Five things @HuffPostTaste could teach you about tweeting

@HuffPostTaste – the food bit of the Huffington Post – are tweeting pros. I’ve been putting together a lot of workshops on social media of late and they use all the tricks we tell our clients to use. So I thought I could let a few of their/our secrets slip.

1. Love a list

@HuffPostTaste post lots of ‘top ten’ type tweets. For example:

‘Our 10 favorite food bloggers of the month huff.to/RGr4k2’

‘9 new takes on the Bloody Mary huff.to/RAybKA’

(And my favourite) ‘50 shades of s’mores huff.to/SOMNTO’

A list tells your reader what they’re going to get. They can estimate how much time they’re going to need to give up if they click on your link. (Like with this blog, if the title were a tweet, you’d guess that it’ll only take a few minutes to read.)

2. Ask questions

Ask questions and get a response, or just intrigue people into finding out the answer. @HuffPostTaste does this a lot.

‘Taste test: do classic kids’ cereals taste as good when you’re blindfolded? huff.to/VcqfSV’

‘Whiskey-kissed brown turkey fig cake. Need we say more? huff.to/RJHl47’

3. Use unusual words

You’ve got a lot of competition on Twitter, so if you’re going to get heard, you need to stand out. The odd unusual word can help to give your reader a little jolt. Here are a few examples:

‘A pile of Eton Mess jiggling atop a subwoofer playing ‘Lovely Day’.. trust us, it’s something you want to see huff.to/RGh0Y4’

‘Twinkies, yodels, ding dongs, ho-hos ... how to make them all yourself huff.to/SgsHkD’

4. Give people a reason to click

Think about your reader. Why would they want to click on your link? Why would they retweet you? Why would they use your hashtag? If you can’t answer those questions, don’t tweet until you can.

Here are two of @HuffPostTaste’s tweets I clicked on recently. One because I was intrigued and I like The Onion:

‘The Onion’s dream omelette will hurt you huff.to/QDYZIW’

And one because I agreed with them and wanted to retweet it.

‘Everything you’ve heard about English food is wrong huff.to/SHumzY’

5. Don’t feel you have to use all 140 characters

140 characters is a guide not a limit. The odd super-short tweet will stand out.

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