Change The World With Words

Writers used to just write, and not worry about marketing themselves or their work. Blogging and social media and tweeting and sharing were for B-list celebrities and trendy dot.com companies run by nineteen year old millionaires.

Now, if you want to be a successful writer, and certainly if you want to sell your books, it’s all about building a writer platform and getting yourself known.

Love it or hate it, Twitter is part of that platform building process for many writers. It’s taken me over a year to find my way round, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned so far, and particularly the tips and tricks that have helped my writing career.

1.  Use your profile to say what you are as well as who you are

Freelance Writer, Children’s Author, Self Publisher etc. People often search for people similar to themselves to follow, and potential clients may search for what they need (Eg. Freelance Writer or Editing Services).

2.  Sound interesting in your profile

Yes, this is a challenge in such a small space, but because you have so little to work with it’s even more important. You have to sound interesting enough that people will think your tweets will be worth reading.

3.  Add a photo

If you don’t you will be left with Twitter’s strange anonymous egg image. This is off-putting for many people, not least because it can be the mark of a spammer.

4.  Add a link (or two)

When your profile has to be super short, anyone in doubt will click on your link(s) to decide whether you’re worth following.  Put a link to your blog, writer’s website or at least somewhere else online that you have a more detailed profile (such as Linked In, or a site you regularly write for).

5.  Use the Wefollow application

Head on over to WeFollow and add yourself under the “writing” tag. You can also be more specific. There’s a “writingbooks” tag, for example, and a “writingpoems” tag. You can also add yourself under “blogging” or “creative”. This is a good way to let like minded tweeters (who are often searching for similar people to follow) know you exist.

6.  Only follow people you’re genuinely interested in

If you follow a load of random people in the hope that they will follow you back you’ll soon find yourself overwhelmed with dubious tweets you aren’t interested in.

7.  Unfollow people who don’t provide value

It’s OK to unfollow people whose tweets aren’t relevant to you. If you don’t you’ll miss the ones that are. If you ignored the tip above and started out following people in the hope they’d follow you back you can use a handy little tool called Friend or Follow to work out who didn’t, and at the very least unfollow them.

8.  Tweet useful stuff

Sometimes it’s OK to tweet things just for fun or do a status update type tweet, but generally speaking writers use Twitter to find useful information in their niche. Tweet about good articles, blog posts and resources you come across, with a link. After looking at someone’s (very short) profile and their link, the only other thing people can use to decide whether to follow you or not is the quality of your previous tweets. High quality tweets are more likely to get re-tweeted as well.

9.  Self-promote respectfully

It’s fine to tweet your own articles and blog posts, or to tweet about your book launch.  In fact it’s expected. But remember to tweet and re-tweet other writers’ posts and articles as well. Nobody likes someone who only talks about themself. And on that note…

10.  Don’t link direct to sales pages or sign up pages in your tweet

This is really annoying.

11.  #Use #Hash #Tags #With #Caution

Hash tags are useful to indicate what your tweet is about and help others in your niche find it (I use #writingtips regularly). But if your #tweet #looks #like #this, you’re overdoing it.

12.  If you are going to use hash tags, consider #amwriting

Find out more about it here.

13.  Use lists

I was really slow on the uptake with this and am still trying to rectify it. Get organized from the start if you can and create lists to “file” people into (such as writers, editors, agents, bloggers). You’ll be able to find all the tweeters you follow in a particular area really quickly, and at the very least it will help you remember why you followed people.

14.  Use @mentions when possible

When you want to communicate with someone directly (especially to say something positive or to thank them for a service) do it with an @mention, not a direct message. This is a public shout-out to them and will get them new followers, which is the least you can do if they’ve helped you out, or you’ve found their content particularly useful.

15.  Put a Twitter button on your blog or writer’s website

May sound obvious but some people really don’t make it that easy to follow them.

16.  Put a ‘Tweet This’ button on your blog or site

If you’re active on Twitter (or even if you don’t use it at all) make it easy for others to tweet your posts and articles.

17.  Connect with editors and agents (appropriately)

Yes you can get an editor or agent interested in your book on Twitter, but there is etiquette involved. See this post for some tips.

18.  Try and build a targeted following

It really is better to have 500 followers who genuinely know who you are, want to read your work and maybe even buy your book when it comes out, than to have 5000 followers who have no idea who you are or why they followed you. Building a targeted following takes time and happens organically, which brings us to the next point.

19.  Be patient

It takes time to find your way round Twitter. Don’t give up if you don’t ‘get’ it straight away, or if it doesn’t bring a sudden flood of traffic to your site, or sales of your book. Hang out a bit more and see if it starts to make sense to you. Lots of articles will tell you how to get loads of followers really quickly but, as with so many things in life, quality is more important than quantity. Grow your following slowly and naturally you’ll get a better class of follower.

20.  Follow me

I tweet lots of useful writing-related stuff. Find me here.

I still consider myself on a steep learning curve when it comes to Twitter. If you have any other tips to share, please throw them into the comments.

Update: Just came across a great, and very affordable, resource: Twitter 101 for Authors. Well worth checking out if you’re an author or freelance writer looking for the most effective ways to use Twitter.

Image from ProductiveDreams.com

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