Twitter Guide For Writers: Part 4 (Tips On What To Tweet and What NOT To Tweet)

This installment of my Twitter Guide For Writers includes suggestions about what you might tweet about, and what types of tweets may turn off potential readers.

This is the fourth in a series of posts I’m writing with concrete tips, examples and strategies to help writers get the most out of Twitter. In case you missed them:

Twitter Guide For Writers, Part 1: Follower number obsession, why are you on Twitter?
Twitter Guide For Writers, Part 2: Picking a username, private vs public, userpic tips, profile, auto-DMs, following etiquette.
Twitter Guide For Writers, Part 3: Retweeting and Retweeting Etiquette

To see all my posts so far, please visit my Writer’s Guide To Twitter page. You can follow me on Twitter at @inkyelbows.

I’m going to assume you already know the basics; if you don’t, please read Getting Started on Twitter: A Quick Guide for Kid/YA Writers by Mitali Perkins (even if you’re not a Kid/YA writer, you’ll find these newbie tips useful), A Writer’s Guide To Twitter by Gary Smailes, A Writer’s Guide To Getting The Most Out Of Twitter by Michelle V. Rafter.

What Should I Tweet About?

Before you read any further, please keep in mind that the following info is based on my own experience and what works for me. However, everyone has their own priorities, commitments and type of motivation. You should experiment to find out what works for YOU.

Ideally, your Twitter feed should include a mix of original content and retweets, with your personality injected here and there via editorial comment or humor.

If you’re a BNA (Big Name Author) or other celebrity-type, of course, you could tweet about pretty much anything and your fans will be delighted. Some BNAs are better at attracting and keeping readers than others. Maureen Johnson, for example, is brilliant at it.

I haven’t yet read any of her books but I plan to, solely because of how she writes in her Twitter feed. She’s funny, she’s personal, she keeps her followers entertained as well as interacting with them. She breaks most of the guidelines I’m going to outline below but I still want to follow her Twitterfeed … please keep this mind as you (if you) keep reading. The guidelines below are just -guidelines-.

Anyway, if you aren’t a BNA and you’re hoping to attract NEW readers in addition to keeping the ones you have already, you’ll want to think hard about your content. The following tips are drawn from own experience and I don’t claim that they will or should work for everyone. But here are some things I’ve learned:

I try to stick to one topic.

I purposely focus my @inkyelbows account on the craft and business of writing…the very best content I can find. Sometimes I’ll post some publishing news, but I don’t want that to conflict with the publishing news column I already write for Writersmarket.com. Because of my own writing interests, I tend to lean toward the children’s publishing industry, though many of the “how-to” info I post is useful to writers in general.

I receive quite a few DMs and mentions saying how useful my writing-related tweets have been to people (thank you!), so my strategy seems to be working.

I minimize the amount of personal chitchat in my feed.

I use my @debbieohi account for most of my casual chitchat; you can read more about why I have multiple Twitter accounts. I say “most” because I do post the occasional personal tweet in @inkyelbows, especially if I feel it would be of interest to a large number of my followers.

Now, I can already sense that some of you are scowling and saying to yourselves, “But Twitter is all ABOUT personal chitchat and interaction!” My answer: Yes, that is a big component, and for me as well. But the fact is that when I consider adding someone to my Follow list and I’m not already drawn by their name or profile, I usually look at their first page of tweets.

If their first page of tweets is full of chitchat so specific that I can’t possibly relate to it (e.g. “LOL!” and “I know what you mean!” and “Only on Tuesdays. What about you?”), then I likely -won’t- choose to follow that person.

This is just my personal preference, however; others may feel differently. Also, beware of going to the opposite extreme — Twitterfeeds without ANY personal content tend to be boring for many people.

Before signing off Twitter for the day, I always try to make my most recent tweet as interesting as possible.

I check the list of people following me regularly to cull spammers and to possibly follow back. Twitter (and many other Twitter tools) gives me a taste of what each person tweets about by including their most recent tweet. If their most recent tweet is something like “Get 1000s of followers by clicking here!” I’m unlikely to want to follow back. As an aside, this is also a reason never to post those kinds of affiliate-type of tweets. You’re much more likely to be categorized as a spammer and either blocked or ignored.

Lately, I’ve also been avoiding accounts that frequently post about the online Mafia game that’s been going on since it means I’ll likely start receiving auto-DMs from them about the game as well.

Another way to think about this: in your mind, pick someone on Twitter who isn’t following you but you really wish WOULD follow you. Suppose they make their decision to follow you based on your most recent tweet?

I try to tweet every day, and spread posts out through the day.

[Update: Reminder -- this is just MY chosen schedule. Yours may be different out of choice or necessity. As I've said before, you have to experiment to find out what works for YOU.]

I cull my “Following” list regularly, and unless someone REALLY interests me for some reason, I’ll usually unfollow anyone who hasn’t tweeted in a month or more; I use Refollow.com to filter users this way. Before I hit the 2000 mark, it was because I didn’t want the number of people I followed to be that much more than the number who followed me — Twitter doesn’t let you follow more than 2000 people otherwise. Now that I’m over 2000, I cull inactive people from my Following list because I like to keep my Following list less than my Follower list — people are less likely to think I’m a spammer.

Anyway, that’s why I tend to unfollow inactive accounts. But wait! you may cry. What if they end up coming back? My answer: then I’ll likely find out about them again, through other people RTing them or from them RTing me.

I use SocialOomph when scheduling tweets so I’m not tempted to check Twitter constantly all day.

Don’t tweet too often else you risk irritating people enough that they unfollow you. 50 tweets an hour is too much. One tweet every month is unlikely to excite potential readers.

