Twitter Tip Tuesday is a weekly blog series from Sprout Social: Insights.

Every Tuesday we’ll focus on just one (1) Twitter Tip and show you how to integrate it into your social media strategy.

Today’s Twitter Tip Tuesday: How to Double the Power of Your Tweets

One of the reasons that Twitter has become such a popular social media platform is because the status update is limited to 140 characters (another reason is the silly name – but that’s a post for another day!).

The character limitation forces you to be brief and to pack a whole lot of wallop into a tiny bit of real estate.

Sure, you can tweet longer than 140 characters and Twitter will truncate your tweet. But this violates the elegance of Twitter, and to me it’s always been kind of like ‘cheating’ (call me a Twitter purist).

But the little trick below can allow you to double (or triple, or quadruple) the amount of information you can convey in your tweets, while still remaining true to Twitter and using its own tools to do all the heavy lifting.

Double the Power of Your Tweet in 3 Easy Steps

Follow along with these three steps and read the complete explanation at the bottom.

STEP 1: Click on the time stamp in your original tweet

STEP 2: Click and copy the URL of your tweet

When you click a time stamp on any tweet, Twitter displays the tweet in a full screen. Click on the URL at the top of the screen to select it. Then right click and copy the long URL to the link shortener of your choice (or use the native link shortener in the ‘Compose box’ in Sprout Social).

STEP 3: Paste the short link in a new tweet to double your power of your tweet

Explanation

By creating a short link to an original tweet and then dropping that link into a NEW tweet, you are essentially doubling the amount of information conveyed in the tweet while still adhering to the 140 character limit on Twitter.

In this example, I was able to provide my follower @hasalynharris (and anyone else reading the tweet) some additinoal context as to why I was following her.

You can also use the same tactic to double the amount of information conveyed in a retweet, or to allow more room to mention other people in the tweet. For example:

In this example, I would not have had enough room to include the original tweet, the RT and the twitter handles of @mountaincat and @REALChaseAdams so instead, I used the three steps above to double the power of my retweet.

This powerful tactic can be used in a myriad of situations but like many things, it’s most effective when used in moderation!

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