Creating an Attractive Twitter Headline

Have you ever wondered why you had such bad luck with getting people to click your links on twitter?

You post links to great content but no one ever gets far enough to see it, and you just don’t know why? It’s probably because your twitter headline for the link, STINKS! A little harsh I know, but not as harsh as the results your post is yielding because of the poor use of your 140 characters. Simply posting tweets to your link isn’t enough (nor is re-posting your link 20 times a day). Your link must be accompanied by an attractive twitter headline in order to get good click rates, visits and ultimately, quality leads.

The Importance of an Attractive Twitter Headline

As explained on CopyBlogger.com, 8 of 10 people read headlines, but only 2 out of 10 will go on to read its content. This means, that although more than half will read your headline, less than half will actually go on to read your post, article or peruse through your website. Partner this with the quick scanning audience of Twitter (which may be caused by the 140 character short statuses), and you’ll begin to realize the dire need for catchy headlines.

Assuming that no one is posting a link for no reason, headlines are very important to generate clicks, visits and leads for your company. Therefore, having an attractive twitter headline is just as important as the link being posted, if not more. It is your duty to make sure that out of the 8 people that read your headline, at least 4 read its content.

Tips to Creating an Attractive Twitter Headline

Below are 4 characteristics of an attractive twitter headline. Making sure your tweet uses each one will help increase your click rates, visits and leads.

Urgency: Your twitter followers should want to read more about whatever it is you’re promoting (e-book, blogpost, article, website, etc.), based on the headline you tweet. It should display a sense of importance and immediacy to your timeline readers. The minute your tweet is published, your followers should be drawn in and encouraged to read the blog, e-book, article, etc., at that moment. Often times this is done by highlighting why it’s unique and why you should be one of the first to read it. Generating a sense of urgency will limit your readers’ procrastination (and forgetfulness) and will serve to make sure your post gets read, sooner rather than later.

Relevance: The reader must feel that your post is relevant to their personal or company’s needs. Needless to say, a person will only read what they find useful. Your twitter headline should highlight why the specific post, article, e-book or website is important to your audience. A good way to do this is to use a hashtag that’s relevant to the post/link being tweeted about. By doing this, all tweeters interested in the specific subject that was hashtagged, will find relevance in the specific post and be more likely to click the link provided in the tweet.

Specificity: To ensure relevance to your followers and in an attempt not to mislead it is important to be as specific as possible about the post being tweeted. Although it may be more appealing to create an ambiguous headline with hopes that curiosity drives people to open the link, it is also risky for your future tweets, and can be pointless if the clicks don’t turn to leads. Being as specific as possible will generate better, more relevant traffic to the blog post, e-book, article, or website, which can in turn become qualified leads.

Creativity: Last but not least, creativity is a huge determining factor to whether someone clicks your link or not. An attractive twitter headline will encompass the above three characteristics all while being creative with wordplay. I personally believe that the 140 character limit encourages creativity because you are forced to take a long drawn out title, and minimize it to be attention grabbing, relevant, and important to the reader, in very little space.

By identifying the importance of these characteristics and making sure your tweets encompass each one, you’ll be on your way to getting a higher click rate for your links.