If you use the same account for chatting, you should probably warn people that you’ll be participating in a chat (specify the time).

I’ve seen some people even suggest their followers use one of the temporary Twitter muting tools available online. I’m not sure if I’d want to tell my followers to do this — I’d be too worried they’d forget to unmute me later on!

When posting any sort of link, I try to make the descriptive text as interesting as possible.

Sometimes I’m floored by the people who have clearly spent a LOT of time writing a fascinating and informative blog post but when it comes to posting the link on Twitter, then just write something like: “Great info for writers!” and then the link. Or (worse) just post the link.

There are SO many Twitter feeds out there who already post great info for writers. To make yours stand out and to convince someone to click on that link, I strongly advise you to spend more time on the wording.

Add a brief editorial comment to make your RT more personal, or reword the link text to make it more appealing. Make it clear WHY you think your followers should click the link.

Depending on the length of your link (you’re using a link shortening service like Bit.ly, I hope!) and the length of your Twitter name (leaving room for RT possibilities), you’ll probably have only about 100 characters to work with — MAKE EACH CHARACTER COUNT!

Before hitting that SEND button, go over the text carefully. Have you taken out any superfluous blank spaces or unnecessary punctuation? Worded the text to make it more likely that someone will click your link? Checked that the link still works?

NOT-SO-GREAT TWEET:

“Check this out! http://bit.ly/xxx”

BETTER:

“9 Ways To Improve Your Writing Productivity: http://bit.ly/xxx”

NOT-SO-GREAT TWEET:

“I’ve updated my blog: http://bit.ly/xxx”

BETTER:

“How NaNoWriMo Robbed Me Of My Sanity, My House and My Dog: http://bit.ly/xxx”

NOT-SO-GREAT TWEET:

“How To Get Published: http://bit.ly/xxx”

BETTER:

“.@GoddessEditor (Quidditch Books) Q&A for hopeful children’s book authors: http://bit.ly/xxx”

Add personality.

Being able to inject humor into your tweets will make more people want to follow you.

If you don’t consider yourself funny, then you can add personality through editorial comment about something you’re RTing, or letting some of your personal life filter into your feed (but do see the warnings near the end of this post).

Don’t just tweet about yourself.

If you’re content with just pleasing your current fan base, you can get away with this. Ditto if your feed is unusually clever, funny or informative.

It may be more of a personal preference, but I prefer to follow people who interact with others in the Twitter community – responding to and retweeting what other people post, supporting their launches and projects, encouraging newcomers and answering questions. It tells me that they “get” the spirit behind Twitter.

I recently attended a writers’ chat where someone at the chat (see my Twitterchat tips for advice on how to attend a Twitterchat for writers) just posted promotions about himself over and over again, interrupting the flow of the chat. This would be the equivalent of someone being invited to a writers’ group meeting and then walking around with a bullhorn, telling people to visit his site or buy his book. Finally someone asked the author to please hold off on the self-promo until AFTER the chat. The author apologized right away and said he didn’t know that was the proper etiquette.

I do follow some people who never interact with others, but that’s because their tweets are especially interesting to me for some reason (e.g. publishing news).

Retweeting valuable content is one good way of supporting other writers as well as networking without being spammy. Here are some retweeting tips.

Support others in the publishing industry by helping to promote their projects and causes. Retweeting #bookbdays, for example, spreads the word about new releases from children’s book authors. Follow @bookbdy for more info.

#followfriday is another good way to support others as well as network. It’s a weekly Twitter tradition that encourages users to refer their followers to other interesting people on their Follow list. DON’T overdo it, though. Sometimes I’ll be flattered by someone choosing to list me in their #followfriday list only to find, when I click through to their page, that they’ve listed pretty much EVERYONE on their follow list. This makes them look spammy since it comes across as more of an attempt to gain favor/attention than offer a genuine compliment.

If you want all your followers to see a particular tweet, don’t start your tweet with a “@username”

If you do, only people who follow you AND also follow @username will see that tweet in their feed. I get around this by putting a period in front of the mention.

People -will- see all your tweets, however, if they go directly to your Twitter page. This is especially important to remember when participating in a chat. And this brings me to the next topic…

Things you SHOULDN’T tweet about:

Affiliate marketing of any sort — this makes you look spammy.

Promises to get users thousands of followers — ditto.

Insulting a professional or personal contact. This reflects poorly on you, no matter what the other person did, and it can also get you into trouble. Before you post in anger, think VERY VERY hard before hitting the enter key. Always -assume- that the person you least want to read your post WILL read your post, even if your account is supposedly locked.

Personal details that could endanger yourself or your family. Be sensible.

Basically, don’t post anything you may regret later. Yes, you can always delete a post but chances are good that the original version is still out there somewhere, cached or copied. In the rapid-fire fun frenzy of an informal Twitter chat, for example, it’s easy to be lulled into the complacency of false privacy. I know I’ve harped on this in an earlier post but it bears saying again: NEVER post anything online you wouldn’t be willing to say in public in front of your family, your work colleagues, and your worst enemy.

FINALLY…

Despite all the tips above, I want to remind you again that these are just ROUGH GUIDELINES, based on what’s worked for me. To make your own Twitter feed stand out, you need to figure out what works for you.

Related Resources:

How to Grow an Interested Following on Twitter using RSS

7 Ways to Get Your Twitter Followers to Click Your Links

7 Tips for Expressing Yourself in 140 Characters or Less

5 Steps To Going Viral On Twitter

I didn’t have as much time to hunt for related resources today, so feel free to suggest others so I can expand this list.