Tweet Your Way To Better Blog Posts

Guest post by Blog Manager Robbi Hess

Tell me a story in 140 characters or fewer. Can you tell me a story in six words or fewer? If you can, then you can be a better blogger! It's true: Tweeting can help you be a better story writer/blogger. Why? Simple. You will learn to use "better" words, you'll be concise, you'll learn to get your point across quickly. In today's mobile, always-on-the-go-world readers appreciate short, information-filled blog posts. Twitter helps you become ruthless with cutting your words until your message is concise and clear. 

While I still start my morning by reading the local daily newspaper, I may be in the minority especially if you believe the dire stories about newspapers cutting staff. The evidence of editorial staff-cutting is clear every time I read a newspaper, but that's a topic for another time. 

You may or not see Twitter as being helpful to you as you're looking to grow your pet blogging platform. In some cases, there is so much conversation going on in Twitter that it is daunting to try and follow, but here are three ways that Twitter can help you become a better blogger:

1. As mentioned, you need to be concise; 140 characters doesn't give you much writing wiggle room.
2. Verbs are your friend; in all writing this is true. Consider this sentence: My Poodle ran quickly… change it to: Henrietta dashed. See how many characters I've saved? 
3. Hone your editing skills with Twitter. A long, rambling, are you ever going to get to the point sentence will not be tolerated under Twitter's rules. The site cuts you off regardless of whether you've made your point! This is great for you though as it will make you become the editor of your own words — and that's a good thing. 

Here's my challenge to you… look at one of your blog posts and hone it down to a Tweet-able size. Can you do it?