How to Utilize Twitter for Newbies…
Everyone should be on twitter. It is the best way to advertise your blog. Even if you just join to read other people’s tweets and make occasional comments, it is a great way to promote your blog.
If you are a blogger, an author, or an aspiring writer, twitter can build a following like no other. It builds real time relationships and draws people to your site via the links. But, be warned, in order to build a good twitter network it has to be about 80 social 20 percent promotion. There is always a fine line between promo and spam.
Here are Ten Rules for Twitter Newbies
Rule #1 - Twitter is not like any other social media outlet. It is a public forum. Anyone can see it. You have one option, protect your tweets (from everyone) or go public. Being a public figure as a blogger or author, you probably don’t want to protect your tweets. Therefor, everything you tweet will be there for everyone to see. Remember this every single time you tweet.
Rule #2 - Learn the language or you’ll get really confused.
Twitter has a Glossary here but the basics are as follows:
# or hashtag - It is a keyword, always without spaces that can be searched through the twitter interface or twitter apps. Hashtags can be used to demonstrate strong emotion or emphasis. You can stick a hashtag anywhere, most like to include them in the end — but you can use them in a quick sentence. For example, a common Friday hashtag is #FF (Follow Friday twitter meme), so you would tweet: Happy #FF Everyone! Check out my Friday To Do List: http://myblogrocks.com
@ This is used, much like on Facebook to mention someone. When you @someone it goes in a separate stream, called the Mention stream and will go directly to the user. If you would like to get in touch with that person the easiest way is to @ them.
Direct Message – or DM is a private way to contact someone. You would type in: D username and it will DM someone. But, the person has to follow you in order to be DMd. If not you will get an error message. This is how twitter cuts down on spam.
Retweet or RT – You will see something like Plz RT — meaning Please Retweet. Users are asking you to spread the message for them. A retweet means you are tweeting another users tweet. A lot of users will retweet news agencies or authors to spread info to their followers.
Trending Topic – Twitter determines what everyone is talking about by using an algorithm. They will post what trends on the home page.
Rule #3 – Short is Sweet. A tweet is 140 characters. Once you get used to it, you won’t know how to go over 140.
Rule #4 – Don’t spam. Don’t @ someone with links to your stuff. If it is relevant to the conversation, by all means. If not, they can report you for spam.
Rule #5 – Be original. If you are tweeting someone with massive amounts of followers/followees (is that a word?) the might not recognize you as Jenny124!Yo with a avi of vampire teeth. The best thing to do is stand out. Have an original username that matches your blog and an avatar that looks different from the rest. Don’t be caught with a twitter egg…you will look like spam.
Rule #6 – If you begin your tweet with @username it will be a reply and will only be viewable to people that follow you and that person. It will show up on your profile page, but your follower stream will not be able to see it. If you want the rest of the world to see the tweet — stick a character in front. A lot of people will use a period.
.@username is the best freaking person eva! Plz RT #asskissery
Rule #7 – Sometimes twiter.com is not the best place to use twitter. Apps like HootSuite and Tweetdeck make me happy – they might make you too.
Rule #8 – It’s easier to get twitter followers than blog followers. Utilize this. Say hi. They say hi back with a follow — usually.
Rule #9 – Speak now, or Lurk later. Literally you will start out with no one following you. The key to gaining new followers is to follow people. Follow your favorite bloggers, authors or family members. (Maybe start with me @parajunkee hint hint) Say hi, tell them you are new to twitter. Join a twitter social hop (another hint hint – one is hosted on this blog).
Rule #10 – Know that certain things used in a tweet can bring on the dreaded Spam bots…don’t use things like: Free, Coupon, Weight Loss, iPad, iPhone, porn — if you insist on using words like this type stuff like eyePad, p@rn etc.
