Every indie author needs a Twitter account. It's a vital tool for promoting your books. When you first use it though it seems a little pointless. Many people start an account and then drift away because they just don't know what's going on. I wrote this author's guide to Twitter as part of my book 'A Guide to Getting Published'.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is like mini-blogging. In a blog you are not limited
in length. On Twitter you are allowed just 140 characters – including spaces
and punctuation. You need to build a Twitter following. When you start using
Twitter it will invite you to add those people who have Twitter accounts on
your email contact list and those on your friend list at other social media
sites. It will also invite you to follow the accounts of celebrities. You don’t
have to know the ‘Tweep’ as they are called. Just start with your email and
other ‘friends’ and see what they are posting on Twitter.
The image above shows a typical tweet. The original tweet has
been re-tweeted twice. As far as authors are concerned this is the power of
Twitter. A post can be tweeted and quickly go viral if it strikes the right
chord.
You can get Twitter account at http://twitter.com.
It’s possible to sign up for more than one account but you will need a unique
email address for each. There’s also an app available for smartphones, Android
tablets (including the Kindle Fire HD) and iPads. These apps are free.
So how does one start? The answer is first to build up a
following. There’s a useful application which will help you do this – Crowdfire (formerly JustUnfollow). Find it at https://www.crowdfireapp.com/.
Although its old name suggests it is a tool for getting rid of followers, it’s far
more useful for finding new people to follow. Crowdfire has a web page that
you can use with a desktop computer but also has a mobile app which can be put
on a smartphone or Android tablet from the Google Play Store. Unfortunately it
doesn’t seem to be available at the Amazon App Store.
Don’t get suckered
into buying followers! A word of warning – there are many webpages which claim
you can buy followers by the thousand. Doing this is against Twitter’s user
policy and most of these ‘followers’ will be useless to you.
Who not to follow
I suggest you don’t follow:
·
People who have not tweeted for more than two
months.
·
People who only tweet quotes.
·
People who never re-tweet others.
·
People who only tweet links to things to buy.
·
People who post only pictures.
·
People who never respond to others – look for
tweets starting @....
·
People who don’t have a profile picture.
·
People whose tweets always start with “I….”
·
People who don’t appear to speak your language.
·
People who follow very few people compared with
their number of followers. Follow these only if they interest you. There is a
sneaky trick you can use here though.
Note - for every one of these guidelines there is an
exception that says ‘…unless they are really interesting.’
Who to follow
Look for people who are active on Twitter. Try to gather
followers interested in what your book is about. Find people who read and
especially people who review the books they have read.
By all means follow me - @JChapmanAuthor but I suggest you
don’t until you follow at least 200-400 other people. I tweet an awful lot and
don’t want to monopolise your Twitter feed
If you follow John Locke’s promotion system beware of
acquiring a following which consists purely of authors. Try to get a varied
audience. Authors do buy books though and they will help you by re-tweeting
your posts and coming up with good ideas. Help them back! It pays.
A process I’ve found useful in finding Tweeps (The name of
Twitter users) is to look at the ‘follower’ list of others. You can do that
using an application such as JustUnfollow or
do it directly by selecting the followers of someone from their profile page.
To get to someone’s profile page just click their Twitter handle – the bit
starting @.... At the top left you’ll find a link ‘Followers’. Click that to
get a list of them. In the image below I show doing that with one of the people
I follow – Karin Cox (@Authorandeditor). Karin’s tweets show she thinks in the
same way as I do and I’m pretty sure that people who follow her will be worth
investigating.
Whichever system you use I suggest you don’t try to follow
more than 125 people in one go. Even then it’s wise to spread that over several
hours. Twitter may think you are spamming and freeze your account for a while.
