Kumamoto, JAPAN - Oct 12 2021 : Closeup Official Twitter account’s tweet “hello literally everyone”, after the global Facebook outage, on iPhone.
There are many social and advertising channels and each of these channels has a variety of formats. These formats always have their own specific requirements. It’s also common for these formats to have a specific style, purpose and cost. This article goes into further detail on Twitter text.
What is Twitter Text?
Twitter text, or a written tweet, is the simplest form of posting on Twitter. It’s not based directly on images or videos and it’s very easy to do. The majority of Twitter users will use text only on Twitter to talk about their opinions or feelings on something.
Users can also add their thoughts by replying to other tweets, retweeting or using a quote retweet, which allows them to share a tweet and add their own comments on top.
As it’s very easy to do, it can be easy to get lost amongst all the noise on the platform. Brands have to be careful about when choosing to use text only, but there are some great examples out there from popular brands when it has worked in their favour. See the examples further below.
How to use Twitter text
Creating a tweet is very simple. It can be done by pressing the tweet button and simply typing into the field. You can also use social media scheduling tools.
Normally Twitter text alone should only be used by a brand to respond to something in the moment or if a message must go out and there’s no time to obtain any visual elements for it. For example, when something is trending and you want to be present. A way around having to create your own visual content is to offer value by quote-retweeting another tweet.
Tweets, regardless of whether you’re using image or video, are limited to 280 characters, so any messaging needs to be snappy and to the point. If it’s unavoidable and you have a lot of information to impart, then you can make use of the Threads feature. This feature allows you to string together a series of tweets before publishing.
When typing tweets, try and use hashtags where possible to increase your reach or join a trend.
What will Tweet text do? Who will they reach?
Tweets will initially reach your followers but as they react to your content, other people outside of your followers will begin to see it organically. This is why your content should always try to engage the audience. The average lifespan of a tweet is only 20 minutes, so it needs to be timed right to maximise engagement. Expert social media tools and analytics can help you find the right times to tweet.
If you use hashtags, your tweets reach is more likely to be seen beyond your followers and may appear in topics of interest to other people.
Example Tweets
Below are examples of some text-only tweets.
In the example above, YouTube has used text only to respond to Twitter in a humourous way but also using their platform’s language (i.e. unsubscribing is something you would do on YouTube if you didn’t like a channel).
The next example, from Hubspot, uses text alone to ask marketers a question, encouraging engagement.
Finally, the last example shows a Twitter thread, which allows you to string multiple tweets of 280 characters together. It’s used most commonly by thought-leaders who use Twitter to reach a wider audience than on LinkedIn alone.
Recommended requirements
Tweet length: 280 characters max.
Hashtags: 2