Don’t be a tease.

Words of wisdom from times gone by from our mothers. I won’t comment on whether or not that advice applies to modern-day relationships, but in the world of burlesque and using Twitter to drive traffic to your blog, being a tease is actually a good thing.

I have a friend, Melissa Robertson, who is a burlesque dancer and teacher here in Vancouver, and I asked her about what it is that makes Burlesque so… um… intriguing.

The essence of Burlesque is about leaving your audience wanting more. The performance is confident, sassy, theatrical, and revealing… without giving it all away. It’s sort of like window shopping on 5th Avenue in New York. What you see is tempting and exciting, but just out of reach.

Burlesque is an incredibly sexy art form precisely because it doesn’t give everything away. It appeals to one of our basic human instincts: curiosity. A good burlesque dancer takes off just enough to be revealing, but with out revealing too  much. Which leaves the audience always wanting more.

When you tweet about a new blog post, you should tweet like a Burlesque dancer. Here’s a couple of examples:

New blog post: How to compose Tweets that get more traffic to your blog <http://www….>

OR

How to Tweet Like a Burlesque Dancer <http://www…>

Which post would you be more tempted to click on? The Burlesque one, right? It arouses your curiosity, it teases you…

So, the next time you go to tweet a blog post, don’t give away the entire cow. Tease them a little, instead.