So many thoughts, so little space.
You have a lot to say. Twitter limits you to 140 characters in telling your followers what you are doing. When you send a status update message on Facebook the maximum length is 420 characters. How can you possibly communicate in so little space?
The easiest way to expand your message is to link to a larger communication.
If you post a link from the Twitter web sit, Twitter itself will automatically use TinyURL to shorten your link. When you send an update the shortened link is displayed. You can copy this shortened link and reuse it in a “re-Tweet” and you will have more space for your message. Of course, the “re-Tweet” will create a second message. (I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing. Redundancy increases the probability that a message will be received.)
( You may follow my tweets at: http://twitter.com/JBF_CPA )
When you use a link in a Facebook status update message, the software will find the linked URL and display the first couple of sentences of the link. If you include a picture in the first part of the linked message, the picture will be displayed. A good pic will make the link that much more enticing.
But if you do not trust your possibly lazy reader to click on another link and/or you absolutely want to fit your message into the space here are some shortening tips:
Utilize standard abbreviations. Acct can be used for accounting. Mgmt normally means management.
Some institutions or companies have widely recognized acronyms. The Internal Revenue Service is commonly called the IRS. The Security and Exchange Commission is the SEC.
Use the US postal abbreviations for states. For example, California may be abbreviated to CA.
Dates can be expressed in numbers. October 8, 2009 can be 10/8/09. If the year is obvious or understood you may just leave it off (10/8.)
Symbols you can use: <, less than; >, greater than; =, equal to; @, at; #, number; $, dollars; %, percentage; &, and; *, times; +, plus.
Replace real words with phonetic character equivalents. Two or too is 2, for is 4, great is gr8, rate is r8, be is B, you is U, any can be NE, and so forth.
Take out vowels and leave the consonants. Most words are still recognizable. Shrimp is shrmp, government is gvrnmnt, etc.
There are some third-party vendors that also offer more sophisticated shortening features. Our favorites are Bit.ly (http://bit.ly) Is.gd (http://is.gd) and Twi.bz (http://twi.bz).
This is an update of a post previously published on October 1, 2009.