Book Blogger News
In the news for book bloggers this week:
A new Award Site has started and is accepting nominations for great book bloggers sites. They are comparing themselves to the Grammy’s (woot woot) Parajunkee’s View has garnered a few nominations (so don’t waste nominations on this site). Check it out here.
Authors After Dark NOLA began yesterday and is already posting fun author pics & swag hauls via twitter…follow hashtag #AADNOLA to be jealous all over them.
Goodreads.com announced they were enforcing their Policies better, including user generated content, so you might want to catch up on their TOS before you post your next review. I always recommend less author bashing and more critical reviews…you won’t have any trouble then. But, the GR Bullies site and the subsequent fallout that sparked this policy enforcement is still at it. Their rants have only continued to become more garbled and hypocritical. They have even gone to accusing Jane Little (Dear Author) of making targeted attacks against authors, like she is some evil author hater that goes on crusades to eradicate authors she doesn’t like. *Yawn*. I do believe this site has had enough attention and should be put on the ignore list.
New Genre? Have you heard about “New Adult” genre? Seems authors want to target the age range of 18-25 so they are labeling it as New Adult. I would believe Fifty Shades of Grey would fall within this (correct me if I’m wrong) because she is a young mature person in that age range, experiencing things for the first time. Definitely not YA — but coming of age sort of? So still YAish? Just add a lot of sex? As you can see, I’m talking myself through this definition.
Questions for my Readers:
Are you active on twitter? How has it helped or hindered your blog?
Happy Thursday. Talk Less. Read More. Blog with Integrity.
Have a question? Fill out the form by clicking on the button to the left. This will go into a spreadsheet to be looked over at a later date and hopefully answered on this blog. This is completely anonymous, you do not have to leave your real name. Urls will not be included in your question unless it pertains to the question.
Latest posts by Parajunkee (see all)
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Great post!
For me, I’m just obsessed with Twitter and I do think it’s helped me get a bigger audience to my blog. 
Some of my Twitter friends have found my blog through our frequent conversations so it’s usually a win-win. You get a new reader (possibly) and a new Twitter friend 
And thanks for talking about the Bloggy Awards! 
Great post! I think I would consider Fifty Shades as Adult or maybe even Erotica, not New Adult. I thought New Adult was just coming of age for a different age bracket.
Awesome post! I’m a twitter newbie as well as a blogger newbie. I only joined Twitter to garner more activity on my blog, I don’t know how much it’s helped but I tweet every time I put a new post up. I also have a FB page for the blogspot which I utilize too. I think the only way a social media site can hinder your blog is if you post stuff that’s not relevant to your site. I think of it like a business and staying “professional” is key.
I am active on twitter and I use it mostly to socialize and chat with my friends and occasionally send mentions to people I follow or reply to my followers. The most times I talk about my blog is the automic tweet when a post goes up or when I have a giveaway going on that I am promoting. I try not to promote the giveaway more than twice a day (one in the morning and one in the evening) so I don’t spam my followers.
I think another rule should be is do not go crazy with the retweets, I have had to turn off retweets for two people I follow because I just wasn’t interested in all the tweets they were retweeting.
The only thing I really use Twitter for is giveaways and blog posts. I don’t really “get” Twitter but I’m working on it. I know bloggers swear by it so I’d like to figure it out eventually. Great post!!
Excellent post Rachel! As a late twitter adopter, I woul have loved to have had this info when I first signed up. Twitter is a completely different world and takes some time to get used to. In fact, I think I’m still adjusting. Lol.
Seriously, thx for this Twitter detail breakdown thingame. I’m on there. Yea. And I appreciate it when authors I’m trying to promote have a Twitter account (please!) But using it myself is like…. drowning. (I was going to say swimming in deep ocean, but then I’d be wondering around at the bottom, lost.) I never figured it out before I got this… live, squiggly thing with a mind of it’s own. I have no idea what to do with it. I’m trying out the Tweetdeck……… with renewed hope of tackling this monster!! Um, thx
I did not know rule #6! I am a twitter n00b! Oh my gosh! Ugh. I am a horrible tweeter. I just got Tweet deck which makes me even worse as I accidentally reply to myself and DM the wrong person. May have to try HootSuite.
