Blogger: Mary Keeley
Location: Midwest Office IL
Facebook, blogs, your website, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets are important components for your platform, but, in my opinion, the rising star is Twitter.
Publishers look for an impressive number of Facebook friends in the marketing section of your proposal, but Facebook serves a different purpose than Twitter.
Blogging is a great way to show your writing ability, let followers get to know you, and then attract them to your website. But you can consume hours writing blogs. I so agree with Wendy Lawton’s assessment of blogging in her post last Thursday. If you don’t maintain your blog consistently, you won’t attract and keep followers. If you blog consistently but infrequently, your following will increase slowly. Then there’s keeping up with other blogs and commenting as a means to get your name out there. How much time do you spend doing that? For some, blogging comes easily. For others, not so.
Twitter is broader in scope than Facebook. Your Tweets are available to anyone in the free world. Your Facebook posts are sent only to your list of friends. Again, both are important to your platform. Build friendships on Facebook and mention progress on your book–but you can’t be too hard-sell or “sell” so often that you sound like you’re using it as a sales tool. FB is for relationships.
Twitter is an information tool. Busy professionals in the industry use Twitter. You can gather and share important information, learn up-to-the-minute news first on Twitter in quick, succinct doses, and receive links to investigate later when you have more time. The hashtag feature gets you into global conversations of interest to you.
Twitter Translation Centre launched in February of this year and currently translates the platform into Indonesian, Russian, Turkish, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Need a Japanese name for the hero’s judo instructor in your novel? It’s a Tweet away. Here is the link if you want to join: http://translate.twttr.com/
Facebook and Twitter supplement each other for your platform’s success. Hopefully, Twitter will maintain its distinct difference. Twitter users are generally technology- and social media-savvy, on-the-go people from whom we can learn a lot.
I’m among those who have been slow to utilize it, but as I learn more about the adjustments made in the last year and its benefits for a fast-paced lifestyle, I’m celebrating Twitter and think it could become my social media tool of choice.
What do you think? Are you celebrating Twitter too? Or do you have a different opinion?
Time to go. It’s 11:55. I have to grab my iPhone and tweet on my way to a lunch meeting.
David Todd
I have my two blogs, my website, and Facebook, but not Twitter. Twitter is blocked at work (but not FB since we have a corporate FB page), where I spend 8 or 9 hours a day on the computer. At home I spend 2 or at most 3 hours on the computer on average six days a week. My impression is that’s not enough time to effectivly use Twitter, to have the posts spread out, to be diverse in posting. I’d need to know a lot more about Twitter before taking that time plunge.
Larry Carney
While Twitter may not have a large an audience as Facebook, it might have a more dedicated one. As Mary pointed out, Twitter is an information tool, perhaps the most singularly focused of social media in that it aggregates and directs information. Perhaps the most important valuable function Twitter has is the “directing” information ability. Using the hashtag system one can join a larger conversation, or in conjunction with other Twitter users direct focus on a particular subject.
The power of this was on display recently during a video segment of the pledge of allegiance during an NBC sports broadcast where they left out “Under God” repeatedly. Twitter was instrumental in getting NBC to acknowledge its error due to the immediate focus it got through the site.
By gaining a Twitter following an author is thus able to engage with an audience and create a discussion which reaches many, many people. For example, say you wrote a book on Millenials and the Church, or how the effect technology has on serving as boon and barrier to faith. Not only are these perfect fits for the tech-savvy users of Twitter, but it also is an issue which has meaning to them or their colleagues and family. And while your book may not be one of those, by reaching an audience which engages with their own audience and twitter followers the discussion reaches beyond just those in your immediate audience, and through the “trending” list of the most popular topics on Twitter you can potentially reach yet an even larger audience.
Twitter also serves as a great networking tool for meeting fellow writers, sharing tips with each other, and perhaps its greatest quality, is a nice, nice change of pace to write only 140 or so characters compared to a short story or novel 🙂
Michael K. Reynolds
Most of the push back on Twitter comes from those who don’t understand it. Facebook and Twitter (as well as Google+ and the rest) have very different roles.
Personally, I prefer the intimacy of Facebook as do about 800 million others. However; approximately 70-80% of my author website traffic comes from Twitter. It’s a much better tool than Facebook in developing new prospective readership.
Yes. It’s a powerful asset in a writer’s platform.
Sarah Forgrave
I agree, Mary. Before I joined Twitter, I had the misconception that it was the same as Facebook. But I’ve since learned that it can do so much more. They’re both valuable, but in different ways.
Happy tweeting! 🙂
Cheryl Malandrinos
I like Twitter. I just don’t feel I use it effectively enough. I follow over 300 more people than follow me. I use hashtags from time to time, but don’t seem to know what to do with them. I retweet a fair amount of posts, but I think I need to start separate pages–one for my author brand and another for my blogs.
Mary Keeley
Amen, Larry.
Michael, thanks for your personal example that touts the unique value of Twitter.
Happy tweeting to you too, Sarah!
David, the beauty of Twitter is that you can tweet 140 characters on your way to your car as you leave work.
Mary Keeley
I know what you mean, Cheryl. But if we do the necessary research and practice it should pay off in a time-efficient, targeted system.
David Todd
If you owned a device and paid for a service that allowed you to do that. I have neither.
Sally Apokedak
I’ve been on Twitter for a long time, but I never use it. I’m one of those bad tweeters with my blog posts automatically posting.
I have tried to join in a couple of YA lit chats that are held every week and the conversation moves so quickly that it makes my head spin. Hundreds of people all talking back and forth and I can’t tell who’s talking to whom. Ouch.
I’d really like to learn how to use it, though. I suspect one reason I find it hard is that half my followers are left-leaning, and half are right-leaning and I feel like if I speak I’m bound to offend half of them. There are so many angry people on twitter. I think I’m safer just shutting up over there. 🙂 I guess I need to learn to post happy thoughts and quit taking myself so seriously. The stickier posts need to be saved for the blog where there is room to be gentle and to clarify things, I guess.
Diana Dart
@Sally – that’s a very interesting line of thought. Should you tweet to your followers or to the Twitter-world in general? Can you take a stance on something without sounding “angry” or zealous? I’m honestly asking, not being snarky 🙂 My main goal in Twitter (well, in life, really) is to be authentic and genuine. So your comment is sparking some pondering… thanks!
Is Twitter more like a big Chamber of Commerce networking session – put on your best face, promote others and let polite introductions morph into something larger? Facebook seems like a college campus – socializing and business (or study) melted together in one all-encompassing world.
Damyanti
I’ve been on Twitter for a while, and am amazed at its ability to bring me writer-friendships, author appearances on blogs and interactions with readers. I’m not a twitter-junkie, but I do find it useful. I also use services like Twitcleaner, Triberr, Hootsuite to make the most out of Twitter with the least effort.
Buffy Andrews
Great post. Totally agree.