Giving Your Twitter Messages More Punch and Credibility

I’m still a firm believer in developing a relationship and providing value to your user base FIRST, but once that’s accomplished and you’re ready to take your messaging to the next level here is some food for thought from web usability extraordinaire, Jakob Nielsen, on optimizing and beefing up your tweets. My synopsis:

Readers only scan the first few words of a tweet, make them count.
Use a URL shortner, but help give the user an idea of what they’re clicking to. ShortURL.com/SEOStrategy is better than ShortURL.com/x6L9Mn
Messages on twitter (and facebook, etc) are time sensitive. Time your messages to reach your audience at the appropriate time they would likely read it and take action. Once your message is off screen, its essentially dead. Twitter time is 10x faster than email time.
Answer “Why should they care?”