Twitter Best Practices

 

Twitter Best Practices

Twitter is a social media platform that emphasizes short messages. The UC Davis Twitter focuses on posting content related to university news, faculty research and campus events to reach the primary audience of students, staff and faculty.

Be concise.

Tweets have a maximum length of 280 characters, so make things short and sweet. You may notice that some users have longer tweets, that is because they pay for Twitter Blue. Note: UC Davis does not pay for Twitter Blue. 

Stay trendy.

Stay on top of trending topics, events and holidays that are relevant campus wide, nation wide, or universally (ex: #NationalSTEMDay). These days can gain traction and stir up conversation among audience members. Use caution, however, with thematic days since there are so many that are not relevant (e.g. #NationalCheesePuffDay). Also research hashtag holidays before posting about them to be sure that the hashtag actually means what you think it does (such as #NationalNightOutDay).

Wield its features.

Twitter has lots to offer in the way of displaying information and correspondence between users.

  • Quote tweets - As opposed to a retweet, quote tweets allow you to say something about the content you are resharing. Use them to insert your connection to the tweet that you’re reposting or to simply to engage with users in a more public way than just a reply.
  • Threads - When you need more than 280 characters and don’t have Twitter Blue, you can deliver your long message using threads to connect a series of tweets is a good option. Threads can be used to keep live updates about a certain topic in one place and are also an accessible way to provide video descriptions.
  • GIFs - Make your replies or quotes come to life in a fun and friendly way by using UC Davis GIFs on Twitter. To access the UC Davis bank of GIFs, click the "GIF" option on your compose menu and search for “UCDavis", “New2UCDavis,” and others. You can also see all UC Davis GIFs (and hashtags) on our UC Davis Giphy account. 
  • LIVE - Go live if you have real-time, exciting updates (such as a big sports win) or a major event that you want to push out in a more information-rich way. This feature should only be used occasionally when appropriate. 
  • Polls - Make your content interactive by using the poll feature to gain feedback or have a teachable moment. Polls won’t show the correct answer, so beware of this if you are asking your audience a quiz question.

Twitter Accessibility Best Practices

When posting on Twitter, key accessibility areas to consider are: graphics, image and video descriptions, alternative text, video captioning and post copy.

Image accessibility 

Graphics: General guidelines  

Image description: General guidelines

  • If your tweet includes an image, write the image description in the post copy and separate with a line break.
  • If your tweet already exceeds the character limit, reply to the tweet with your image description.

Alt Text: General guidelines 

  • Don’t forget to add alt text to GIFs, the same way you would with any photo. 
  • After adding alt text to your image, an ALT badge should appear in the corner of the image.
  • How to add alt text to twitter posts: Twitter Help 

Video accessibility 

Captioning: General guidelines

  • Twitter allows for closed or open captions on videos. Whenever possible, opt to use closed captions and upload them with an .SRT file
  • However, using burned-in (open) captions is a good practice as well.
  • How to upload .SRT captions to Twitter videos: Twitter Help 

Video description: General guidelines

  • If your tweet includes a video, write the video description in the post caption and separate it with a line break.
  • If your post copy already exceeds the character limit, reply to the tweet with a video description. 

Post copy: General guidelines 

More resources: Twitter Help