You’ve written your content and take a step back from it. From an objective point of view, it looks really good, even if you do say so yourself! You certainly couldn’t have put any more effort into it – the topic is current, offers insightful opinion and is entirely original. By rights it should attract sizeable traffic and spread around the internet like wildfire.

The reality is though that unless you’ve heavily invested your time and energy into building up a dedicated network who loyally read your content on a consistent basis then it’ll probably, sadly, evaporate into thin air – especially if you’re new to blogospheres and the wider internet.

The reason’s simple. The internet is utterly saturated with bloggers and people posting original content. You won’t be any different from them, unless you’re posting an amazing exclusive that people simply won’t ignore, or posting an interview with a key figure in your industry that will instantly grab attention.

There is one ingredient that you can add, though, that will distance your content from everybody else’s. Wit.

How you sell your content to the wider world through social media marketing has never been more important than it is today, especially with the advent of social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. You now not only need to be able to sum up the entirety of your content into one sentence, but that sentence needs to carry an awful lot of punch to encourage readers to investigate further.

Twitter and various other social media platforms have strict limits on post length, so you have to treat every single character with respect and maximise its usage. Let’s take the Daily Mirror’s football coverage for example:

This tweet was posted on a Friday, when @MirrorFootball usually compiles a match preview for the upcoming weekend fixtures and post them on their site. The game circled above is Newcastle Vs. Chelsea, which I have absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

The match report is only about 150 words long, but they’ve managed to get an awful lot of information about Newcastle’s current predicament into a six-word pun. From this tweet we can gather that:

• Newcastle are currently suffering a defensive crisis

• It’s not because of injuries, it’s because of suspensions and bad behaviour

• Heavy snow seems to have affected their pre-match preparations somehow

Now, I know that not everybody likes football, but this tweet is the perfect example of how punch and quick wit can tickle a reader’s interest to investigate further. As I say, I don’t have much interest in this match, but the snow reference encouraged me to click and read because I wanted to see just how the management team and players navigated the snowfall. Er, outside of work hours, obviously! If I did have an interest in the match though, or even lived in Newcastle, I would probably be inclined to retweet it because it is, in essence, a very good match report and shows just how heavy the current snowfall is.

@MirrorFootball have got their social skills on Twitter down to a tee, and this basic example is one that everyone should follow when they want to improve the reach of their content and improve their reputation management. I would probably have ignored that tweet for instance if it just said ‘Newcastle/Chelsea Daily Mirror Match Preview’ or something similar.

But I understand not everybody has the time or imagination to think up an amazing, catchy strap for each and every one of their posts. If you can, then brilliant. Go for it and watch the readers come in. If you can’t though, and have hit something of a creative dry patch, then it’s still important to make an effort and get the basics right:

The above tweet from GamesIndustry.biz for example is promoting an article they’ve written about the recent release of Epic Mickey on the Wii. They only need four words to let me know what the content is about should I wish to click. It’s a bullseye of the highest order.

How not to do it? Take this tweet from BBC Five Live as an example:

It’s just a link! It gives me no clue what the story’s about and doesn’t grab my attention. As far as I’m concerned, it’s exactly like the thousands of other links on the internet that I don’t want to click, and doesn’t bolster the content in any way shape or form. A rare miss from the BBC’s social media services…

If you can’t think of a pun or something witty, then the other course of action is to follow in the path of GIBiz, with a short pitch that keeps the target audience informed every time. You put so much time and effort into creating original, unique content that it’s worth going that little bit extra to ensure it gets the traffic it deserves.

Have any more examples of good or bad tweets that entice you to click? Let me know in the comments…

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