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9.23.2010

Book Blogging 101 - Tweeting Dos & Don'ts


Spawned from the Big Sis, Little Blog program, Book Blogging 101 was born. Do you have a question? Leave it in the comments section or email me parajunkee at gmail dot com


Q: How can I better promote my blog on twitter?

Nobody cares
From Gemini Ace's Flikr
The one thing I get the most crap for in my real life is my twitter obsession. With chicks walking around with shirts like Nobody Sares! in the twitter font, it really is sometimes hard to justify why I’m on twitter so much. Maybe for the nonsense stuff, it might be hard to justify - the socializing, the random statements, etc. But the marketing you can’t deny.
  • I tweet my latest blog post.
  • Five tweet buddies Retweet my tweet.
  • Instant exposure to my twitter followers and the followers my retweeters have.
  • I watch my blogger stats, 10+ people followed that tweet link to my post.

So, with that kind of exposure what are the dos & donts of your twitter feed??

Ok, first let’s analyze our twitter feed. Take a look at your twitter profile and read what you tweet. Potential followers will look here first, if it is all nonsense or just spamming links people might not follow you. If they see you are contributing valuable information they might be a bit more apt to follow you.

Kikolani.com states that a good mixture of tweets is as follows:
  • Status update sharing a promotional link.
  • Status update sharing a beneficial quote related to your niche.
  • Status update with an @reply to someone else.
  • Status update sharing a news article related to your niche (not yours).
  • Status update with an @reply to someone else.
  • Status update sharing a helpful article related to your niche (not yours).
  • Status update sharing a promotional link.

From random questions that I posted, asking "What do Twitter Users Do that Most Annoy You?" most people came back with DON'T OVERDO IT!
Meaning...
  • Don't post about your contest over and over again
  • Don't updated Goodreads with 5 million To-Read selections and route it all to your twitter feed
  • Don't DM or @ people with "Check out my Contest" links
Like anything, moderation is key to the success of your followers. I know you want to promote that contest badly...but a tweet an hour...yeah that might be too much. Maybe try twice a day? One in the morning, one in the evening. And make sure in between that you get on and socialize.  You don't want to be what some bloggers have pegged a "Narcissistic Tweeter"

What does that mean? Basically all your tweets are LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT MY BLOG! LOOK AT MY STUFF! LOOK AT THE PICTURE OF ME WITH THIS ARC, AREN'T YOUR JEALOUS???


Be helpful. Be informative. @ tweeps with personal comments. If someone asks a question and you know the answer...answer it. I know you are dying to promote your stuff, but other Tweeps might get annoyed with your constant marketing and might put you in the SPAM category - and with a click of the mouse UNFOLLOW.


This post might open up a slew of other questions, I might be doing this backwards...first you have to get on twitter right?? Then you have to grow your follower base...right? Check back next week, maybe we'll go over that. ;)

Questions for commenting:

When does it go from fellow blogger to spammer with you?
Do random, nonsense tweets aggravate you? i.e. someone tweets: My mind is like a sponge. I find it hard to randomly think of outfits to wear. {tweet}
Do the "I'm Listening" tweets, or "My Horoscope" tweets aggravate you?






22 comments:

RubyGeorgAnn said...

I love this entry! Very helpful!

Anonymous said...

I tried Twitter and it just wasn't for me. I just couldn't get myself to really care about it so I closed out my account and haven't looked back but hey if it tickles your fancy I say go for it. Another wonderful round of helpful advice.


Stephanie G
Paranormal Haven

April (BooksandWine) said...

I think with Twitter, it's best to treat it as a conversation with marketing opportunities. I don't follow people on twitter who only ever tweet their links, and nothing else. I do follow people who are social, who express interesting opinions, and people who talk to me. Also, with the marketing thing, Twitter is awesome for that! A large portion of my hits come from twitter, much more than google searches, that is for sure!

Unknown said...

I know some of those "narcissistic tweeters" and I wish they would read this post. It does get annoying when it seems that all they want is a lot of attention. I really don't mind the random tweets, some of them make me laugh and start up a conversation. I really haven't seen many of the horoscope ones. Great post!! =)

Julie@My5monkeys said...

my thing I dislike is random people tweet me or when I conversing last night about new appliances--weird people made comments. I'm picky about who I follow.

