X (formerly known as Twitter) has long established itself as the ultimate platform for sharing and exchanging feelings through social media. Starting a good tweet can be very challenging, whether it's trendy or not. X is supposed to be fun, and doing everything by the book, or in a very methodical or rule-driven way, can sometimes make it seem just a little bit too much like hard work. However, if you really want to succeed on the network, then you're going to have to put in that little bit of extra effort.
Steps
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Think like your readers. This is a bit of a no-brainer, but it's easily overlooked. For your tweet to be perfect, it needs to appeal most to your readers, to the majority of your network, and not to you.- Unless you're a world-famous celebrity or brand with millions of devoted followers, adopting an attitude of 'they'll know what I mean' or 'everybody likes this!' will almost always backfire.
- You have to take the time to craft your tweet accurately and pleasingly, thus ensuring that it will be appeal to the highest number of readers.
- When you really know your audience, you can better create content that is engaging towards that audience.
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Learn from other successful (and unsuccessful) people on X. Take a moment to peruse your X feed. Refresh the page. Who stands out? Why?Advertisement -
Grab the reader's attention. Conversely, there are many times when we suddenly notice the tweet of somebody we've only recently started following, or have previously not paid much attention to, because it was excellent. It ticked all of our boxes, and we read the tweet and clicked on that retweet button. -
Use correct and acceptable punctuation. Almost nobody is likely to be offended or put off when they read something that paid attention to the correct use of punctuation. The opposite is not true – many people (enormous numbers if you use the internet as a gauge) feel that, rightly or wrongly, missing or an incorrect use of punctuation reflects poorly on the writer.- Use full stops and commas. Put your apostrophes in the right place. Use speech marks and parentheses.
- Don't end every sentence with an exclamation mark. A simple hyphen can often be the difference between a real word and one that doesn't exist.
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Use correct spelling. If you're a bad speller, or struggle with grammar, consider writing your tweets in your favourite word processor first. This might seem unnecessary, or even patronizing, but just to echo the sentiments above – people will judge you on how you write, and how you spell, and this will have a direct impact on whether your links are clicked and your updates retweeted.Advertisement
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Tips
- It's worth the sweat. Once you see the benefits that great headline copy, can't miss unselling techniques and first-class grammar and punctuation can make to your X presence and impact – as well as your website traffic, and sales – you'll never again settle for anything less than the perfect tweet.Thanks
- A quick checklist for every tweet:
- Always start with a capital letter.
- Always use a capital letter with each new sentence (and you only need one space after the full stop).
- Learn the difference between your and you're, its and it's and there, their and they're
- Capital letters make it LOOK LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING.
- Avoid text-speak at all costs. Far better to take an extra minute or two to elegantly craft your message and link into the desired 280 characters than it is to resort to poor writing.
Thanks
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