Don’t spend 140 characters teasing a subject on Twitter and then 140 paragraphs before you get to the point when the viewer clicks your link.
I’ve been seeing a lot of links to bloated writing lately. Stop!
Don’t tell jokes, anecdotes, unrelated opinions, etc. before getting to the point. Keep it short and direct to the subject or you’ll loose your viewer.
Make your point first, then you can expand on the subject with the other stuff.
Enough said.
I recently read an article that said we have a 7 second attention span. Interestingly enough, the article was longer than 7 seconds!
7 seconds is old school - when we had 3 channels on TV. It's actually less than 3 seconds. Think of anyone's behavior with a remote and a TV. Click, Click, Click. Think about websites: click, click, click. It's way shorter than 7 seconds.
My first day in every college writing class I teach starts with me jumping on the desk and getting EXTREME attention quickly.... and holding it... From on top of the desk I tell them they will get an F if they miss the most important question on the final exam. Initial attention, getting viewers to stop from changing the channel or clicking on another website is the most important part of communication. Get their attention and keep it!
Michael, not sure where twitter got the idea of 140 characters (and now-a-days, it's filled with hashtags, RT, mentions, links and what not - so message is lost somewhere....)
Not sure either about the origins of the character limits to Twitter Praful but I seem to remember something about 140 characters being a limit on what was initially called Short Message Service on cellphones and is now called text messages. Maybe that's where it came from.
The "codes" [RT, #hashtags, etc.] get in the way so writers need to learn to limit them and write what great editors call bullet proof headlines as their Twitter copy. Good writing still wins eyeballs.
Good morning Michael. I read Peter's re-blog and am glad I did.I agree completely.
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