How to Tweetstorm Without Embarrassing Yourself

This never came to pass, and Twitter users kept shoehorning essays into self-reply threads called tweetstorms.

A good tweetstorm is more than an essay broken into sentences.

Good tweetstorms are widely varied, whilebad tweetstorms all look the same.

Heres how to write one without embarrassing yourself.

Write what you know

There are two ideal topics for a tweetstorm.

The first is one where you have personal experience or years of education.

Theyre not following a detailed plot, so they dont get bogged down or oversimplify.

Theyre not theorizing, theyre sharing real lived experience.

Theyre starting a conversation, not trying to solve it.

Thats the bang out of story thats well-served by Twitter virality.

The other good threads are about something silly or obscure.

The tweetstorm format is perfect for the escalating insanity of the McDonalds and the treasure trail of Cooks designs.

Garland used lolspeak, lulzspeak, and AOL cybersex speak.

Garland told NPR that hehad zero planwhen he started his tweetstorm.

Write your thread out in advance.

Then check whether you delivered on the promise of your first tweets.

Read it aloud; edit it thoroughly.Read it backwards.Trim it.

Plenty of the good threads above start with similar ado.

Just consider whether youre being ironically grand, or secretly sincere.

And avoid old-timey internet speak like LOLZ and because [noun].

While these threads sometimes bump into real facts, they more typically careen into nonsense and unsubstantiated rumors.

They are the undeserving beneficiaries of Twitter virality, fake news in pill form.

Numbering your tweets is optional.

It feels a bit nerdy, but its helpful when Twitter inevitably breaks your thread with a design update.

Dont include your expected total tweet count.

Thats corny, even as a joke.

Dont just fill the character limit on each tweet and break off in the middle of a sentence.

Youre already twisting Twitters format, dont break it.

Otherwise youre just admitting that you cant write within constraints.

And thread your replies.

If the President learned to do it, so can you.

Blogging still exists!

Consider publishing your essay on Tumblr, or on Medium, or in a small dark hole.

Repeat to yourself:Never tweet.