Are you just talking to yourself on Twitter? Not getting many replies? Generally feeling unloved well then its time to stop broadcasting and start Tweeting!

In social media we have a simple way of understanding what is a good Tweet and what is not.

It's called Signal to Noise! We have all experienced Signal & Noise and the easiest way to think of it is static on a TV the noise is ugly and not very useful but the signal contains the audio and the images (The bit we are interested in)

This same concept works in human interactions as well, how many times have you been "talked at" in a conversation where little if any of the information you were being given was actually useful?

Practical Examples

Ok so give this Tweet a look (click to see it large) and then consider is this Signal or is it Noise?

Sorry to say but that's all noise! At first glance it may look like signal, it contains information about @BullyingUK 's work but it's missing a vital element that right now just makes it useless to a person reading it.

Now this is the same Tweet but I have added a link and a bit of donation bait to the tweet that points the reader to a web page containing more information about @BullyingUK 's work. Why does something as simple as a link change this from Noise to Signal?

Without the link theres not much a follower can do with the message, they could Retweet it which would then just move the noise about the place but offers limited value to you and even less to the person reading the noise.

Adding the link does a couple of things, first it allows a follower to learn more about you than the limited text space a tweet allows, secondly it creates huge value for the website on the end of the link, if that's your website great you just got some more visitors!

{jb_bluebox}Now if the message is Re-tweeted the potential to exponentially increase the visitors to your website is huge, not only did you spread the basic message but then you were able to expand on that message via the link.{/jb_bluebox}

Be aware though that too much signal can appear as spam to Twitter, so adding in some noise every so often is a good idea.