Twitter Tip: 140 Is Less Than You Think -- Leave Room for the Retweet

Once again, I'm chatting with a client who is learning about Twitter and getting comfortable with writing substantive messages that are only 140 characters long.  She's a little frustrated about that number, because she thinks it's a bit deceptive.  And she's right.  There's lots less room to move here than 140 would suggest, since at the outset that number includes the spaces between the words. 

That's right: the blanks are included in the tally. 

So from the start, the 140 character count doesn't leave everything for letters and numbers and commas and whatnot. 

Then you must shorten the links so they will fit.  The urls are often longer than 140 characters from the git-go. 

Now, even less than 140 in the count, right?

Next, you've got to add the hashtags.  This helps people find what you've shared.  Hashtags are important (more on them later).

That number is plummeting, isn't it? No wonder it's R for "are" and U for "you" ....

Now, it's time to remember the retweet.  If you don't, then you're making work for someone who is doing you a favor already by sharing your tweet with their followers. 

Easy way to envision this need is to retweet some tweets for yourself.  Go to Twitter, or whatever third party app that you're using to tweet, it doesn't matter.  Just find a tweet that you want to retweet.  Now, retweet it.  Do it again; heck, do it several times. 

Let's assume you retweeted USA Today.  See how the retweet takes up more space, since you're getting the "RT @USATODAY" in the message, too?  Did you go over 140 with your retweet, so you had to take the time to cut something before Twitter would accept it? 

Know how much your retweeted name uses in the count.

Here's the tip: cut the word count off your tweet before you publish it, to accommodate that character count.  Twelve characters are used in "RT @USATODAY." Fifteen (15) characters/spaces are taken up by "RT @rkennedy" - yours may be more or less.  Remember to accommodate your tally in your tweets.  Helps those who retweet your message to do so fast and easy.

Note: this doesn't appear when you are tweeting directly from the Twitter platform.  The retweet appears as a little green cap over the top left corner of your tweet box.  However, if you go and read your retweet in another venue, you'll see the "RT @USATODAY" at the start of your retweet.

Getting and Holding in Top Three of Google Search Results: More on Same

Just wanted to post quickly on one more example of how I achieve and hold top spots in Google search results - because I like that I can do this and because it's nice to have these examples for clients to have, too. 

Today, I just surfed for "Charlie Sheen Lawsuit" and discovered my week-old post at Backseat Lawyer (where I have no regular posting schedule, as you can see by the archives) remains in the top three search results at Google (everything search) at no. 3 out of 10,300,000. 

My post is 3rd out of 10,300,000.  That's nice.

Here's the screen shot -- which admittedly is hard to see via the blog -- but trust me (or Google it yourself) that the results show my little post ranking higher than ... well, all the media outlets (much less blogs, etc.) except two.  ABA Journal, NY Daily News, Hollywood Reporter fall lower on the first page, let's not even bother with subsequent pages. 

Who are the two that rank higher than Backseat Lawyer?   TMZ and Radar Online. 

TweetDeck Users, Third Party Apps: Did a Twitter War Start Today?

I spend lots of time counseling fellow lawyers on how to effectively and efficiently use Twitter - both for personal use and for professional business development.  Once they get going, they usually decide to flip from going directly to their Twitter page (http://www.twitter.com/)  to tweet, opting instead for more user-friendly sites that are not owned by Twitter ("third party apps"). 

The most popular of these is TweetDeck (at least, that's what I'm hearing). TweetDeck is cool.  TweetDeck also lets you do other things besides tweet -- you can connect with LinkedIn and Facebook from TweetDeck, too.  Handy for lots of folk.

However, there is news for all you TweetDeck lovers.  Appears that TweetDeck has been purchased by UberMedia, and Twitter isn't happy with UberMedia.

Twitter Has Thrown Down the Gauntlet Regarding Third Party Applications

Why?  For one thing, Twitter may not like the latest feature offered by TweetDeck: Deck.ly, which lets you post longer tweets.  Deck.ly gets you around that 140 character limit.  Which, some may argue takes away the very raison d'etre of tweeting - but hey.  It's here. 

You can all the details on today's post by Neal Wiser, "The End of the 140 Character Tweet and Its Repercussions." 

Other applications that may be impacted by Twitter's new warning include:  

1. HootSuite
2. Klout
3. Seesmic
4. SocialFlow

For more information on Twitter's relationship with third party apps, because it's not just TweetDeck we're talking about here, check out these recent articles too:

1. Wired Magazine,  "Twitter Clamps Down On Third-Party Clients," by Mark Brown.
2. PC Magazine, Twitter to Devs: No New Third-Party Apps," by Leslie Horn.
3. PC World, "Twitter to Third Party Clients: Drop Dead," by Harry McCracken, Technologizer.

What's Going On Here?

Personally, one big hitch for me in tweeting from my Twitter home page is its inability to allow me to easily shorten urls.  Time waster that Twitter should have solved long ago.  Maybe I wouldn't mind tweeting from Twitter itself if they made it as easy for me as other developers have done with their free apps. 

Apparently, Twitter is waking up to the competition doing a better job, sniffs some money to be made, and is trying to grab those profits.  Fine, let them duke it out. 

I'm not loyal to any third party app.  I will go with whomever provides me the best service -- which translates into FREE and FAST.  I'm not going to dedicate much time from my day to tweeting, and neither are my clients. 

Bottom line, compete.  Go for it.  However, Twitter better not mess with blocking what's already working for us.