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[Series] Promoting Your Book on Twitter

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Here are four posts related to promoting your book on Twitter.  The list below includes summaries and quick links to each of the posts:

  1. Tweeting for Book Promotion — a few ideas of what you might want to tweet as an author to help promote your book.
  2. Decoding the Twitter Language —  a few of the common acronyms and symbols to know as you get started on Twitter.
  3. 10 Tweep Authors Should Follow for Book Marketing Tips and Opportunities — If you’re an author on Twitter, you may want to follow these people on Twitter who will provide you with tips on writing, publishing and book marketing.
  4. The Dos and Don’s of Twitter — a few etiquette (or “twittiquette”) tips to keep in mind as you build your community on Twitter.

If you have other thoughts on how to promote a book on Twitter, please share them in the comment box below! 

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What does the future hold for Twitter (and Google)?

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Last week Dick Costolo announced he would be stepping down as CEO of Twitter.  Costolo had held the CEO position since 2010.  Co-founder (and former CEO) Jack Dorsey will fill in as interim CEO beginning July 1st.

Interestingly, a few months ago Twitter and Google announced a new partnership that would provide Google full access to Twitter’s stream.  For Google, this partnership meant faster access to information (in the form of 9,000 tweets per second) from Twitter.  For Twitter, this partnership meant increased exposure, which would hopefully result in higher revenue on advertising since the more people that visit the site, the better the chances of engagement with the ads.

The recent announcement about Dick Costolo’s resignation has spurred speculations about Google’s plans to buy Twitter for a couple of reasons:

  1. Twitter needs Google: Although Twitter has previously turned down offers from Google and Facebook with the intention of competing with them, Twitter has failed to figure out how to effectively monetize their site.  Costolo was under some serious pressure and did not deliver.
  2. Google needs Twitter: Although there are more than 2.5 billion users on Google+ (technically making it the largest social network in the world), Google has never really quite figured out how to compete with Facebook or Twitter in terms of real engagement.  The “user” number is a little deceiving because Google requires users of any of its other products (Gmail and YouTube, for example) to register for a Google+ account.  As a result, there are many Google+ accounts out there where the “user” may never have had any intention of being an active participant on Google+. It is estimated that fewer than 10% of users on Google+ are active.

It appears that the timing may be right for both companies.  Google is tired of sitting on the bench.  They want in the game!  And Twitter has never figured out how to make money playing the game.  Could the two of them team up to effectively compete with Facebook?  We shall see..

The Dos and Don’ts of Twitter

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Once you understand the basic concepts of Twitter and begin to get your feet wet in the “Twittosphere,” your unique online personality will develop.  The beauty of Twitter is that your network is what you make of it.  What you tweet about and how you tweet will determine who follows you.  And your own personal interests will determine who you follow.  While you build your community, there are a few etiquette (or “twittiquette”) tips to keep in mind:

Do:

  • Tweet a lot. The more tweets you send, the more followers and the more interactions you will have.
  • Re-read your tweets to catch typos.
  • Use a recent personal picture, rather than an avatar or image that isn’t you.
  • Pay attention when someone mentions you or replies to one of your tweets so you can continue in the conversation when possible.
  • Pay attention to the conversation. When someone replies to your tweet, you only see the reply, not your original tweet. If you are not sure what the reply is about, you can click the conversation box in Twitter to see the previous message(s). Take a second to check on this before replying to the person with a confused message or ignoring the reply completely.

Don’t:

  • Directly ask someone to follow you. Feel free to share your twitter handle with people, but don’t make them feel guilty if they choose not to follow you. It is up to them to follow you if what you tweet about interests them. If not, focus your energy on gaining followers who ARE interested.
  • Only talk about yourself or your company. Twitter is about connection. In real life, when connecting with people, you may talk about various topics including (but not limited) to yourself and your company. Interact with your Twitter community in the same manner.
  • Retweet more than you tweet original content. Too many retweets will cause people to tune you out (or stop following you completely). Offer some original thoughts and comments.
  • Post only links. Give people a reason to want to click on the link if it is something you think will interest them, otherwise they will just ignore it.
  • Ask someone why they stopped following you. If someone you know stops following you, consider what might have been the reason (were you practicing any of the above no-no’s?), but don’t confront them about it. In the end, it is all a personal choice and we all follow people who interest us for whatever reason.