Twitter is a great place to share blog posts, with just a few easy steps your tweet will work better.

Everyday twitter feeds are full of tweets which are empty of hashtags, pictures and purpose. These get passed-over by most readers.

First make your blog title work. If you add all the Hashtags and Twitter Handles of those your post is about in your title, sharing is easier.

If you use WordPress, lots of blog readers share via the sharing buttons at the bottom of your post, 2 clicks and they have shared and moved on. They won’t add anything extra, so provide all they need to begin with.

Here is an example of a weak blog title, “Twitter Tips”

To this; Add the WOW factor to your tweets, try a strong word like; NEW, WONDERFUL, BRILLIANT or KICK_ASS and add a hashtag such as #TwitterTip #Amwriting. Think of other strong words, but be careful don’t overuse them in every tweet.

Change this; “Diana by L Card”

To this; WONDERFUL #Bookreview DIANA by @LCard A modern day Goddess? Or #Greek #Tragedy? (and add you blog post link)

There are others who personalise each tweet, it takes effort to “Live” tweet but they spend time thinking about how to present blog posts on Twitter, particularly on the hashtag days, with a catchy headline that will make people click, and pictures if relevant – you need to leave 23 characters for the picture. With books, you need to say what it’s ABOUT either in a few relevant words or some genre Hashtags.

I believe every tweet needs to work hard for you with a link back to a blog post or a page or Goodreads/Amazon link to a book. Even if you are thanking someone for sharing your post, get a link in for instance “Thanks for sharing the review of my book (Link)”

Add a .(full stop) before the name of the @person like this .@person and others can eavesdrop on your conversation and might click on your link.

Make use of the new Twitter facility to “add a comment” when re-tweating and you can make sure there is a link to your post or book.

Pictures on Twitter get much more attention than a post with just words. Find out how to add a picture that doesn’t cut off half your book cover. I use “paint” I set up a template 1024 pixels wide by 512 high and fill it with pictures and words, getting away with lots more than 140 characters because my picture only takes up 23 characters of space. Do make sure of copyright rule when using pictures.

Finally here is a great article for those of you who are tempted to use a re-tweeting service,

http://terrytyler59.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/robots-retweeting-robots-to-no-one.html

No way am I an expert on Twitter but I love learning and sharing what I find, what great tips can you pass on?