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miercuri, 8 august 2012
An Administration-Wide Response to the Drought
How and What to Write for Twitter
How and What to Write for Twitter |  |
| How and What to Write for Twitter Posted: 07 Aug 2012 05:13 AM PDT It’s only 140 characters, so it should be easy – right? Well, not necessarily. Twitter’s ‘microblogging’ approach has become well established in the last few years, and many companies are finding it an excellent way to keep in touch with customers, while reducing the administrative burden of doing so. After all, typing 140 characters can be much faster than typing out a full email – as long as you know what you’re saying.
A New Format Twitter isn’t just about saying the same things in fewer characters – it differs from everyday language in some very specific ways. Back in 2009, Oxford University Press looked at almost 1.5 million random tweets, and found some interesting distinctions between their content and that of text in general usage. For instance, unsurprisingly, each sentence in a tweet is less than half as long as an ordinary sentence, at 10.69 words compared to a ‘normal’ average of 22.09 words. Each tweet contains an average of 1.4 sentences, or 14.98 words in total, and verbs – ‘going’, ‘getting’, ‘watching’ and ‘eating’ – are particularly popular in the top 100 words used on Twitter. All of this means you need to think carefully about what you type – every character counts, and you’re working in a whole new language, even if the words it uses are familiar to you. Learning Brevity Learn to be brief. That doesn’t mean using text-speak or missing out articles (‘a’, ‘the’), conjunctions (‘and’, ‘but’) and modifiers (such as adverbs). Rather, you should learn to order your thoughts, pick out the key point, and write it as plainly as possible. Don’t just use fewer words – use shorter words – and trim the unnecessary text completely. It helps to be assertive, as adding doubt to a sentence usually increases the character count too. And if you’re hoping to be retweeted, leave a good 20 characters or so free for retweeters to add their own comments if they wish. Twit Tricks Make sure you know about Twitter – how it works, what features you can include in a tweet, and so on. Know that, if you place a person’s @username at the beginning of a tweet, it becomes a ‘mention’ and will usually only be seen by that person, and by anyone who follows both of you. For publicly visible tweets that include a mention, make sure the username is later in the tweet, or add a full stop before the @ sign (be careful with this though, as some users don’t want other people’s mentions littering their timeline). Spend some time familiarising yourself with hashtags, how they work, what happens when you click on one, and where they usually go in a tweet (almost always at the end, but there are some exceptions to this). The more you learn the tricks and techniques of Twitter, the more you can use them in your own tweets, increasing your arsenal of options when it comes to getting your message across in the fewest characters possible. Be Yourself There are few things more annoying to regular Twitter users than dry, bland, corporate accounts using what is meant to be a social network as a marketing tool. You should try to avoid this approach – instead, make engaging with your customers your priority, and let that boost your sales naturally. Let your customers guide you in terms of what to write – run searches for your company name or industry area, and start replying to people in positive, helpful terms. Often, Twitter works better as a customer service platform than for direct sales, so if you find it better for customer retention than for acquiring new customers, recognise the value of this and make sure your tweets reflect it on your account’s timeline. Image credit: Slava Baranskyi © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. How and What to Write for Twitter Related posts:
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Seth's Blog : 2 new articles
What's your average speed?
My car informs me that I've been averaging 26 mph over the last month. Much lower than I would have guessed.
It's low not because we don't drive on the highway, it's low because there's also a lot of time spent sitting still in traffic and at lights.
When we remember our journey and our work, the highlights are the fast parts, the thrilling moments, the peaks (and the valleys). It seems, though, that we spend most of our time in preparation, or circling, or considering. Probably worth investing some effort into our performance there, and enjoying those parts as well.
Analogies, metaphors and your problem
Innovation is often the act of taking something that worked over there and using it over here.
Your problem, whatever it might be, probably has a solution somewhere in the world. And your organization is probably stuck because they don't know what to do, and more important, don't have the guts to do it.
An example in the real world that's precisely about your particular problem, then, is fabulous because it not only shows you what to do, it gives you the confidence to do it.
Louis CK had the same problem of many comedians--too much time, not enough money. His pay-on-the-honor-system internet special was a huge success, and of course, dozens of comedians (ostensibly creative risk takers) rushed to follow in his precise footsteps.
What were they waiting for? After all, Radiohead did a similar thing years before Louis did. Of course, they make music and he makes comedy.
"Oh, that's a fine example of how a company in the hockey stick industry grew, but we make lacrosse sticks. Do you have any case studies of how a lacrosse stick company has succeeded?"
If you're waiting for a proven case study, directly on point, you're going to wait too long.
The skill, it seems, is having the desire and the guts to seek out examples by analogy instead of insisting on being a follower of someone with guts.
More Recent Articles
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- This or that?
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marți, 7 august 2012
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2012 11:25 AM PDT Inquiring minds are looking at the birth-death model of Spanish businesses. Statistics show Spain Lost 57,000 Companies in 2011 The number of active enterprises decreased 1.6% in 2011 and stood at 3,199,616. This is the fourth consecutive year of decline according to the latest update of the Central Companies Directory (CCD) released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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| Posted: 07 Aug 2012 07:35 AM PDT News in the eurozone's third largest economy is once again on the dismal side. Italian Industrial Production Plunged more than expected as did GDP. Italian industrial production declined more than forecast in June, signaling the euro region's third-biggest economy probably contracted for a fourth quarter. Economists forecast a decline of 1 percent, according to the median of 16 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Production fell 8.2 percent from a year ago on a workday-adjusted basis.Italy to Pay Civil Servants 80% of Their Salary to Do Nothing To plug the rising deficit gap, Prime Minister Mario Monti approved Deep Cuts in National Spending (a needed measure but not how they went about it), and also hike the VAT by 2% (economic insanity in a deepening recession). Italy's government has agreed to cut spending by 26bn euros (£21bn, $32bn) over the next three years to plug the gap between spending and income.Italy Recession Lingers for Year The official estimate for decline in GDP this year was -1.2% (revised lower from about half that). Prepare for another downward revision as Italy's Recession Pain Deepens. Italy shrank further into recession in the second quarter for a 2.5 percent yearly decline, data showed on Tuesday, threatening attempts by Mario Monti's technocrat government to control a debt crisis that is undermining the whole euro zone.Expect Debt-to-GDP to Rise Italy's debt-to-GDP ratio is 123%. Given rising borrowing costs and shrinking GDP, that number is going to go up, perhaps substantially. Eurosceptic Government in 2013 What Italy needs is work rule reform, pension reform, a dramatically smaller government, and lower taxes. As with Spain, work rule and pension reform is very slow in coming but tax hikes have been plentiful, exactly the wrong approach. A eurosceptic government may be on the way next year as Mario Monti will step down in April. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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