How to Make the Most Out of Your 140 Characters on Twitter

When you’re on Twitter, fitting everything into 140 characters can be tricky. How do you condense your thoughts into a few short sentences? It’s important to make the most out of your tweets for several reasons. When you’re able to create short and interesting tweets, you’ll gain more followers and make more connections over the social network. Good tweets are more likely to get replies or retweeted on other Twitter feeds.

1. Get rid of some of the names in the tweets. Each Twitter username takes up room in your tweet. If you’re replying to a tweet or re-tweeting someone else’s message, delete some of the names. When you create your own tweet, send out individual mentions instead of mass messages.

2. Learn Twitter shorthand. People who are familiar with Twitter know the lingo. Most text message shorthand applies to Twitter and symbols are often used in place of longer words. For instance, use “&” and “+” instead of and in your Tweets. Certain vowels can also be dropped in sentences to make more room.

3. Shorten links. Links with long names can take up most of your 140 character limit. Instead use a shorten link tool like bit.ly to make it much easier to place website links in your tweets.

4. Don’t go hashtag crazy. Although you think a ton of hashtags will attract followers, it may actually turn off users from your tweets. Try to use only one or two hashtags per message.

If you absolutely can’t shorten anymore, you can always send two consecutive Tweets. However, staying within the limit helps you say exactly what you want to in the most concise way possible.