5 Elements of A Killer Tweet

I recently became intrigued by HS principal @DavidGeurin’s ability to write a killer tweet. For example the Tweet below has hundreds of retweets and likes.  

Those who are adaptable learners will own the future. #sunchat #edchat #futureready pic.twitter.com/qeLCY9hI11

— David Geurin (@DavidGeurin) December 20, 2015

And, while this is his pinned Tweet (which helps it garner attention), many of his Tweets get a lot of attention. Here are some other examples:

Whoever Is Doing the Talking Is Doing the Learning https://t.co/ZU940owJ9r #edchat #cpchat #leadupchat pic.twitter.com/tBHrkpi0Gq

— David Geurin (@DavidGeurin) January 1, 2016

The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply. #edchat pic.twitter.com/RnYpHyi3Vq

— David Geurin (@DavidGeurin) January 5, 2016

If learning is a top priority, then making learning exciting must be a top priority too. #edchat #leadupchat pic.twitter.com/SC9BxnWa9W

— David Geurin (@DavidGeurin) January 1, 2016

So I started paying attention to what he was doing. To help me, I decided to discuss it and host an #EdCampNYC session called, “How to Write a Killer Tweet.”

Credit to Ann Oro for snapping this shot of me
discussing the Killer Tweet at #EdCampNYC.

We started by looking at and noticing some of what David does.  

Here is what we found:

1. Link: He often includes a link to something useful to learn more.  
2. Hashtag: Use appropriate hashtags. Know the hashtags that are popular. You can get started by checking out the list of hashtags shared by @cybraryman1  at http://cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html.
3. Meme: He often creates a meme. I started doing more of this too using http://imgur.com.
4. Media/Tags
   He uses an image to tag others with large followings in his post once he selects the image.  The beauty of this is that you can tag up to ten people without using the number of characters it would require to do so. You can see how to do this in the below screenshot.  

1 Word of Caution: Starr Sackstein (@mssackstein) pointed out the importance of tagging intentionally and respectfully. Among other things, make sure you have a relationship with this person and the post is relevant to them. No one wants to feel used, so make sure you tag responsibly.

Here is the anatomy of a Tweet looking at all five elements.

Those are four tips for a killer tweet and one word of caution.  Try it. Tweet this post, tag me @InnovativeEdu for a guaranteed like, and let me know how it goes in the comments.
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Check out more insights and reflections from Ann Oro at http://annoroteaches.com/2016/01/09/first-edcamp-of-2016-part-i