How I Tweet

(Updated January 16, 2010)

Also see my Writer’s Guide To Twitter for tips, tools and resources for writers.

I’ve decided to have three separate Twitter accounts: @inkyelbows (work), @debbieohi (conversation/replies), and @debohi (personal). Before you write me off as a megalomaniac, please read why:

How can you follow so many people and really keep up with all of them?

I don’t. I follow people I’m interested in (see my Twitter follow policy), but don’t have the time to be in constant Twitter contact with each of them. Even if I limited my followers to about 40 people or less, I’d still be in the same situation.

I respond to personal DMs and try to keep up with @ mentions. As more people list and follow me, however, I find it more of a challenge to respond to every person because it means I spend less time writing.

I also tend to catch up on one person at a time, reading several pages of their posts at once to get a sense of what’s going on in their lives and what they’re posting about.

I use Tweetdeck and HootSuite to group the people I’m following into different categories (e.g. writers, agents, publishing news, friends etc.) and also do searches for topics I’m interested in. I also keep closer track of users whose tweets I find consistently interesting.

For me, it’s sort of like being at a big cocktail party. There’s no way I can be listening to every person at once. Sometimes I’ll approach someone and chat a bit, and sometimes people will approach me. I love how conversations crop up here and there.

I also use Tweetdeck’s search function to find out the hot topics/news being discussed in the publishing industry, and what posts are being retweeted. This is one reason I narrow my follow list to mainly people in the publishing industry for @inkyelbows, my main work account.

Why do you have more than one Twitter account?

I have one account for work-related tweets (e.g. writing- and publishing- related), one for personal tweets (and for following JUST personal friends and family who twitter about personalstuff), and one for replies/chat.

I’m sure the separate one I have for replies/chat is going to upset some Twitter purists, but my rationale is this:

Sometimes I’ll check someone’s Twitter account and be turned off by the pages of replies or chatter that mean nothing to me without the full context (e.g. “LOL!” “Thanks!” “I agree!” “But what about your husband?”). As much as I enjoy discovering new Twitter-types and getting a sense of someone’s personality, I lack the time to scroll through pages of this sort of thing in order to pick out the posts which interest me.

Also, if I post something of which I’m proud or would like to have other people see, I don’t want this post pushed out of the way a few minutes later by my replies to other people during a chat, or by reams of “Thanks for the RT!”.

Unless their bio is unusually riveting, I tend NOT to follow people when I check their page for the first time and can’t relate to any of the posts on the first page, so I assume others may do the same.

I’m using @debohi mainly for following personal friends and for posting personalstuff having nothing to do with my writing. Feel free to follow, but be warned that I’m unlikely to follow you back unless we’ve known each other a while and (with rare exception) met in person. If you’re a writer, I won’t follow you back from here — @debohi is my account for keeping track of my non-writing friends.

You’re not following me and I -do- tweeting about publishing or writing. What gives?

It’s possible that when I checked your account, you didn’t have anything about publishing or writing on your first page of tweets. Or your profile is blank. Or something you tweeted about in your first page of tweets turned me off. Or maybe I didn’t follow you by mistake.

I may follow you in the future if people start retweeting you (“hey, who’s tweeting that great info?”) or you start retweeting me (“hey, who’s that person who keeps retweeting my info?”). I don’t recommend #followfriday for getting someone’s attention because the trend these days seems to be listing a ton of users in tweet after tweet, so many users tend to ignore them, or don’t have the time to go through each one.

I’m not interested in your writing posts. I’m all about community interaction. I want to get to know YOU.

Then you probably don’t want to follow @inkyelbows.

If you don’t mind seeing reams of “thank you” tweets and out-of-context chatter, follow my @debbieohi account.

If you want to see my personal, non-writing posts, follow @debohi…but be warned I likely won’t follow you back unless we know each other in a non-writing context.

What’s wrong with mixing personal and work in one Twitter account?

Nothing, depending on the posts. But again, I suspect not all my followers WANT to see my 20 post conversation with someone about whether white chocolate is a real chocolate or not (it isn’t!) or a dozen posts in a row thanking people for RTs and FollowFridays, etc.

In my work account, I’ll still post the occasional personalstuff but I put a lot more effort into making sure every post is of interest to as many of my followers as possible.

Hey wait! I saw you thank someone in your so-called “work” account! You faker!

I reserve the right to break my own rules when I feel like it.

But what if I -want- to see all your replies?

Then feel free to follow @debbieohi. I have conversations with people with that account, and also use it for Twitterchats, so be warned that it’s VERY chatty.

Judging from the number of people who follow @inkyelbows compared to the number who follow @debbieohi, it’s clear to me that far more people are interested in my writing-related work posts than my chatty/reply posts.

You’re just after as many followers as you can get, aren’t you?

Well, no. I’d like to have as many people as possible reading my work account, yes, but the main reason I joined Twitter is because I love the mutual support and encouragement that an online social network like this can inspire. I love the mini-conversations that crop up here and there. I love meeting kindred spirits out there in the writing world and getting to know them better.

With more than one Twitter account, it’s easier for me to pursue both goals.

You post tweets throughout the day. How do you get any writing done?

I tend to do most of my Twitter-browsing first thing in the morning. I keep track of people I follow in HootSuite or Google Reader (subscribing to their blogs). I browse #amwriting for motivation. I collect interesting RTs and tweets that I think writers would find interesting.

Between the people I follow and my Google Reader subscriptions, I never have any problem finding interesting tweets, so it usually doesn’t take me that long. The main challenge is choosing which ones to post.

Rather than send them all out at once, which could irritate/overwhelm my followers, I then preschedule them for posting throughout the day using HootSuite. I’ll sometimes check in a couple of times during the day but try very hard to not give in to the urge to constantly check Twitter. I’d be interested in hearing from other writers to see how they manage their Twitter time.

Later in the day, if I’ve gotten enough work done, I’ll browse my Twitterfeeds and catch up on responses. In the end, though, my writing has to come first.

Why do you sometimes post comics from your archives instead of only new ones? And sometimes repeat them?

I figure not everyone has seen all the comics I’ve posted in Inkygirl.com. I’ve been posting in that blog since 2003, so I also figure that it can’t hurt to dust some of my favourites off and bring them to light again, as well as Will Write For Chocolate and My Life In A Nutshell.

I repeat them sometimes because I figure there’s a good chance some people will have missed seeing them the first time around. I try to wait a while before repeating them and very, very rarely repeat anything the same day.

This “How I Tweet” policy was inspired hugely by Guy Kawasaki’s “How I Tweet” policy.

Also see my Writer’s Guide To Twitter for tips, tools and resources for writers.