Twitter 101 – Part B

In the Twitter Universe, there are “broadcasters” and “companions” the terms are mine.

Team followback are part of the companions, you follow them, they follow you. Some others are in between, (that’s me) I don’t automatically follow folks back. If their bio doesn’t reflect something I’m interested in, or their last three tweets are full of curse words or sales then I don’t follow. Then there are the rock stars of twitter – the broadcasters. They follow a miniscule number of folks and have followers in the hundreds of thousands. I first thought that my goal was to be one of the rock stars. Now I’m not so sure. There are so many wonderful things said by everyone, I’d hate to miss out. But I’ll wait to decide on that after I’m on the NY Times Best Seller list.

After not to long, I started to “unfollow” folks. That has been a more challenging proposition. There are websites out there who help with that (for a fee). So instead of paying someone else (I’m still cheap), I did a spreadsheet comparison. I’m sure my computer whiz husband could set up an equation for me to do it automatically, but instead I’m reading through the spreadsheets and seeing who is following me and who I am following.

If folks aren’t following me, then I look and see who they are, what their bio says, what they tweet, and what their following is. If it is a famous author I love, then I keep following them. If it is someone who hasn’t bothered to follow me back, I unfollow them. The reason for doing this is to get my following/follower ratio closer to 1:1.

How do I interface with Twitter? Three different ways (there are more ways but three is my limit).

a) via email – I set up my preferences in Twitter to email me when someone follows me, direct messages, mentions, or retweets me. (This is very important so I can thank folks for doing all those things – gratitude and appreciation are key on twitter. One of the reasons I like it.)

b) via hootsuite – this was a suggestion that @stacyjuba put out in the twebinar #tweetlikeapro by MWRA. I used tweetdeck for a bit, but the interface didn’t work for me. There are other applications out there, look for what works for you. The advantage to hootsuite is that I can set up columns with my list of followers, key word searches (ie. #amwriting, #ambeading), mentions, messages, and main feed. This is the interface I use to thank folks with cute notes always including #TY or #shoutout so that if folks search on those then the tweets come up.

c) via twitter (directly) – this is the easiest way I’ve found to click on my follower list, see their bio blurb and decide whether to follow them back. I also use that interface to unfollow folks.

 

My cell phone is from another century, so I don’t use it. Nor do I have other means of dealing with twitter other than my laptop. Use what you can, experiment. The worst thing that happens is you’ve wasted an hour of your life on it.

My last Twitter 101 blog will be about the nuances of Twitter etiquette I’ve alluded to in these last two blogs. Find me at http://twitter.com/#!/skjarkins

 

Stephanie Jarkins

www.gothmomz.com

twitter: skjarkins

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 Twitter 101 – Part A

Or how I went from 3 followers to over 800 in six weeks.

 

I signed up for twitter three years ago and let my account sit until I attended a conference this summer. At it I was told that editors and agents check social media platforms of authors. I’d heard that before but I finally listened it. I also finished the authorized biography of the Queen Mother. My Mom told me that the Queen Mum tweeted – not how you think. The English aristocracy wrote quick notes throughout the day to their friends, family and staff. If the Queen Mum could carve out time in her insanely busy schedule then I could.

So I put on my calendar specific times to go on twitter. I observed for almost a month figuring out the etiquette of the tweet world. I wrote my bio (very important) to highlight my professional aspirations and fun interests. This is my calling card on Twitter. Folks decide whether or not to follow me thanks to that small bio. So I put some thought and time into it. Then my profile picture, that was easy. My Goth Soccer Mom club logo that my designer set up for me. It is punchy, colourful and fun.

After all the preliminaries were in line, I dove in. A very helpful resource was the free twebinar #tweetlikeapro sponsored by MWRA Marketing for Romance Authors http://mfrw.blogspot.com/ featuring Keith Keller http://twitter.com/#!/KeithKeller. He suggested that one finds 100 people to follow everyday and one should tweet five times a day. I followed the first suggestion, not the second. I do tweet about three times a day during the week, and a few times over the weekend depending on my schedule.

I also found that to find 100 people to follow wasn’t too hard. I went to my favourite tweeters and looked at their following list. Then I followed the folks who had similar interests to mine. I didn’t buy my follower list, I’m too cheap to do that. But if you really want to do it – go for it. I want to have followers who have similar interests and aren’t just paid to follow my tweets.

Is Twitter worth my time? Qualified yes. I found wonderful information about writing blogs, beading ideas, and fun quotations. There is a lot of information on twitter and sorting the wheat from the chaff is challenging. Next Twitter blog will be about the nasty situation of “unfollowing” and interfacing with Twitter.

 

Stephanie Jarkins

www.gothmomz.com

twitter: skjarkins

5 Comments