twitter-exclamation-markFor years I refused to incorporate the exclamation mark into my writing, unless it was on a birthday card. For some reason “Happy Birthday!” looks so much better than “Happy Birthday.

But in the last few months I’ve noticed that the pesky exclamation mark has made its way into my everyday writing. How could this be?

It’s not because I spend time with third grade girls and have become overly excited about mundane issues in life; it’s because of social media.  Enter: Twitter

With only 140 characters to express a thought on Twitter, I don’t have the luxury of using power words to emphasize my thoughts. Instead, I’ve come to depend on punctuation and symbols to get my point across.

Here’s an example of a sentence that I would’ve written months ago:

The movie The Hangover made me laugh so hard I forgot to get up for popcorn during my self-imposed intermission. Actually, I forgot the intermission altogether.

Here’s what I would write thanks to Twitter:

The Hangover is hilarious! I didn’t even need popcorn to enjoy the movie:)

Okay, so maybe my example is silly, but you get the point. With Twitter and other social media platforms, we can communicate more conversationally and with fewer, unnecessary words…even if it is the exclamation mark that lets us do that.

How has Twitter changed your everyday writing?

Sara Lancaster

About Sara Lancaster

Sara is The Condiment Marketing Co.’s founder and creative director. She oversees client relationships, strategic marketing plans, as well as a bit of copywriting and social media management.