The 140 character limit and me still aren’t the best of friends. By the time I’ve figured out how to respond in such a short tweet, I usually end up skipping it as the point/topic will already be moot.
But I totally agree with everything you said!
As always super informative and helpful. Thanks! Oh and I like the idea of New Adult. As I’ve only read the parts of that one book through your posts, I’m not sure if it fits that category, but maybe….
Great post for Twitter greenies! I’m very active on Twitter these days but I wish I’d had something like this when I first started out!
awesome idea!
Great post! I love Twitter and it can be so fun and useful if you know how to use it. I recently wrote about how to promote your book blog on Twitter and I think these basic tips are a must-read before you start branching out and doing anything super fancy.
God, some days, I just can’t get off of Twitter. It’s like a black hole, it sucks you in and next thing you know, you didn’t get any reading done, it’s 1am and you’ve gotta set the alarm for work the next morning. #firstworldproblems
I think I like this “New Adult” genre. I feel like books like the KMM Fever series would fall into this: she’s only 22, there’s enough sexual content that it isn’t really appropriate for teens, but it’s not adult either. This is the first I’m hearing about New Adult though. Must google.
I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter. I never used to use it much, but since I started blogging I’m on it all the time. I love the connections I’ve made, the readers it’s brought to my blog, and above all, amusing tumblrs. I have an addiction.
I hate that it is the biggest time-suck on the planet, which is also mostly the fault of amusing tumblrs.
And occasionally it contributes to twitter-rage, in which case I then have to go find my own amusing tumblrs to get my mind off it.
I should probably join tumbr…
Tumblr is amazing to be a part of, but once you’re in it’s hard to get out! It’s a real time consumer and I find that I always turn to tumblr when I’ve run out of procrastination ideas!
How do you think I found your blog though?? You started chatting me up on twitter! If I remember correctly…so get on there and chat it up. LOL It is a time suck though. But, I have gotten bad about following my stream — and I just check my faves and my mentions.
I’ve always used twitter (since 2007 in fact) but have only recently become public about having a book blog. I don’t think I’ve been able to succeed in promoting my blog through it much – it’s more of a personal tool at the moment.
I’ve always found self promo a bit… What’s the word I’m looking for… Conceited? Sleazy? IDK. It just makes me feel uncomfortable, though that may be a bit of a personal issue rather than a twitter user issue!
Mass promo on my timeline does succeed in annoying me and eventually leads to an unfollow though!
You have to promo your own blog if not — no one else is going to promo it. Which of course will = no readers. It’s like being in a beauty pageant but never stepping out from behind curtains. As long as you don’t go around shouting “look at me I’m sooo pretty” all the time, one little jaunt in a bikini down the runway isn’t going to make you look conceited…
Rule #4 – Don’t spam. Don’t @ someone with links to your stuff. If it is relevant to the conversation, by all means. If not, they can report you for spam.
This.
I just had a, shall we say ‘conversation’ with an author who did this to me yesterday. She didn’t think what she was doing was considered spam. And I wasn’t the only one who received one of her spamish tweets (I looked at her timeline and she was spamming people left and right).
If I don’t follow you and you don’t follow me, why are you @ me about your book? That’s called SPAM. And I block & report spammers quicker than the eye can blink. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves.
That said, I love Twitter. It’s a great way to chat with fellow book lovers. I am always getting book recommendations on Twitter.
AADNOLA is in your back yard – you going?
She did the same thing to me and I saw your reply chickadee– guess who I was channeling for that particular rule. I understand your book is free — but if I didn’t ask you about it, don’t tweet me with it. I ignored her — but my hand hovered over Block & Report Spam. I didn’t do it, because I knew was ignorance…but I didn’t realize she was doing it to everyone. Gah. That is a quick way to get kicked off twitter!
