T – Twitter
04/23/2014 5 Comments
Of all the various Social Media options out there, one stands above the rest for writers, from what I have seen. And that option is Twitter. It doesn’t necessarily make sense – after all, Twitter does not allow you to write particularly much. However, it’s not about the writing, or writing there.
With Twitter, it’s the avenue for connecting and marketing.
I say connecting, and use my Twitter account (@dbc_ii) as an example. From the get-go, my description read that I was a writer, and listed it first. That’s some of my self-perception, and though I’m not sure I can call myself an Author, I can go with writer. And from there, it’s been interesting to watch. I have been followed by a whole bunch of writers or authors and publishing groups or companies. Twitter has done an amazing job of connecting writers this way, all on its own. And as I have been followed, and have followed back, writers, the writer quotient is just increasing.
I say marketing, then, because of what I see the authors doing with Twitter. Their description will be a link to their book, through an e-publishing site, or on Amazon. Often mentioning that the first book is reduced price or free – to of course get you hooked on the series! The other thing I see many of them doing is having a follower-reply message, that thanks you for the follow, and either suggests their book or their other Social Media presences. For people who are self-publishing, doing things like this is even more important – they may not have anyone else promoting their works like this!
Obviously writers are not the only folks able to take advantage of Twitter for the reasons I list above. However, of the different types of Social Media, I see Twitter doing this by far the best. Facebook doesn’t do a whole lot of recommending to you – especially of pages – that hasn’t been paid for. And a lot of the others don’t have the public presence and connection.
So if you are a writer, make sure you have a Twitter! And this goes for bloggers too – it’s really easy to connect Twitter with your site, and use things like Publicize to push your posts as well. And I follow back writers 🙂 Include your Twitter in the comments below to connect with folks!
About CompGeeksDavid
DBCII 
I just recently started my twitter account and hadn’t had a change to think about the patterns twitter provides just yet so this was a great POV. For the moment I twitter links to articles I really like but that I wouldn’t really reference in a blog post. Cheers.
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Yeah we definitely do some of that with Comparative Geeks… honestly not as much as we should! We also like having that feed on the blog, so then you can see those recommended articles and all there. But then I also ramble or my brain gives me geeky mashups I feel like I just *have* to Tweet…
It’s interesting how it builds recommendations… I’ve had it happen where, for instance, I’ll follow a couple of bands I like, and all of a sudden for a time I have music people following me, rather than geeky or writing ones, depending… So sticking with your related types of accounts, and especially doing so more and more over time, will build up the connection to others like yourself!
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Thanks for the great post on Twitter. I’m still trying to figure out that medium, your post made it much more attainable! Thank you!
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I have done a few posts specifically on Twitter… https://dbcii.com/tag/twitter/ I guess that’s a mix of posts where I discuss Twitter, or where I actually show some of my experiences, but it’s definitely one I have been trying to figure out.
I feel it is much stronger for networking than it is as a “reader” – I read almost no Tweets. There’s hardly the time for it! I get dozens a minute at this point. Gene’O over at the Writing Catalog (as you know, but for others: https://twitter.com/justgeneo and https://twitter.com/Sourcererblog) has been doing far more than I have with building community through Twitter, building lists so that you can actually have a feed of just the people you would like to read. And it helps others network with and follow each other, as well, if done right – so it can be a powerful tool that way. In that you get more Twitter followers.
But it’s not much of a *content* space… I don’t know. It’s weird. I’m still working on figuring it out. Obviously! If I had the magic bullet for this one, I would have hundreds of thousands of followers or whatever like you see! I think their secret is just to follow a ton of recommended people every day. You’ll get some follow backs. That’s just not my goal in life… or at least, not right now!
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I hear you. As indies, we’re promotions, editing, publishing, writing all in one compact human being. Somewhere in there, we also have day jobs and families we can’t ignore. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t put in the time either. I have to prioritize. Thanks for the great comment back though. It’s so validating to hear from other writers!
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