The purpose of posting anything online, especially on a social network such as Twitter, is to either provoke thought or a response. NICK LEWIS, AUTHOR, “7 THINGS THAT MAKE FOR A GOOD TWEET ON TWITTER” THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
STYLEBOOK
Keep your tweet short, about 100 characters by using active verbs and valuable information.
Use a hashtag to make your tweet easy to find.
Twitter A microblogging platform that allows users to post updates of up to 140 characters to their followers. They can also share photos or video as well as links to outside content. The verb is to tweet, tweeted. A Twitter message is known as a tweet.
Include a high-quality visual to make your tweet stand out.
reply On Twitter, an @ reply is a
common technique to speak to other people directly. A tweet that begins with @username can be seen in Twitter feeds by people who follow both parties though it can also be viewed on an individual’s profile page. Example: @APStylebook I need help with a style question. retweet The practice, on Twitter, of sharing a tweet by someone else to your followers. Users can either click on a retweet button to simply relay the tweet exactly as written and labeled as coming from the original tweeter or use the informal conventions of “RT @username”: at the beginning, or “via @username” at the end, to share the tweet, which allows the user to edit and/or add comment. tweet A public message of up to 140 characters on Twitter. Also usable as a verb: to tweet.
Link to a story on your website for more information.
Wording matters “Helpful wording heuristics include adding more information, making one’s language align with both community norms and with one’s prior messages, and mimicking news headlines.” • • • • • • • • •
Ask people to share. Be informative. Be like the community, and be true to yourself. Imitate headlines. Use words associated with successful retweets. Include positive and/or negative words. Refer to other people (but not your audience). Generalize. Make it easy to read.
From conference proceedings: “The effect of wording on message propagation: Topic- and author-controlled natural experiments on Twitter” by Chenhao Tan, Lillian Lee, Bo Pang, May 2014
12 | COMMUNICATION: JOURNALISM EDUCATION TODAY | a publication of the Journalism Education Association
SUMMER 2016