Channel Surfing: An Online Writing Guide

Twitter

Twitter is more public and fast-moving than Facebook. It’s an excellent way to get your work, ideas, and campaigns in front of new audiences; introduce your organization to new people; and give your staff an opportunity to engage with others who are also actively tweeting about similar issues.

Know your audience

Use a distinct voice. Find ways to make your tweets distinctive and recognizable. Are you snarky, funny, knowledgeable, or provocative? Or a mix…because of the fast pace, experimentation is low cost and variety is good. Find inspiration from fellow tweeters. For example, some write entirely in rhymes.

Set aside “Twitter-time.” Twitter can be an incredibly powerful tool, but also daunting. It’s rapid-?re—conversations are often happening in real-time. But Twitter doesn’t have to take over your life! Dive in and out for a half hour or so, once a day. Don’t worry about staying on top of everything going on. That said, you can post much more frequently than you would on Facebook.

Be engaging. Don’t be a one-way broadcaster. Engage directly with others using the @handle function (but know that any tweet starting with @ will only be seen by followers of you and the person mentioned). Include other tweeters in your post to start a conversation.

Sweat the small stuff

Think before you tweet. Adapt your headlines for the fast-paced, informal, and super-short format and pithier tone of Twitter. Aim to intrigue or share an important thought.

Play nice. Retweet others’ tweets and interesting and relevant third party content regularly and don’t forget to thank those who’ve shared your tweets.

Looks matter

Keep it shareable. Leave 10-15 characters of space so others can easily share your thought with a retweet.

Abbreviated words are A-OK, but don’t over do it. (U dnt want 2 look dum, rt?)

Make your tweets easy to ?nd by using hashtags (like #climate or #healthcare) to help others actively seeking content on speci?c topics ?nd your tweets. Many events and collaborations now encourage live-tweeting using a speci?c hashtag. Use Twitter’s search feature to ?nd others who are talking about your issues and the hashtags they are using.

More social media resources
The basics: The Twitter guidebook
More basics: 10 ways social media writing is different from traditional web writing
Expert level: Telling stories in Twitter
Pitfalls to avoid: 14 social media fails
Nonpro?t tips for writing Facebook and Twitter updates
The ultimate social media glossary