Twitter, the social networking firestorm, has become one of the most popular ways to connect with people instantly. Because of this, it has also become an excellent resource to spread the word about your writing. Unfortunately, this post will be tinged with an attitude of “do as I say and not as I’ve done.” Twitter is good for writers if they use it well. I haven’t, but I’m trying to change that. In this post, I’ll share what I’ve learned using Twitter so far.
What is Twitter?
Those of you familiar with texting will be halfway there to understanding it. Twitter allows you to post messages of up to 140 characters in length. You follow people and they follow you much like the friending function works on sites like MySpace. Once you post your message, or tweet as it’s called, the world can see what you’ve posted immediately, and people can respond to you. You can make your account private so that only your followers see it, but that defeats the purpose of promoting your work. Twitter also allows you to have more than one account, but you will need a new email for each one.
My Experience with Twitter
As I mentioned, I’ve learned there is a wrong way and right way to use Twitter to promote your writing or business. I initially started an account when I was the Pagan editor at BellaOnline and mainly posted my articles as I published them. When I left BellaOnline, my main Twitter account became a sort of clearinghouse of posts about all my writing, politics and personal things. I’m not convinced this was the best combination.
I’ve created a niche Twitter account for my writing that pertains to Michigan, which is mostly on my MichiganLover ID at HubPages and a few lenses on Squidoo. I don’t have a lot of followers on that yet, but at this stage I consider niche writing and tweeting an experiment. A niche blog on Michigan is on the back burner right now. An advantage of having a niche Twitter account already in place is that I’ll have a ready-made traffic source if I choose to go ahead with that.
I also created an account in which I posted daily inspirational quotes. That account very quickly started to gain a following. Unfortunately, I found that I couldn’t keep up with the daily quotes even with using TweetLater, a web application that allowed me to program tweets to be posted at a later date and so deleted that account.
Twitter Do’s and Don’ts
Here are some tips to get you started based on my experience:
- Do create two accounts, one for business and one for yourself (but only if you need a personal one).
- Don’t just post links to your work but interact at least a little. People want to know your personality, but they don’t need to know what you had for lunch.
- Do post a bio and a link to your website. I personally never follow back anyone who doesn’t take the time to do this. Many times the people who don’t have bios are spammers.
- Do post an avatar or photo. It helps convey your personality and encourages trust that you’re who you say you are.
- Do think about what image or “brand” you want to portray on Twitter.
- Don’t grouse about your personal relationships in between posting links to your web content.
- Don’t mix politics and religion unless that is your forte. (I’m admittedly guilty of doing this, and it’s not my forte).
I’ve decided to try to either tone down political tweets or retweets (reposting someone else’s tweet) or create another account. Right now, my “brand” if I dare call it that is that of your average Jane who is working at making web writing a supplemental income and sometimes lets her emotions get the better of her on Twitter.
How to Sign Up for Twitter
If you’d like to sign up for Twitter, visit the website here. And feel free to follow one or both of my two accounts: pjdeneen or Michigan_Lover.
