Twitter, the fast rising social networking site, is famed for its "What are you doing?" question.  You only type in what you're presently doing, click update, and your message goes to your entire group of friends and followers.  But how can you describe everything you're doing in 140 characters or less. Now, that's the catch! But don't give up on Twitter yet because it's packed with so many amazing features that will be sure to blow you away.

The @reply is a great feature in Twitter that you can make use of it to draw the attention of a particular Twitter user's interest and most people use the @reply to send a message to a specific user. So, how can we make everything short and simple?

Here are some helpful tips to make the most out of your 140 characters.

1. Get rid of unnecessary words

When we write, we frequently utilize words that aren't really needed or could be deleted without changing the meaning of a thought.  Well, this can be proper if you're writing articles or a business letter, but it definitely doesn't make sense for Twitter.  When tweeting, you must eliminate your flowery language and post only the necessary thought of what you're trying to convey.

2. Take out multiple RT sources

In Twitter, when somebody tweets something you like you use something called a "Retweet".  It works like this: your friend Neal (username Nealchambers) posts a link to an incredible portfolio, and you feel like spreading it around along with your own followers.  To achieve this you copy his tweet, post it into your tweet, and add "RT @Nealchambers″ to the front of it.  This not only shows the cool tweet, but in addition gives recognition to the original tweeter. Most users just include an added RT onto the front of the tweet ("RT @one RT @two tweet"), but this adds a lot of extra characters that aren't truly essential.  So make the most out of your tweet space by deleting multiple RT sources and the important thing is that you give credit to the original tweeter.

4. Shorten URLs

If you're posting a link in your tweet, then the best technique you can do to cut down space is by making use of a URL shortening service.  Basically, you type your long URL into any of these shortening services, and a tiny URL pops out that you can use in your tweets.  Here are a few popular ones.

• u.nu
  • This is possibly the shortest service.  Have you ever used a shortener service that can shorten a URL up to three characters? This is precisely what u.nu can do for you.  If you want to make your URLs as short as you can, then this is definitely the right service for you.
  • To see information regarding a URL shortened with u.nu, just put a question mark, "?", at the end of it.  This shows you where the URL redirects to, when it was shortened, and the number of people who clicked on it.
• tr.im
  • It has many extensions that allow you to access it with any other browser like FireFox or your Mac dashboard. It is incredibly fast, which means you can shorten any URLs like a lightning speed.
  • After you shorten and post a URL to Twitter, you can see the number of people clicking the link and where they are from.
• bit.ly
  • It provides you extensions like a bookmark, sidebar, FireFox plugin, and even a Gmail gadget.
  • You can track real-time analytics of how your links are doing. Find out information like the users country and how many people are clicking your link.

5. Alternate Letters for Words

This trick may at times look unprofessional. You can substitute words like "you" and "see" with their sound-alike letters "U" and "C".  This saves a lot of space, but you should avoid doing this if you want to sound professional.

Twitter has already come a long way. Its uniqueness and ease of use has made it the monster it is today. Hopefully, these tips come in handy and help you with your success with Twitter.