Hello, my name is Jayne Corso and I am the Community Manager for AEA.
As a community manager, I create weekly posts for AEA’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Although you can share similar content on Facebook and Twitter, your approach should be unique for each channel. I have put together a few tips for composing text for both Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook:
Hot Tip: Keep it to 80 characters
The Facebook character limit is technically 63,206; however, when posting on Facebook, you should try to keep your text within 80 characters. Long text or stories should be shared on your blog and are not right for this Facebook.
Hot Tip: Don’t just post a link
Facebook is a great channel for sharing blog posts or linking to external content, but don’t just post the link. Be sure to add context to your post to grab the attention of your followers.
Hot Tip: Use images
Facebook posts that use images receive more engagement than posts without images. To bring more diversity to your page, allow your image to do the talking by adding supporting text. This can help reduce the amount of characters you use in your posts.
Twitter:
Hot Tip: Keep it simple
Twitter has a character limit of 140, but studies have shown that posts that are 120-130 in length receive better engagement. Source
Hot Tip: Grammar is still important
With a limited character allotment, many people want to shorten their postings by using acronyms, shortened words, or incorrect grammar. These tricks can make your post hard to read and understand.
Hot Tip: Don’t go crazy with hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to categorize your twitter posts and make them searchable for twitter users. However, you only want to use 1-2 hashtags in a single post. To many can be distracting and a waste of space, you are better off filling your post with additional content.
Good luck crafting your posts!
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
First of all a big thanks to you Jayne, for your informative post and your hard work. Your ideology and methods are very well organized. I am an online entrepreneur this type of post was very much helpful for my job.
You just summed up all about positive engagement in one text.
Keep it up!
Is anyone at AEA doing stuff around disability accessible social media use?
Like the habit of using text to describe images posted, captioned videos, essential text in the post, etc.
Thank you so much for this week’s content accessible AEA365!
Rebekah
Center for Human Development, University of Alaska Anchorage