“This is about…What you said about… Your Tweet about… Quit it! Do an “about” face.”
This one is pretty simple. When you’re communicating with others on Twitter, or occasionally referencing something you were talking about earlier, there is a common tendency to use some of the above phrases. “I read what you said about…” Talk about space killing! There’s a VERY easy and universally (uh, within English) recognized solution to this- and it frees up mega-space!
Let’s examine some samples:
Ok, first we can see we’re way over the limit, and some of our previously discussed guidelines have been broken. But what’s the solution to the “about” issue? In English, when one is in need of abbreviating a reference to something, what do they use? “re:” of course! The abbreviation for “regarding”- which, you’ll note, holds the same meaning as how you’re using “about” in your tweets! Look at how much cleaner this becomes:
Dirt simple and cleans up massive amounts of space and makes Tweets very readable. Works great when referencing other people’s comments, because you can summarize: “re: Obama”, or “re: Reality TV”. Much simpler and streamlined than “I read your post about dogs…” – a person will certainly understand “Re: dogs” just as well- if you have space and so choose, you could say “Re: post on dogs”, but it’s really unnecessary.
With our other guide tips to this point- we went from -13 to 44 left! Outstanding.
Tip 5 must be a killer, I bet!
This Jaym is exactly why I teach my clients about the power of their voice online – learning to be powerful to 120 characters is the key!
Ann Evanston
The Warrior is Within You