Imagine you are a journalist, and you've just written the most compelling article of your career.  Now imagine, after pouring your heart and soul into the piece, less than 20% of your readers actually read the article.

Experienced writers have a way of dealing with this - they have honed their skills by writing killer headlines.  Why?  Because on the average, 80% of all readers read nothing more than the headline.  The challenge lies in writing a headline that informs the reader of what the story is about in a very clear and concise manner.

And so it goes with Twitter - a "micro blogging" site that showcases the art of the headline.  You see, with Twitter, you are limited to writing copy that consists of no more than 140 characters (known as a "tweet").  When you think about it, that's not a lot of room to get your message across.  Yet, it presents a very similar challenge a journalist faces when trying to write a really snappy headline.

If you want to grab the attention your Twitter stream followers, then adhere to the "4-U" principle of headline (or in this case, tweet) writing:

• The tweet must be useful to the reader
• The tweet must provide a sense of urgency to the reader
• The tweet must be unique to the reader
• The tweet must be ultra-specific for the reader

Take care to ensure your tweets are as short as possible - not only to meet the 140 character limit, but to allow others to "re-tweet" your content.  How short?  That's up to you, but the best headlines tend to be no more than 8-10 words.

It's been said that "content is king".  If you expect anyone to consume your content, a great headline is great place to start.