Why Torture Yourself? 3 Quick Tips on Writing Titles

I hate writing titles. I am not alone. I think humans in general hate writing titles. Why is it so frustrating and hard?

For me, it’s trying to get the gist of the piece across in a quick and somewhat clever way – although in the age of the internet, a “clever”title is less desirable than in print. Here are 3 things I think about when I’m creating (and re-creating and re-creating) a title:

3 Lists You Should Write Before Following

Ok, so you’ve signed up, you may or may not have written a profile description (it is crucial to write this and if you haven’t, this post will help you), and you’ve uploaded a picture (please do this, no one wants to look at another egg)…now what?

You need to start following people. Who you follow is important for a couple reasons. It’s whose tweets will be streaming through your feed, and it’s also who may potentially follow you back. If you are on Twitter to promote your business, website, or blog – following people is how you can begin to gain followers yourself.

Think about why you are using Twitter and write it down. Now, start figuring out who to follow by making 3 separate lists (I suggest writing each idea on a separate line, and make them as concise as possible.) If you are going to be using Twitter to strictly promote your business and network, write these 3 lists from a business perspective. Ok, ready? Go:

9 Tips on 140 Characters or Less, Part 1

Many things can be intimidating about Twitter (creating your profile, gaining followers, starting a conversation, etc.) but the most daunting can be the 140 character limit. On Twitter, tweets are limited to 140 characters or less. I hated this rule when I first signed up – not because I wanted to write novels, but because I didn’t want to have to work so hard to make it fit. But the 140 limit is the beauty of Twitter; people have to say what is most important and leave it at that.

The first time you post on Twitter, you will probably go over the 140 characters, and then proceed to stare at your sentence, convinced you can’t cut it down any more. You can. 

I’m a writer and editor by trade with my training in Professional and Technical Writing – it is my job to make writing as clear and concise as possible. But even with my profession and training by my side, I still struggle with the character count at times, mainly because I can’t stand to spell in “funky” ways or misuse punctuation (although, I’ve loosened up a teeny, tiny bit.)

To start, just get out what you’d like to say. Don’t try to fit in in 140 or less right off the bat. Sometimes you will, but not often (until you get good at it.) Get your words out and then cut, cut, cut.

Here are some tips to help you make your characters count:

What to Do When You're Stuck at 2,001 Following on Twitter

As I’ve mentioned before, I run our social media at the company I work for. We’re a fairly new company and we’ve been working hard to grow our Twitter following for the past year. In March, we finally went over that 1,000 follower mark. That really is a great feeling. At that point, we were at nearly 2,000 people whom WE were following. Eventually, we hit 2,001 – and much to my annoyance and frustration – I realized we were stuck.

Twitter places caps on the amount of people you can follow. While I haven’t found exactly how they calculate who gets cut off when and why – I do know it is based on your following to follower ratio. And as much as this 2,001 cap has frustrated me, I do understand why the Twitter Police do it. They want to keep Twitter a happy place where spambots can’t just follow 3 billion people, trying to get a million to follow back.

So, basically, I’ve been painstakingly going through our list of 2,001 following and finding people I don’t think are benefiting us in any way, or have never communicated with us or responded to us, and unfollowed them. I did this sometimes when I had spare time (ha! spare time – what is that?) or when a particularly interesting group or person had followed us and I wanted to be able to reciprocate with a follow back. So, seriously, I used scroll through the forever loading list of people, unfollow someone, and make room for someone else. It sucked. Plain and simple.

“Twitter is Stupid”: Why You Should Reconsider

Twitter is Stupid: Why You Should Reconsider by PuzzledTweeter

I am guilty of giving Twitter and its users a hard time.  I’ve uttered “Twitter is stupid” or “Twitter is pointless” a few too many times. These are also the responses I often get from people who: a) have never used Twitter, b) used it briefly and ran for the hills, or c) are using it but don’t get it. Trust me, people, I understand. My first Twitter account was something like @ihatethis123. And I had only joined to get links to a live stream of a show I wished I was at (hmm, another useful aspect…)

At first glance, Twitter can seem like a place for people to just waste time all day perfecting their self-admiration or exercising their need to express life’s most dull and mundane moments (i.e. “I just had lunch”), and I guarantee there are too many people out there who use it for just that. But in my experience, they are the minority and are easily avoidable. (Check out someone’s profile, amount of tweets, and read their recent tweets before following them.) If you follow someone who is dragging your feed down, well, unfollow, my friend!

In reality, Twitter is a rather useful and important thing.  I’m going to share the 4 reasons why I find Twitter to be particularly relevant:

Where do I start? How do I start? What should I say? #amnervous

My first post…how intimating (or is it daunting? thrilling? scary?) All of the above. Starting this blog is like signing up for your first Twitter account, Facebook page, Linkedin page, Meetup account…and then figuring out what in the world you say. It’s not easy. That’s why I’m here; I know it’s not easy, and I’ve been working hard to figure out this “New Media” world , and I want to share what I’ve learned with you.

I want this blog to be a resource – for you and for me.  A few months ago I was given the opportunity to take over social media marketing for the company I work for. I had nearly zero experience in social media, absolutely zero experience when it came to Twitter, and literally stared at Hootsuite for hours in some weird daze. Then I dove in. Head first. Over the past few months I have read books, articles, and pages upon pages online. I’ve attended webinars, live presentations, and met with experienced social media gurus one-on-one.

Creating this blog will also give me the opportunity to share with you what I’ve researched, books I’ve read, the little tidbits of information I’ve found by scouring the web, Twitter, and Facebook. I want to make this less scary, less intimidating, and easier for you than it has been for me – basically I’m just really sweet and I love to share.

On the selfish side, creating this blog would give me the opportunity to wade through the piles of information I have scribbled in notebooks, stacked all around my office, and stuffed into my brain – and give me the chance to attempt to make sense of it all.

Why listen to me? Because I’m the first to admit that I am not an expert in this field – I’m trying to figure this out. I don’t have all the answers, but I will work endlessly to find them. And I may be a puzzled tweeter, facebook-er, and linkedin-er, but I’m one helluva a researcher.