet is similar to the art of writing a great headline.
What makes a great headline?
1. Headlines should get people’s attention. Tweet something that has shock value.
2. Headlines should be informative. It’s not enough to get the attention of your audience. You have to offer them something that will benefit them.
3. Headlines should convey some sense of urgency. Make your followers feel that if they don’t click right now they will miss out on something big.
4. Headlines should communicate uniqueness. Be different than everyone else.
You can use the headline from the article you are posting or write your tweet in your own way based on what the article is all about. Many times you can actually do better than how the article was originally written.
Twitter magic words
There are certain magic words that make a great impact on the people reading your tweets. Use these magic words every time you are writing a tweet or headline.
• How To. A headline that starts with “How To” always does much, much better than a simple statement without it. For example, compare “How to feed your fish” with “Feeding your fish”. The first headline invites your readers to learn how to do something.
• Numbers. Numbers are always winners when it comes to getting clicks on tweets. “Five ways to groom your dog” almost always beats “Dog grooming”. Or you can do better by combining How To with numbers – “Three tips on how to groom your dog”.
• Tips, Ideas, Techniques, Best, Worst. All these magic words can work wonderfully when used individually or in combination. They tend to get people to pay more attention and take action.
• Statement of Preference. You can tweet, “Here is the point. Here is the link. I liked this.” or, “Here is the point. Here is the link. This is the best I’ve found.” or, “My favorite list of ways to write great tweets.” These can be added after your post or integrated into your post.
Test and track your tweets
Post the same article several times using a separate link then track the results. Post with bit.ly, TinyURL, and BudURL on different occasions. You can easily see which one performs better than the others.
Measure the results of your tweets
From time to time, review your stats for a bunch of posts and see what trends you can find between your best performing and worst performing posts.
Look at the words you used, the time of day you posted them, and the environmental conditions that were in place during the time you posted them such as events happening in the world or current news headlines.
Practice writing tweets and headlines until you master the art of tweeting in social media.
