Social Writer: Twitter - Laura Teagan

Twitter, oh Twitter, where do I begin? It seems like marketers and “public figures” (I use that term loosely) love it, but other people don’t seem to quite understand where to begin with it.

As a writer, here’s the basics of where you should begin to grow.

1. Bio and Header. I talked about this in the branding page, but make sure you have a bio and a header. You want consistency with this across all platforms. For your bio, you should include what you do (write), your book’s name (preferably a hashtag, too), and a link to your mailing list. I’ll talk about mailing lists at a later date, but you want a mailing list.

2. Follow People You Know. You’re going to know people before you enter the twitter-verse. Whether they’re friends, readers, other writers, they’re going to be the key to finding new people to follow and connect with. Yes, a following is always nice with twitter, and as you grow, you won’t be able to connect and have a personal relationship with everyone online, but you need to be able to reach out to people and connect with them.

3. Twitter Chats. I’ve written about twitter chats before, but I can’t tell you how much twitter chats have helped my twitter game. This is a huge way to create community, not just following.

Twitter can be a great weapon in your social media arsenal. But as a writer, do you know where to start? #Socialwriter Click To Tweet

4. Share Content from Others. Yes, this may mean investing in a program to schedule stuff out, but this is so worth it. Sharing content from others is the way of reaching out to people online. It also looks good when it’s not always about you. I love to share articles about writing, self-publishing, marketing, etc. Things related to my audience of writers and readers.

5. Tweets Have Short Lives. Tweets have a short life-span, so it’s okay to tweet a lot. Obviously, you don’t want to tweet every single minute of the day, but even having a tweet every hour and a half is okay. As long as you share relevant content, questions, thoughts, it’s okay.

Twitter is a fast paced social-media platform, and it can seem hard to navigate, but stick to meeting new people, and making new friends, and the rest will just happen.