AADNOLA is in my back yard, and I plan on going to the public stuff this weekend. Bad timing though for this whole con — has to be the week school starts! There was no way I would have been able to attend the actual con. It does look fun though I’m back and forth between RT again or AAD Savannah next year.
Awww, I was just wondering if I was going to be able to meet you in person this weekend. Maybe I’ll run into you at some of the public events.
So I’m waaaaaaaay late on replying. I thought I would get email notifications from Disqus but I probably don’t have it set up right. Gotta look into this.
I had no qualms blocking & reporting her because she told me that she “knows how Twitter works” and “has been using Twitter for a long time”. I checked (using one of those sites) and she has been using Twitter for a long, in fact LONGER THAN ME. So she should know better therefore I blocked and reported her.
Spam is spam. I don’t care who the person is; if they spam me and I check their timeline to see that they’re spamming others as well, I will block & report. Just yesterday I had a blogger spam me with a link to their post. I don’t follow them, they don’t follow me. I checked their timeline and sure enough they sent out LOADS of tweets just like the one they sent me. You can bet your a$$ I blocked and reported that person.
That’s cool you were able to attend part of it! Most of the book conventions are nowhere near me so I don’t get to attend much of anything.
I love twitter! I’ve connected with a ton of writers and even got a writing gig for awhile where I wrote about TV. That opened up even more people I networked with. I do twitter because I like it though, not to convince anyone to buy a product. I suppose when/if I have a book to promote, i wouldn’t annoy my followers with constant promotion. I unfollow people who only self promote,
Quick question: #6 – if you use an @, then only people who follow you and that person can see it. But if you use a .@ – then you said people who are on your follower steam won’t see it. Can you explain that? Thanks so much.
Oooooh I am so overly addicted to Twitter at times, but I gotta hide from the drama, it makes all things bloggy seem like a drag.
I’m not on Twitter. I think it’s just too time consuming (I’d rather be blogging or reading) and full of drama.
I did hear about that new genre.
I’ve got to say, it’s smart.
I bet it’s going to sell great.
New Adult is not actually that new, I joined a New Adult reading challenge for 2012 back in December, and there have been more and more New Adult lists popping up on Goodreads etc. I for one am incredibly happy with this, as I almost always connect better with books if the main characters are 18 and older than if they’re high schoolers..:)
Awesome advice! I never thought of the character in front of the @ sign.
Thanks for the tips! I didn’t know about posting a period before @…I’ve been putting the @ later in the post but that seems like a better way to do it.
I just started a blog and have been trying to get followers. Your post is really helpful!
I resisted twitter for ages, only been on for…four months?…didn’t think I’d like it and now I love it. :;shakes fist:: damn you, twitter, and your interestingness! I makes it so easy to strike up a conversation with random strangers. As a blog reader I definately love seeing tweets about latest happenings on blogs – especially blog hops and contests! I retweet those in a heart beat.
I’ve figured out my Twitter problem. It’s twofold. First, I feel like I’m tweeting into a the vast universe, that no one is going to see what I say in amongst the sea of millions of other posts. Second, I’m an introvert, and I while I’ve come a long way from being overwhelmingly voted “shyest girl” in my graduating class, I still have trouble talking to groups of people and strangers.
There’s probably no advice for me, is there?
I’m right there with you, in a way. I’m more of an introvert IRL and it shows in my twitter usage. I’m of the mind where I won’t say anything unless I have something useful to say. So I tend to sit back and watch the conversation unfold. Although I have found it easier to jump into the middle of a conversation on twitter than IRL. *grin*
I was not aware of the fact that if you @reply someone, it doesn’t show up to the world. I thought every tweet was out there in the ether. I have to remember that the next time I’m on twitter. *grin*
I always learn something useful from these posts of yours Rachel. I love them!