What Makes a Good Tweet?

March 7th, 2012 No Comments

Have you been wondering what makes a good Tweet? Why do some people seem to be able to gather a solid following while others just don’t get any traction? Read this blog to get some answers from me and other social media practitioners.

Of course, good content is one key ingredient, as is common sense. But, there are, indeed a few well-tested strategies that you can use to increase your reach, engagement and success on Twitter.

Top 3 Tips for a Good Tweet

Listen before you tweet
Add your own insights vs. just (re-)tweeting
Be a personality not a company

Follower influencers & other interesting people
Tweet during relevant events using the event hashtag
Include influencers or other relevanthandles in your tweets (even ask for RTs directly)

>>it is not a science. The rule of thumb: use common sense!

Qualitative

It’s audience appropriate (what & when)
Good content = not a product pitch
Leaves room for Retweeting
Influences (your audience)
Is a well-defined piece in your overall social media strategy
Is Retweeted by your influencers (not just your colleagues & friends)

Quantitative

Tweet is Retweeted and/or commented on
Creates a high amount of impressions (reach); premise: influencers have many followers
Click-throughs to promoted content, e.g. via Bit.ly’s
Growth in number of followers
Increases your Klout score

Related: Klout, Twittalyzer, TweetReach

Tricks from Respected Social Media Practitioners

1. @D_Sieber: Dorothea Sieber, Social Media Manager for HANA, SAP

1. Make it catchy and engage the audience by asking questions.

2. Simple language, easy to read.

3. Use hashtags in context, don’t just add them at the end.

4. Don’t use marketing but conversational language.

5. Think first what is relevant for you audience before (re) tweeting.

6. Add your own comment to a RT (modify the original tweet), as it adds more value than simple re-tweeting.

2. @PalmNorch: Palm Norchoovech, Social Media Manager for SCN, SAP

1. Retweetable without modifying the tweets. So there should be at least 10 chars for the .

2. Using the industry/known hashtags. Don’t create your own variation of hashtag. Do some research on the existing hashtag that people use and include that in your tweet to increase visibility.

3. Add twitter handles of people when u refer to them. Don’t simply state the name. Research if they have a twitter handle.

4. Good tweets might fail to pick up traction if tweeted at the wrong time. Scheduled them at the right time when your followers are most active on Twitter.

3. @mheiligman: Margot Heiligman, Solution Management Director, SAP

1. “Not too many hashtags – 1 or two.

2. Timing – 5-6 per day, not rapid fire of 3 or 4 tweets one after another (space them out – unless it’s an #SAPChat).

3. Don’t use twitter as a PR channel. Think about how what you tweet is of value.

4. Bit.ly or other shortener – Link at the end.

5. Message first, Link second, hash third.

6. Test punctuation, because on some tweet dashboards a “&” will show up looking like a “?” etc.

4. @carolinekohout: Caroline Kohout, Social Media Marketing Strategist, SAP

1. Find the powerful balance between art and science. Work in a pithy grabber. Mashable and Guy Kawasaki both have great examples of pithy grabber tweets.

2. For example, from this morning on @mashable: Delta Wants You to Shop Amazon While Flying – http://on.mash.to/wYFZHr .

3. They don’t necessarily leverage hashtags to their full potential, but the content piques your interest and gets you to click-through for more.