How to Write Tweets: 12 Tactics to Boost Engagement

12 Tweet Writing Tactics: How to Write Tweets

Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, with millions of active users sharing their thoughts, opinions, and experiences every day. Therefore, it is one of the most important social media marketing tools. 

Every time you press the tweet button, you need to make sure that you will share awesome tweets with your audience. Worry not, we have got you covered. 

Do your best to build an agile Twitter strategy by following these tweet tips:

1. Keep your tweets short
2. Address your target audience
3. Format your own Tweets as news
4. Show your astonishment
5. Ask a question
6. Use curiosity-generating words
7. Share your knowledge
8. Create urgency
9. Use the power of recommendations
10. Warn the reader
11. Write in the first person
12. Steal some copywriting tricks

1. Keep Your Tweets Short

Yes, we know. As Twitter supports limited characters, tweets stand for short-form content. But here we’re talking about making the tweets super short.

One of the most common mistakes marketers make when using Twitter is trying to fill those 280 characters as much as possible. And if their thoughts don’t fit, they use abbreviations and acronyms.

Try to avoid it. Abbreviations look sloppy, and they are challenging to read. The human brain sees it as an obstacle to avoid, so online users won’t spend time reading your cuts. 

Instead, try to make your thoughts concise in a perfect tweet that can be read while they scroll on their mobile device.

Using shorter tweets will help you:

• Stand out in a feed of long and monotonous posts
• Create curiosity
• Keep more people engaged and encourage them to hit the retweet button
• Generate more link clicks
• Build a Twitter thread of responses and opinions

If you don’t know how to limit your thoughts in engaging tweets, don’t cease to use SocialBee’s AI generator. We have a collection of more than 1000 AI prompts that are designed for specific platforms.

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You don’t have to make all the tweets super short. Use this writing tactic to grab attention to your blog post link (shorten it!) and make your tweet stand out among “giants.” This way, your tweet content will get noticed and evoke curiosity.

Examples:

• Sparking creativity with [method/strategy]
• Which one would you choose? [link]
• Breaking news: [headline]. Stay up-to-date with the latest information [link]
• Key takeaways from [event] [link]

2. Address Your Target Audience

This writing technique is about personalization and direct communication, and that’s why it works. Start your tweet by addressing the audience to grab attention and make them understand that this particular message is right for them.

Here are some examples of original tweet hooks:

• Attention, entrepreneurs! Learn from Bill Gates’ mistakes: [link]
• Marketers! Do you use these tactics to increase conversions? [link]
• Dear photographers! You MUST read this article [link]

Simple yet effective. Why not give this tactic a try?

3. Format Your Own Tweets As News

People come to Twitter and other social media platforms for the news, so no wonder that corresponding tweets grab more attention. Make your tweets sound newsworthy, and present content as if it’s something the audience has been waiting for a long time.

Here is the perfect example of how to do so:

Consider writing tricks like news-like open words (Finally! Announcing, At last! Great news, It’s happening, etc.) and adjectives communicating exclusivity and evoking enthusiasm (revolutionary, breakthrough, record-breaking, etc.)

You can use a similar phrasing as these:

• MS-DOS source code is now available to download for free [link]
• It’s happening! A revolutionary formula for sales copywriting has been found: [link]
• Great news! ABC reveals the secrets of its success [link]

Important! Don’t use this writing tactic as mere clickbait just for increasing your click-through rate. Be honest with the audience: If there’s nothing “revolutionary” about the news you share, structure and represent your tweet another way. False news will never help you generate more engagement.

4. Show Your Astonishment

“Awesome!”, “Wow,” “I’m shocked,” and other phrases expressing delight and surprise can get you tons of traffic from Twitter. The main thing is to choose the right words: Consider those that fit your brand’s tone of voice, and use this type of wording only if it makes sense for the communication style of your target audience.

Examples:

• OMG! What a tactic! – [link]
• Shock! Google launched ranking without links – [link]
• Wow! ChatGPT gets much smarter with this new algorithm – [link]

While this writing tactic is perfect for pitching to a younger audience, it may look weird in the eyes of savvy business people, finance experts, or entrepreneurs. So, before using it, ensure it’s relevant to your case.

5. Ask a Question

Curious and intriguing questions a user can’t answer with simple “yes” or “no” are motivating to click on to find the answer, thus generating the most engagement. This writing tactic is about appealing to a person’s social instinct (the need for approval, status, and personal value).

Other users will click the link to find out if their subconscious answer to your question coincides with what they get. It’s also about FOMO (the fear of missing out): questions motivate users to click as they don’t want to miss anything new they might get from the answer.

Here are some examples to get inspiration from when posting your next tweet:

• How would you describe your level of happiness currently? [link]
• How long does it take a marketer to change a light bulb? – [link]
• Do you make these silly mistakes when you speak English? – [link]

It’s a powerful tactic because it involves the reader rather than giving a statement. And, as research shows, people use emotions rather than data, features, or facts to evaluate and remember brands. 

6. Use Curiosity-Generating Words 

Add words like “why,” “this,” “must,” “these” or “how” to your tweets: They arouse curiosity and engage users to click the link to learn more.

Here are some examples of tweets creating curiosity:

• Why you shouldn’t be nice to your boss – [link]
• This new diet is the one that works – [link]
• You just have to do it – [link]

And again, relevancy is key!

7. Share Your Knowledge

Most users surf the internet to learn something new, interesting, and valuable that would help them become better. They want to educate themselves, grow personal or professional skills, or just satisfy their curiosity.

Use your Twitter to feed this hunger for knowledge. Share your informative content, but ensure you add some writing tricks for the audience to see how easily or fast they can do it. 

Share content with tips, ways, tactics, secrets, techniques, guides, etc., and mention words like “easy,” “simple,” “fast,” “beginner,” and so on in the titles.

Here are some examples of informative tweets:

• How to become a copywriter in 10 days or less — [link]
• 10 simple steps to a healthy lifestyle — [link]
• The beginner’s guide to social media writing: [link]

As most informative content is evergreen, you can schedule it to your Twitter app content calendar way in advance and reshare it when needed. SocialBee is a social media publishing platform that can automatically repost your evergreen content and get in front of your followers who might have not seen it the first time.

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SocialBee allows users to re-queue evergreen content indefinitely in two ways: by re-publishing a specific post or by re-publishing multiple posts found in a content category.