KindleObsessed said...

Wonderful post & amazingly accurate, I unfollow (on average) 3 people a day due to shameless self promotion. Do I want to know you blogged? Yes. Do I want to know every 45 secs. NO! I love finding news about my industry & I love participating in discussions.. Which in turn ups my followers & leads people to my blog without me having to beg.

Very informative.

Rex Robot Reviews said...

Loved this post!

Q1. Goes to spammer when a blogger updates every time they get a new follower due to their contest. There are a couple that go 'omg 898 followers (contest link & plzrt)' then 5min later... 'omg 900 followers (contest link & plzrt)' ...over, and over. I'm happy for you, but I don't need to know that often :)

Q2. I think random nonsense tweets are fun as long as they aren't every minute :)

Q3. I don't mind the horoscope ones or the listening to ones much. Again, I don't mind if it is every now and then. I only mind when it is flooding into the twitter feed and not stopping.

This is a great post! And you're right, the biggest thing is not overdoing it!

Savannah said...

I agree. I only promote once or twice a day. Not all the time and I also talk about my life and what I am doing. Nice post!

Chrystal said...

Thanks for the great article and tips. I just started tweeting so this was helpful. :)

J.A. Saare / Aline Hunter said...

I won't name names but there is one Twitter person I follow who comes online, gets set, and begins spamming the numerous contests/giveaways/etc that he/she is having. When this occurs (it is not hard to miss), I tell my peeps I have stuff to do, log out of Twitter, wait about an hour, then come back when my screen is fresh with witty Tweets and conversations I want to see.

I don't mind someone Tweeting about a review or a contest. In fact, I'll ofter RT here and there for those I follow. It's when someone gets online and begins spamming like a bad telephone solicitor that I see red.

For the most part, I'm easy to get along with on Twitter. I'll Tweet a few times per week about my own contests, but that's it. I mostly Twitter as a means to meet and communicate with people.

Great topic.

ParaJunkee said...

@Paranormal Haven - Best advice really is if you are not going to take the time with something don’t worry about it anymore. I’m the same with Facebook. I barely even sign-on an more.

@April - Good advice. I get a wonderful crossover from Twitter also, and I also use it to visit people’s blogs more instead of going through Reader.

@Cynthia11 - You know the only way to deal with annoying tweeters is to unfollow them. Really, advice in some of the twitter posts I read, was if I wanted to be barraged with commercials, I would turn off my DVR. If I don’t want to see your constant marketing tweets, I unfollow. Simpler than fast forwarding ;)

@Julie (my5) Totally bugs me to. You get an @ from someone that is selling cat food/medicine because I tweeted that my cat just crapped on the sofa LOL

@Kindle - thanks! I unfollow now and again, it takes a lot to annoy me. I am quick to unfollow someone that gets mean, or throws out some ugly controversial statement.

@Rex - I’ve never followed someone like that, TG. That would be annoying. I think an author did do something of that sort though, if I remember correctly, but I think everyone was frothing for the book she was adding they didn’t care. You know what annoys me instead of the random statements - the constant posting of famous quotes over and over again. Ok, one or two cool - 10 ok, enough. I really think it is all about moderation. Limit your tweets ;)

@Savannah - I’m not one for status update types of tweets. I do try to stay on topic. My thoughts about the status updates for me personally is why would anyone care about what I’m doing? Not saying I don’t mind reading them, I just don’t do them - unless its funny. Like - Hubby is dancing around the house naked - or the cat crapped on the sofa. Those make me laugh. I do that a lot on Friday Wine Nights.

@Chrystal - good luck with the tweeting.

@JA - One of my favorite tweeps!! {ass kissing at its finest} A twitter/blog buddy of mine does that and it does get overwhelming, but luckily it is not all the time.

As an author I would think that twitter is even more integral for you, because your fans are dying to know what is going on, so you get away with more. LOL

Which brings into question author/blogger twitter relations...hmm another topic for BB101 maybe. Should we @ an author when we do a review - or just good reviews, that would be kind of rude to @author a bad review.

