RECIPE FOR A PERFECT TWEET

1 cup of knowledge, a dash of insight and a pinch of humor. Isn't that the recipe for a perfect tweet?
If only it were that easy. What does that look like in the real twittersphere? What's the perfect combination of 140 characters to release to the world?
Earlier this month, All Twitter's Shea Bennett gave some insight into the perfect tweet that I wanted to recap for our readers. Shea is right on that the essentials are readability and retweetability.  
To help you achieve Tweeting Perfecton, check out these 6 tips.

1. Think Like Your Readers This is really just about knowing your customer. Don't tweet in a way that just appeals to you. Know who is reading your tweets and what they want to hear. Think like they think and you'll appeal to them. The result is more clicks, more retweets and more engagement. 2. Sell The Headline in a Non-Salesman Way No one wants to feel like they are being sold something. Even so, people need a good reason to click on or engage with a tweet! That is the conundrum that needs to be balanced for the perfect tweet. "This is cool" and "Buy my stuff now!" are among the worst statements to make next to a link. Steer clear also from making extreme promises or overhyping to your readers. If people find they can't trust your words, they will ignore them. 3. Use Correct Punctuation Just do it. Some people might not mind when you don't, but those that do, mind a lot! Use commas, put apostrophes in the correct places, employ parentheses when appropriate. Additionally, watch out for programs that auto generate tweets. While very helpful, some use erratic punctuation and hashtags that give a less than professional impression. 4. Check Your Spelling Comeon, guys. You probably know how I feel about spelling mistakes and the need to proof your own work. I've posted about it before. This goes for all tweets because this stuff matters. One caviat to this is "text-speak" such as "R U going?" or "Going 2 restrnt!". Obviously, this is not ideal. Sometimes in the twittersphere, however, it is very tempting to abbreviate because you can save yourself a few of your precious 140 characters. You need to avoid this at all costs. Here and there, I'll let you get away with a "u" instead of "you", but you are definitely better off taking an extra moment to craft the message differently and use proper spelling than resorting to text-speak. 5. Prepare For The Retweet Brace yourself. The perfect tweet shouldn't utilize all 140 characters. Yes, I am taking away some characters. To properly prepare for retweets, you need to leave room in the tweet for someone to retweet it. This is because many retweets add either your twitter handle or the retweeter's twitter handle to your original tweet. So, sorry, folks, but I am about to remove a piece of your 140-slice pie. Actually, 20 pieces. That's right, the ideal tweet is 120 characters, leaving 20 blank characters for retweeting. Granted, Twitter's internal retweeting removes the need for a shorter retweet (because it just copies your original message directly) but not everyone uses that specific type of retweet. So, strive for 120 characters when you can, but do not sacrifice the quality of your tweet. 6. Shorten Your Links Can I say this enough? Use Bitly to shorten your links. DanZarella, the social media scientist, shared a great chart that shows why Bitly is the best URL shortener. Try it, learn it, love it. Thoughts on our steps to the perfect tweet? What else would you advise?

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE TIMING!

A problem that is often brought up to Social Media Diva is that some Tweeters feel that their tweets are being ignored, and just sent out into the abyss and then…. nothing.  This is especially painful when you put a lot of thought and effort into constructing the best use of your 140 characters. 

It’s a difficult problem.  There are several avenues available for increasing the likeliness of retweets, clickthroughs and Twitter interaction; today lets look at timing.  After all, they say timing is everything!

Bitly, the url shortening site whose site update I blogged about earlier this month, recently conducted a study of retweets and clickthroughs based on what day and time tweets were posted. 

A pretty cool infogram from Raka Creative details their finding below.  Some takeaways: 

• Tweeting weekdays (specifically Mon- Thurs) between 1 and 3 pm Eastern will get you the most clickthroughs if you are sharing a link.   Hm!  Is it the afternoon slump or is everyone at Starbucks!?
• Fewest clickthroughs on links come after 8pm Mon- Thurs or 3pm on Fridays.

Be sure to take into consideration time zones and where your target audience is when you are tweeting!  These are all based on Eastern time zone... not sure why, west coast is the tech coast!

The New Bitly- Like it or Leave it?

For shortening links, Bit.ly has been my go to site. I was quite surprised when I logged on last week and found the redesigned site.  It’s nothing new for social media sites to update their platforms and have users up in arms.  Anyone who has used Facebook knows this.  But Bit.ly’s update was a bit different: it actually makes the site- with the intended purpose of shortening things- much more difficult to use.  Adding to this irony, even the link’s name itself is now longer! It changed from bit.ly to bitly.com and in Twitter-sphere, those extra 3 characters are a big deal. 

If you want to dive into the new bitly and get the most of its new functionalities, be sure to spend a bit of time on the new site.  The site now lets you save and share links as “bitmarks” (like bookmarks), curate groups of these bitmarks as “bundles”, make bitmarks or bundles private or public and link all these features with friends.

If you just want to use the standard feature of bitly- shortening a url- and not fuss with all the new bells and whistles, here’s the easiest way:

1. Paste the URL into the “ADD A BITMARK” box in the top right corner

2. Hit “SAVE” ON THE POPUP

3. Click the “COPY” button next to the shortened link to copy it to your clipboard

Just can’t seem to get used to the new format?  Here are a few simpler options to shorten your links.

Ow.ly:  A URL shortener from HootSuite.  Simple and straightforward, copy the url and hit “Shrink It” Button.  Only downside is you have to enter a captcha when you shorten a link (but this also makes the site more secure).

Goo.gl:  Yes, even Google has a URL shortener.  If you are signed into a Google account, it’ s quick, simple and easy.  If you are not signed in, you can still use the site, but it requires you enter a captcha as well.