One of the best techniques for an epic tweet is to take a break from your usual style. Even for the best Twitter users, people eventually get used to your style of social discourse, and people getting used to you is a one-way ticket to being ignored. If you keep your audience on their toes, you can better maintain their fascination.

Case in point is this Tweet from Stanford University:

Researchers may have found a drug that effectively treats lymphatic malformation in children. The twist? It’s Viagra: bit.ly/yPWnmU

— Stanford University (@Stanford) February 14, 2012

I like the format of this Tweet because it switches gears during the Tweet itself. I follow a lot of colleges and academic institutions on Twitter, and I can tell you that most of their Tweets, while interesting, are not exactly attention grabbers in my stream. I go out of my way to read them to stay informed, but a good deal of them are about as interesting as reruns of cspan debates.

This tweet gets just the right combination of academic language and the unexpected to make it and irresistible click-through. You don’t need to be overly risque for this technique to work either, just have your tweet catch your followers off-guard enough that it stands out in comparison to your normal Twitter fare.

If you have a any tweets you consider epic, I’d love to be pointed in their direction. The world can always use more epic tweets.

Mr.  David Benson is a social media analyst and coffeephile. He currently lives in New York City and works as an analyst for Mashwork, a social media analytics company.