Should we @ an author with a giveaway - I would think that would be annoying also. Especially if it is constantly being retweeted.

Heather (DarklyReading) said...

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with twitter - I actually forced myself to take a break from it for a few weeks. I love it to find out what people are posting on their blogs, interesting industry info, and just randomly how people are doing. I don't like it for the info dumping of multiple tweets at once by a particular person or too personal info. It also sucks up alot of time and is a great distraction so I have to be careful how much I'm on it..

J.A. Saare / Aline Hunter said...

That's a good question -- hmmm. I've gotten @'s for 3's and that's fine. I suppose if I'm flamed I might like to remain oblivious. :)

And the <3 goes both ways. lol

Lauren said...

I don't mind nonsense tweets actually - I'd prefer someone said something funny or quirky than retweeted their contest a gazillion times.

That said, I have occasionally noticed people whose blogs I've previously admired tweeting things that I personally find bitchy about other bloggers. I think that's such a pity because it puts me off their blog, not just their twitter persona.

justpeachy36 said...

Twitter isn't something I have had a lot of luck with so far. But, I think I'm going about it the wrong way. I just tweet once in a while to announce a giveaway or something. I never thought about tweeting my new posts and that sort of thing.

This is a great feature. I love the Book Blogging 101 ideas and tips. I need all the help I can get LOL...

Tasha said...

Most of my tweets are random things that pop into my head, funny stuff I've seen or heard. That kind of thing. Blog tweets are kind of secondary as my twitter account was up and running well before my blog. I usually just tweet a blog post once or maybe a couple of times if it's something epic.

Missie, The Unread Reader said...

I'm not on twitter much because I'm terrified of becoming one of those annoying tweeters. I'm already annoying in RL, don't need to add to it. :D

Tynga said...

The only thing that aggravate me on twitter is what I call "The RT Wall" as in a person RT 20 tweets within the 5 next minutes and takes my entire feed update page. It's nice you want to Share what others tweeted. but Moderation please!

Danny said...

Awesome post as usual!
I'm totally annoyed by those "I'm listening" peeps, specially when it seems like they don't do anything else. I tempt do unfollow.

I use Twitter mostly as a basis to connect with people I like, talk about the latest books which is why I love the goodreads updates on Twitter. ( Again, only when someone is not updating her whole TBR list at once. Actually, this happend to me at the beginning and then I realized that every book I add is tweeted on Twitter, this was so embarrassing... ).

I tweet a Review only once on Twitter and a contest maybe twice. But, since we are 5 Girls Blogging we RT our tweets sooo ...it might look as Spam, but I hope not!!

It's a really good question: To @ an author or not? I really don't know!!! Sometimes I do it, specially with new authors and sometimes I don't.

I think it depends on the author, while Author X might want to see our Reviews Author Y is extremely annoyed by all the Tweets. I think there is no golden rule but if there is one, I would love to hear about it!!

Alyssa Kirk said...

Great advice. We're still not twitter savvy enough so this is a great help!

~Alyssa
Teens Read and Write

Anonymous said...

The "I'm listening to..." and the horoscope tweets BUG me, big time. Why would I want to know what your horoscope says?

I think everyone who has a blog should feed their blog to Twitter. I use Twitterfeed but there are a few out there to choose from. I don't have to think about it, it just automatically happens - like magic :)

I spend too much time on Twitter. It's a time-sucker. I had to take a twittercation recently just so I could catch up on blog posts and reading.

I will @ an author only for a favorable review and I will only do so once. In other words, I RT my favorable review links so I will @ an author in one tweet and that's it. I don't want to flood the author with @replies. I wouldn't want to rub an unfavorable in their face so I don't @ an author on an unfavorable review. The author will most likely see the unfavorable review anyways b/c I'm sure they've signed up for Google Alerts.

Steph from fangswandsandfairydust.com said...

Thanks for putting up the things to tweet; I hadn't thought of all of them.

I repeat tweet b/c I think people don't go back in the timeline too far. I have always appreciated your tips!

Fangs, Wands and Fairy Dust
email: steph@fangswandsandfairydust.com
Twitter: @fangswandsfairy

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