David Barnes @ Packt

We all know that Twitter is great but sometimes you need more than 140 characters. Maybe you want to include some additional information to back up your Tweet, or you want to post a picture, video, or MP3 to Twitter. Posterous is the perfect way to give your Twitter more oomph. It's a blog tool that lets you post by sending email. To get started, just send a mail to post@posterous.com.

Your subject should be the title of your post, and your message can contain formatted text, pictures, links, and any attachments you like.

Set up Twitter autopost
Go to your Add an autopost page, click the Twitter tab and type in your username and password. Then click save. Now when you post anything to Posterous, the subject line will be sent as a Tweet, with a link to the full message. If you're feeling adventurous, click Advanced options and do the next thing too:

... and add "Please RT" to the autopost options
If you're taking the time to write a blog post, you want it to get some distribution. So add Please RT to the end of your autopost, and add the text Please RT at the end.

To do this, go to your autopost options, click the "edit" text next to Twitter, and then "advanced options". Then just add "Please RT" to the end of the "Custom Footer". Double check that your Twitter Username and Password are correct before you Save. (Your browser's autocomplete might have put your Posterous username in instead.)

Now your Posterous posts will get posted to Twitter automatically. Here's some ways to make use of it.

Make your subject lines self-contained tweets
I reckon people choose to RT based on the tweet text, not the content of the link. So make the subject retweetable on its own. It should be a statement that summarizes the main point of your message.

Make the subject line the Tweet, and use the message body and attachments to add detail and extras.

Don't overdo it
People will get tired if all your Tweets have links to your own site attached and ask for retweets. Use normal tweets sometimes too. Don't make people click a link if there's nothing worth seeing on the other side -- it will put people off. Don't make people click a link to your posterous, if all the post contains is a link to a target site.

You can repost later
Twitter gets real busy once the west coast of America wakes up, and there's a good chance most people will miss your tweets the first time. Posterous autopost lets you post an article to Twitter again, and again, and again. Handle with care -- but use it to reach multiple time zones (repost at points throughout the day), or to give old posts a boost (look through your archive for things you posted long ago, and tweet them).

When you mention Twitter to normal people they'll say, "tell everybody what I'm doing? Why? I don't see the point". (Oh how I wish Facebook status users felt the same way.)

People who use Twitter know that it's not about that. Twitter should -- nay must -- change the prompt that they put next to the Tweet entry box. But what to? Here are some suggestions. I could have made this post an open letter to Biz Stone, except that I loathe blogs that do that.

• What's frustrating you?
• What was the last book you read? What did you think of it?
  
• What question are you asking yourself?
  
• Got any good jokes?
• What's the ONE SIMPLE THING you wish people would do?
• What's the last good blog post you read?
• What's the last interesting thing you learned?
• What are you selling?
• What are you worried about?
• What are you excited about?
• What piece of news stood out for you today?
  

These are the questions that the more interesting Twitter users answer. The Twitter home page should display a different prompt each time you load it. "What are you doing?" might be OK perhaps 10% of the time. The other prompts should get a look in too.

What questions do you want people to answer on Twitter?