What to tweet
Tweet a variety of items. Read the tweets of those you
follow, respond or re-tweet those which strike a chord with you, browse the web
and tweet pages you find of interest. There’s a useful browser extension you
can get - Buffer at http://bufferapp.com
which will help you do that. (You can find more information on Buffer and its
alternative, HootSuite online.) Read the news; post interesting items
and make meaningful comments. If you find an interesting or funny quote then by
all means post it - just not endless quotations. Use Twitter to point people to
your blog and website.
Place advertisements for your book in posts but do so very sparingly.
You should not make more than 15% of your posts links to your books. Never make
‘Buy my book’ posts. Instead post ‘I came across this while I was researching
my book…’, ‘I wrote about this in…’ or links to blog articles with subtle book
references. Ask questions - ‘Want a #free #technothriller? ….’
Twitter – a snapshot in time
Whenever you go to Twitter you’ll see a snapshot of recent
tweets. As the number of people you follow grows that snapshot becomes a tiny
window through which you look at a huge panorama. When you are following a
thousand Tweeps there will be new posts every few seconds. You will not see the
vast majority of the tweets people you follow post. Neither will your followers
see most of your tweets unless you put their twitter username in the post. My
friend Aaron Hatman - @aaronhatman probably won’t see a post like this:
‘New topless Rhianna
picture! pic.twitter.com/bAZLbuKL (pic)’ (For those of you who are shocked –
it’s not quite what you think).
Aaron would see it if it
was posted as ‘@aaronhatman - New topless Rhianna picture! pic.twitter.com/bAZLbuKL
(pic)’. Even if Aaron is not using Twitter when the post is made he will see it
when he clicks ‘@ Connect’ on the Twitter toolbar
Not only will Aaron see the post but it will also appear on
the Twitter feed of anyone who follows Aaron and that’s useful! (Dirty Twitter
trick coming up) If you want all your followers to see the tweet start it with '.@'.
Twitter Spamming
Some Twitter users set
out to build a huge Twitter following by following everyone they come across,
waiting a few days and un-following all those who have not followed them back.
If they run out of follow rights then they make space by un-following even
those who have followed back. These people just want followers – they are not
interested in taking part in conversations. Once they have built up thousands
of followers they will usually start posting nothing but adverts – Twitter spamming.
If you identify such a person is now following you. Don’t follow them back –
respond to their following message with a message such as
‘Thanks for the follow @selfishtweep. Check out my pyramid
#technothriller Stones,Stars & Solutions http://amzn.to/16osMxN’
Not only will this appear
on their feed but it will also appear on the feeds of all those who have been
silly enough to follow @selfishtweep.
Making your tweets work for you
An average Tweep won’t
spend long on Twitter each day so the chances of them seeing your post are
small but there are several things you can do to increase the odds.
1.
Tweet more often. Professional marketers make
posts up to six times an hour 24/7. Of course that’s quite impossible to do if
you also want to write books, sleep, eat and enjoy life. The answer is to use
an automatic tweeting service such as Buffer or HootSuite to tweet on your behalf.
2.
Use hashtags to
make your tweets more discoverable. I used the hashtag #technothriller in my
post above. Hashtags are keywords used by groups of Tweeps. They can be normal
words or a collection of symbols. Try to use two hashtags. That gets you 21%
more attention. Using more than three has the opposite effect. If you must use
three then put two together and the third as far away from them as possible.
Don’t start your tweet with a hashtag.
3.
Try to keep your tweets to less than 120
characters. Shorter tweets draw more attention
4.
Re-tweet the posts of other authors. They often
respond by re-tweeting your posts. There are Twitter groups which you can join
which do this. Find them on Facebook or at Goodreads. One such group is ASMSG –
Author’s Social Media Support Group (http://on.fb.me/18KucG0)
5.
We are told Twitter works best at the weekend.
I’ve found that to be true. You can check this for yourself after you’ve been
on Twitter a while by getting a Tweriod report (http://www.tweriod.com/) which will tell you
the best times to tweet.
Helpful websites for Twitter are:
Happy tweeting... and if you can think of anything I've left out which may be of use to authors... why not add it in the comments below?
