TIPS FOR TAMING TWITTER
by S. Furlong-Bolliger
If you are a writer and struggling to incorporate Twitter as
part of your marketing platform, remember that quality beats quantity. I’ve found that by using a few simple tools,
it’s easier to manage Twitter time and reap the rewards of this powerful social
network.
HootSuite is a tool that allows users to schedule tweets in
advance. By using HootSuite, I can spend
just one hour writing and scheduling my tweets for the entire week. For
the rest of the week, I just need to check into Twitter from time to time to
keep up with correspondence. This is a
huge time saver!
I use HootSuite to schedule tweets, mentions and new
follower welcomes. For example, if I
know that I’m having a guest blog posted on a certain day I schedule fifteen or
so tweets to correspond with the post.
Something like this:
#Writers check out my
#blog post today at Marilyn’s Musings via @marilynmeredith http://bit.ly/4cqJYv
Twitter is all about “paying it forward.” So, by mentioning someone’s work to your
followers, they will hopefully reciprocate by mentioning your work to their
followers thus increasing your marketing reach.
It’s easy to get bogged down with mentions; however, Ffhelper allows me
to view everyone that has mentioned me and compose a return mention that
includes their bio and URL. All this can
be done with just a few simple clicks. Ffhelper
is like having your own personal social secretary on Twitter.
For example:
I #follow
@marilynmeredith ~ Author of <> #blog 4
#writers. Check it out at http://bit.ly/4cqJYv
Here’s a tip for writers on Twitter: follow back! With an exception of a few people that post
offensive material, I follow everyone back—even businesses. I do this, because EVERYONE is a potential
reader. Plus, it makes Twitter more
interesting if I’m communicating with a broad range of users from different
backgrounds.
There’s just one problem.
If the ratio of your followers to those you’re following is off balance,
Twitter will restrict your ability to follow more users. To prevent this, I use
JustUnfollow to manage my ratio.
JustUnfollow allows me to find all my non-followers (people
I’m following that are not following back).
Once I’ve identified my non-followers, I send them a followback
request. If they don’t respond, I quit
following them. By using this tool, I’ve
been able to keep my account balanced and avoid the dreaded Twitter Lockdown.
One of my goals in using Twitter as part of my marketing
platform is to reach the maximum amount of readers with the least amount of
effort.
In order to best manage my Twitter time, I use TweetReach to
analyze the effectiveness of my tweets. With
TweetReach, I can plug in a tweet and measure the number of twitter users that
I’ve reached. I recently analyzed one of
my tweets that I sent to my 4,500 followers and discovered that it actually reached
over 150, 000 Twitter members. I
attribute the tweets effectiveness to the creative use of hashtags.
For example:
DEAD GIVEAWAY #mystery
short receives 4 ½ stars from Night Owl! Check it out: http://amzn.to/OFEVVf #MustRead #Fiction 4 #Kindle
By using TweetReach, I have discovered these hashtags to be
the most effective:
To reach readers:
#kindle; #fiction; #mustread; #amreading; #tweetthebook;
#bookbuzz; #summerreads; #ebook #mystery
To network with other
writers:
#amwriting; #writetip; #pubtip; #ian1 (Independent Author
Network); #writegoal; #amediting; #amenl (All Mystery Newsletter)
Other Useful Tools
Here’s some other third party applications that I invite you
to check out: TweetDeck and Twhirl are useful
for those with a lot of followers. Also,
the Twitter Apps for I-phone and Android are useful tools for accessing your
account on the go.
#Authorshelpingauthors
-- I’ve only listed a few of the many tools available for Twitter. If you’ve found other useful tools, please
feel free to share in the comment section.
Follow Me: S. Furlong-Bolliger @foulplayauthor
My website: www.sfurlongbolliger.com
Untreed Reads: http://bit.ly/PZJJo2
Amazon Author page:
http://amzn.to/pbv1dX
Susan’s Bio: Susan lives in the Midwest with her husband
and four children. She works as an
academic writer and contributor for several national magazines. She’s published short stories through Untreed
Reads Publishing, various anthologies and e-zines, and Woman’s World
Magazine. You can contact her at sfurlongbolliger@yahoo.com
Thank you so much, Susan, for these amazing tips. Now maybe I can use Twitter the way it's supposed to be used.
Marilyn
Comments
Thank you for this. I have only recently joined Twitter and find this timely and very useful information.
Oh, and you can follow me @daviddelee