Be Interesting on Twitter

Be InterestingOn TwitterBy @LenKendall

About Me

What this is…• From the heart (my personal experience and observations)• Opinionated (offensive?)• My first shot at “teaching” this topic (be harsh on me)

What this isn’t…• Research focused (Im lazy)• A Marketing tutorial (see mashable.com)• Me telling you what NOT to do (its about giving you a toolbox and inspiration, not a set of restrictions)

Quick Tips

Cut Cut Cut Try to never tweet the first thing you write.

Improv your writing skillsBe cognizant of what people respond to. Do you get response/retweets about certain topics? Time of day that worksbest for you and your readers?Tone or personality people like to see you display? Sketch comedy shows tend to bethe hundredth iteration of a storyline. They perform a base idea, see what gets laughs, see what doesn’t, thencurate the components based on the reactions of the audience.

Have a sandboxIf you don’t feel comfortable practicing your writing skills at first. Or if you feel restricting in what you can say inpublic, create a “sandbox” of sorts. Anonymous characters can often as a perfect venue to flex your creativitysans social pressure.

Schedule interesting stuff (secret rss sauce)While you’re away, you may want to consider scheduling tweets in advance. There are many tools that do this liketweetdeck and hootsuite, but beyond the technology, have an approach. Diversify your sources of content. Filter basedon your interests, and try to insert your voice/opinion to add color to the headlines you’re tweeting. Lastly, even if you’reaway when such tweets fire, try to respond later on if people ask you about them. This helps make this practice less ofa one-way broadcast.

Treat twitter as a journalA lot of us having a passion for the art of writing, but we often don’t have time to do it. Twitter is a tiny practiceground that lets us refine that skill. So write about what YOU want, not what you perceive other people areinterested in. Most people aren’t going to see your tweets anyways…so might as well make the experienceentertaining for yourself.

Creative tweet-starters

Take advantage of metaphor

Offer windows into your life

Wikipedia is a powerful source

Pick dense descriptors

Nudge people to search for context

Draw attention with confusion

Create characters

Play with other people’s words

Share your methods

Use ambiguity (horoscopeyness)

Evoke common situations

Make sarcasm obvious

Break the rules

Let the reader complete the story

Tap into news and cultural memes

Pleasantly deceive (occasionally)

TV is great fodder

Recommended Reading @ConanObrien @RobDelaney @UmairH @ShelbyFero @FakeAPStylebook

Thanksfor Coming!LenKendall@gmail.com@LenKendall

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Be Interesting on Twitter

by Len Kendall on Apr 10, 2012

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