Tag: url shortener

Pack a Punch Using Twitter
By Categories: Blog Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

“Tweeting” is the new email. With smart phones in abundance, millions are using Twitter to communicate around the world and even to people sitting next to them. How can you use this great communications tool to benefit your business?

Using Twitter to market your business in 140 characters or less can be very challenging. Given that you may want to share a link and add a few hashtags, your message will be greatly shortened. So what can you do to make sure your tweet is read and re-tweeted? You need to be very creative and selective about the words you use.

Your Headline

Using techniques like the ones provided below can definitely draw attention to your tweet:

  • Don’t Make These Mistakes on Twitter or Do You Make These Mistakes on Twitter?
  • How to Attract and Influence People on Social Media (or replace the words Social Media with Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn)
  • How to _  [blank]  __ on Twitter
  • Little Known Ways to _     [blank]_____ on Twitter
  • _[add a specific number]_ Ways Twitter Can Help _[add a subject]__
  •   [blank]   Ways to Get the Most Out of    [blank]    
  •   [blank]   Reasons Why    [blank]      
  • Last Chance to ___[blank]     

Attaching a Link

Twitter links to your blog and news stories can be long. If so, to get the most out of your 140 characters, you should use a URL shortening service. URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct users to the required page.

A few of the services available are:

If you decide not to use a shortening service, Twitter will use its own which could leave you with less characters with which to work. See Twitter announcement here. https://dev.twitter.com/blog/upcoming-tco-changes

Adding Hashtags

Keep hashtags short. There is no need to overwhelm the reader. Pick one that best fits your blog and headline so that it reaches your target audience. Don’t use a lot of random words that mean nothing to your message.

Twitter can be a great business tool if used properly. Make sure you are following businesses in your industry and others that are complementary.

Try it and document your results. Let me know what happens…

Many thanks to Media Creations Group for contributing this blog.

Twitter Shortcodes: Making it Simple and Sweet
By Categories: Blog, Tips Tags: , , , , ,

If you are just jumping into the Twitter parade, there are a few things you need to know before getting started.

First, you are limited to 140 characters, similar to text messaging. Before you start typing away in that little box, you may want to think about what you want to say or share, then limit it to 140 characters or less. One way to do this is to use “short codes” or abbreviations of commonly used words.

For example, instead of writing “because” you would write “b/c.” Or instead of writing “two” or “to” you would simply type the number “2.”

Some frequently used short codes include:

Hashtag (#) – is a way to organize or categorize your updates. When used, it acts as a search engine to pull all the tweets that have been tweeted with that hashtag, i.e., #bacon would result in anyone talking about bacon.

@reply – means you are replying to a Twitter update that someone else posted. It is directed to the person to whom you are replying, i.e., @reply@BeMoreVisible …

RT – Retweet – you are retweeting someone elses tweet.

MT – Modified Tweet – you are retweeting someone else’s tweet, however you have modified it.

PRT – Partial Retweet – you are retweeting a Tweet but have not included the full original Tweet.

DM – is a direct message to another Twitter user you are following.

#FF or FollowFriday – you write this along with the Twitter accounts of people you would like your Twitter followers to also follow. You can write it with or without the (#) hashtag.

For more short codes and frequently used terms, check out Twitter’s Glossary.

Another way to make sure you fit everything into that little box is to use a URL Shortener that converts a long URL into a shorter length. It still directs the user to the same web location. This is very useful on Twitter, however – URL shorteners are also used to disguise the real URLs to websites that may be harmful to your computer… be cautious using them.

A few URL shortening services include:

Google – http://goo.gl
Bit.ly – http://bit.ly
Tiny Url – http://tinyurl.com
Ow.ly – http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url

If you’ve decided to join the millions that are tweeting and posting – take time to check out Twitter Basics.  Knowing how to navigate within Twitter’s universe will make your Tweeting experience less frustrating and more enjoyable.