Cecil Galler's Blog: The Inaugural Guide to Writing the Perfect Tweet

Today marks the fifty-eighth United States presidential inauguration. As the US swears in Donald Trump as their leader, the world will watch not only the proceedings but also the new president’s active Twitter account. President Trump’s Twitter usage has been unprecedented compared to previous candidates and has put the social network squarely in the headlines for over a year.

Since the new leader of the United States loves Twitter, what better way to honor this inauguration than with an extensive guide to writing the perfect tweet? Check out our tips and leave your own in the comments below. Happy tweeting!

Discover Your Voice

.@aboymadeofsky No, Jonathan, I've never made a single decision in my life on the basis of whether it was cool.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 9, 2014

All tweets are written by someone (or some bot). But the best tweets reflect the unique voice of their author in as few characters as possible. Although defining your voice can be difficult for longer-form content, you can easily choose from your own personality attributes and apply them to your tweets. Just ask yourself whether you are fun, sassy, humble, aggressive, etc. It might take a moment of soul-searching, but your Twitter followers will thank you for writing something beyond “RT.”

Don’t Forget Visuals

A recent cartoon for @newscientist: pic.twitter.com/UCR9YvtINh

— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld) December 12, 2016

Instagram may be the social network for the image-obsessed, but Twitter still loves a good meme, gif, or video. If it’s relevant to your tweet and in line with your voice (see the tip above), share that Kermit meme! Attach that dancing man gif! Live your best life on Twitter, in photos.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

When advertisers don't understand that you can't just take an image off the internet, chop the artist's name off & add their logo pic.twitter.com/yRjvMdu1xM

— Gemma Correll (@gemmacorrell) January 18, 2017

Found a cartoon you love and have permission to share? Great! Just make sure you @ mention the author, or link to their website. Appreciating others’ work is great (we do it all the time), but stealing is not.

Keep It Short

Guilt is a dish best served by Mom.

— Dan (@Social_Mime) January 8, 2017

Twitter is the network of as few words as possible, plain and simple. Even if you’ve figured out how to write a novel in 140-character segments, that doesn’t mean you should. In fact, the ideal tweet is only 100 characters, so keep your amazing #MondayMotivation brief.

Keep It Clean

All this lead-up and I still need spellcheck to get INAUGURATION right. Thank god for @Grammarly (totally helped me with the hyphen too)

— Matt Portman (@Portations) January 18, 2017

Through our extensive grammar research (and all those tweets you keep sending us), Grammarly has found that social media is rife with writing errors. Don’t be the Twitter pundit whose salient points about current events are overshadowed by an easily avoidable spelling or grammar mistake. Clean it up!