Over the past month, we have received quite a few questions around Tweeting effectively. I thought I’d turn one of our suggestions into a Tip of the Week.
Did you know the maximum length of a tweet is 140 characters? Most Tweeters know this. What most people don’t know is you really only have 100 characters to use. The other 40 characters typically are used for:
- Hashtags
- Mentions of other Twitter user names
- Website links
1. Hashtags
Hashtags are on average, 10 characters long. See example below.
At board retreat w/ Engineers Canada. At dinner, president intro’d > 50 people by name & province. Impressive! #leadership #engineering
– Total Characters: 135
– Characters in Hashtags (includes spaces, #, and letters): 24
2. Twitter Usernames
Twitter user names are a max of 15 characters. If you include someone’s username, it appears in the tweet as something like @chiefstorytellr.
article-new one written 4 job hunters “Communication Audit – 10 Critical #Communication Elements for Your #Career #Success” @AMA_Marketing
– Total Characters: 133
– Username, AMA_Marketing, Characters: 14
3. Website Links
Website links are on average 20 characters if you use a site that shortens like bit.ly. Potentially longer if you don’t
50 #Communication Mantras to Live By in 2011. What would you add? http://bit.ly/hHqKyo #storytelling #marketing @chiefstorytellr
– Total Characters: 128
– Characters in Hashtags: 41
– Characters in Website Link: 20 characters
WRITE LIKE A COPYWRITER
It’s time to embrace the copywriter in you. Think of your tweets as long headlines or long email subject lines. Having only 100 characters makes communicating to your target audiences even more challenging as you have to simultaneously deliver a compelling message.
