Having been on Twitter for a few weeks now, I have been able to interact with a bunch of new people, read some interesting stuff and yes…write some of my own tweets for all the Twitter world to see. Like many people, I was skeptical of this latest entrant to the social media universe…do people really want to know what I’m doing right now? Turns out I was taking that a little too literally. No, they don’t want to know that you are currently at Starbucks getting a double grande soy latte. But they do want to know about the latest info from some market research you’ve done or when your next book signing will be.

So, I thought, ok, you only have 140 characters to type in your update. This is easy, right? Just type away…write anything, real quick and your done right? No, not really. If you are an architect and you are designing a tiny bird house for a little hummingbird instead of a palatial estate, you still want to make that the best design ever, right? Of course. It has to be quality. And it needs to get people interested, or inspired or at least engaged enough to read it.

So, how should you go about writing your Twitter copy? Here are some topic and format ideas:

• What are your products or services? Write a brief update about how your clients are using them
• Teach something…a little something. Whatever your area of expertise is, share one small tip
• Share sites or blogs that your followers would be interested in. Show them what’s great out there
• Feed your blog through Twitter using Twitterfeed.com.
• Announce something news worthy…either from your business (like a mini press release) or from your industry
• Holding a seminar, talk or book signing? Tweet about it and invite your local followers to attend.
• Note: It’s ok to repeat your tweets in moderation. Some people will no doubt miss some of your posts. …repetition helps people remember
• Read back what you wrote and see if there are words you can eliminate… there are always a few.
• Here’s a good one: Include a link in your tweet to a longer blog post, article or video.
• … And occassionally that “I’m at Starbucks having a double grande soy latte” tweet can be fun too.

The bottom line, say A LOT with a little. Be original. Think “greeting card”…or “text message”… what would you say there?

Popularity: 35%