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: