Writing Effective Twitter Posts

"All you have to do is write one true sentence," Hemingway said. "Write the truest sentence that you know." It's good advice considering the brevity of social media updates, especially for the 140 character Twitter limit. There's not much room to violate Hemingway's admonition of "no fat, no adjectives, no adverbs," but at the same time the strange abbreviations and acronyms we see often on Twitter can look more than a little weird (not to mention unprofessional).

Really, do you want a tweet such as this representing your business or corporate image? I think not. Consider the Twitter character limit sort of a literary challenge, less of a constraint than an exercise in creativity. Effective writers can turn the limit into an asset, writing compelling and entertaining tweets that help you achieve your marketing goals and make an effective contribution to your corporate image.

A few brief tips:

• Learn from the prominent players in your field. There are best practices out there; identify and use them.
• Write with your own personality and voice. Followers enjoy reading tweets from real people, not corporations.
• Set goals for your tweets and posts. You can't measure effectiveness if you don't first identify realistic goals.
• Use hashtags to broaden your audience and join popular conversations (make sure your tweets are relevant, though).

Put these principles into practice and see immediate improvements in your social media efforts, not to mention a greater return on your investment. As always, send us comments on what you learn and experience.