Tuesday, April 30, 2013

ONE Tip for Twitter Shout-outs


Don't you love getting mentioned on Twitter? It’s so refreshing and reassuring to see that someone took the time to think of you! Recognition is something we all crave (whether you admit it or not) and “small doses” are just plain nice!

Shoutouts can have hashtags such as these:

#shoutout  / #SO / #FollowFriday / #FF / #happy(day of the week)

...or perhaps no hashtag at all.

Naturally you want to RT and add a few kind words, right? Well, at least I TRY to. Here’s a tweet that mentioned me (fella who tweeted this is fuzzed and blanked out):




This tweet is at the limit! When I attempted to RT it went well beyond the 140 characters and my own Twitter handle would have been cut off since I'm near the end! And of course; no room to say hello either. So, I didn't RT it. I DID sent a tweet to this tweep suggesting he make his shout-outs shorter; will I hear back?

There's one thing that is clear: Shout-outs, though intended to be something good and positive, can be annoying!

This is not rocket science. It's plain old thinking a step ahead. Why am I bringing it up? Because I see it happening several times a day suggesting that the issue may be fairly common. So I'll do what I can to get the word out and recommend a solution.

Simple rule of thumb: If you want your shout-out to be retweeted keep it under 120 characters. I will be happy to RT your friendly tweets then!

Tears for Fears sang about shouting in the eighties long before we heard a chirp out of Twitter (see below). If you are looking for social media strategy that will make your business sing, stop by the website, or visit us on TwitterFacebook, or Google+   



4 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great compliment it is to be part of this post. Not many people get the concept of shoutouts and/or mentions and how to accomplish goals within the set limits. Great Advice and thank you for sharing this Gerry!

Thanks again,

Michael aka Daze(DazeHub)

Shannon Grissom said...

Great reminder Gerry!

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing Gerry! Great tip.

Gerry Wendel said...

I wrote this in the hope that folks would spread it around to those who tend to make long shoutouts! Even shared it with a few of the tweeps that are doing it...unfortunately none of them have appeared to have clicked on the link to read the blog! Sigh.