Social Media Lessons for Business Email

Long-winded writing is a chore to read, while concise writing shows respect for your readers’ time. Unfocused email can feel especially hard to read.

Twitter gives you a visual warning when you go past 140 characters. Do you ever wish you had a gauge to tell you when your business writing gets too long to hold an average reader’s attention?

Businesspeople can practice eyeballing our sentences for the same kind of concision. Try to keep each sentence around 30 words or less. It’s best to feel cautious, step back, and rewrite your ideas when you see a sentence get near the 30-word mark.

Here are some more email lessons we learned from Twitter:

  • Tweeting is great practice for writing sharply focused email subject lines
  • Active language helps you stay concise
  • Readers are grateful when you explain your main point right away
  • Careful grammar, punctuation, and tone can set your business writing apart on any platform

Customers and clients have limited attention spans. But keeping your language active, focused, and concise helps persuade them that your messages are worth their time

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