Twitter Tips & Best Practices

What’s happening? Tell me in 280 characters or less! That’s Twitter. Focused on breaking news, headlines, and what’s happening right now.

When you follow someone on Twitter, you’ll see their tweets in chronological order in your timeline (unlike Facebook and Instagram). Use #hashtags to join conversations around a specific topic and @mention someone you want to talk to or notify when you’re posting about them. Include @wesleyan_u when you’re tweeting about cool things happening at Wes so we can re-tweet!

Though Twitter is a mostly text-based platform, you can upload short videos and images to increase visibility and engagement of your tweets.

Twitter Posting Best Practices

Be active. Post at least once a week, though more is highly recommended.
Be brief. 280 characters or less. Links count for 23 characters no matter how long or short they are.
Shorten your links. Long links are ugly and distracting. Use bit.ly!
Use #hashtags when relevant, especially when there’s a trending topic.
Encourage conversation—ask questions, respond to @replies.
- If it gets too negative/critical, go private (a direct message) or offline (an email).
@mention other handles in your tweets if applicable.
Retweet others if they @mention you.
Include @wesleyan_u in your bio.
- example: Official Twitter account for @wesleyan_u athletics

What should I post?

Always stick to what you know. You know your area well and people will come to your platforms seeking information about your area, so don’t stray from what’s relevant.

We get it. Many of those who handle social media at Wesleyan have a multitude of responsibilities, so creating content to constantly feed your social accounts may seem daunting. Our best suggestion? Think beyond your own content. Who else is publishing articles and videos related to your area of expertise? Share articles and content from others in your field.

Ask yourself: Is it to the point? Is the hashtag unique and memorable? Is the image attached high quality? Does the voice sound authentic? Will it resonate with the Twitter audience?

The College of the Environment might share content produced by the Environmental Defense Fund, TreeHugger, Inhabitat, and The New York Times’ column on Sustainable Living, for example. You can also set up Google Alerts for specific topics or search terms and get a daily digest of articles published for each alert. (Warning: you could end up with too much content and may wish to unsubscribe or refine your alerts.)

Twitter Image Size Guidelines

Refer to this website for a detailed list of all image sizes, but below are the basics.

Recommended sizes:

Horizontal (landscape) post: 1200 x 675
Video post: 1920 x 1080 (16:9 aspect ratio)
- Twitter has a max video upload size of 512MB

More Twitter Resources

Website: Twitter Business Basics
Handy Printable PDF: Twitter Best Practices + Cheat Sheet (PDF)

Still need help? Request a Social Strategy Session.