Ten useful and easy Twitter Tips for Writers

So, you’re a writer or want to become a writer and you’ve just opened your personal Twitter account. Of course you want to become famous instantaneously, so your expectations a bit high, but reasonable, right? I mean, you’re a writer, you deserve the attention, right? Well, it really isn’t all that easy: Unless you are already a known writer outside of social media, your rise to popularity will likely not be instantaneous. It’s more of a slow climb, but here are some tips that might help you out. They stem from my personal experience as a writer and twitter user.

1 – Be a real person

Or at least try to behave like one. I have seen many writers on twitter that use the platform like a delivery device for links. That might get you a few clicks for your blog, but most people don’t bother following those types of accounts, since those are nothing more than an RSS-feed. If you want to get followers, you have to give them content they don’t receive anywhere else. This means tweeting about your life, your work, your inspiration and so on.

2 – Interact with others

Sooner or later, somebody will mention you on Twitter. That’s always great and if you’re not a robot, you should maybe reply. Or retweet. Or at least favorite the tweet. Interaction is key on twitter, because other users will notice that you are an active participant and that you are close to your readers and fans. This helps you to reinforce my first tip too: You seem more like a real person.

3 – Do not use Keyword- or automatic Fav/RT-Apps

There are Apps for Twitter that allow you to automatically favorite or RT mentions or hashtags. Using them is generally a bad idea, since it gives your followers the impression that you don’t care about twitter or your followers there and that you’re just on there to get a lot of followers and sell more books or get more clicks on your blog.

4 – Follow others

You don’t have to refollow everyone who follows you, but those accounts that are interesting to you should be followed.

5 – Follow others – pro-actively

If you follow a lot of interesting people, chances are, they follow you back. If you’re a blogger and write about movies for example, it might be interesting to follow your favorite stars, your favorite bloggers and a bunch of their readers. It gives you some interesting insight into what you potential readership looks like and how you can appeal to them. Same goes for authors: There are thousands of bloggers around that write about literature. Go follow them!

6 – Use Hashtags wisely

Hashtags are awesome and if used correctly can get you new followers. If one of the trending topics appeal to you, you should tweet about them. As a writer, you should use the hashtag #amwriting, especially if you are in the process of writing.

7 – Include followers in the writing progress

As I’ve written before: Interaction is key. When you are writing something, it is always wise to tweet about what you’re working on. Not only can you use the great #amwriting hashtag at that moment, but you might get some feedback from your followers. This gives your followers the impression of being part of the progress, which again helps you be more like a human and less like a robot.

8 – Tweet regularly

My personal rule of thumb: Tweet at least ten times per day. An active feed is a good feed, as long as you’re not spamming people.

9 – Get some space between your ads

Now, of course you’re also going to use twitter in order to advertise and promote the stuff you do. Linking to your book or your blog is a good thing, if it’s not all you do. My personal rule of thumb is: Advertise everything once a day and on a different time each day. My book has a 99cents promotion going on and I tweet about it once per day. Each day, I alternate between a tweet in the morning, afternoon and evening. This doesn’t only influence who you reach, but also how often they see your ad. If they see it too often, you might be mistaken for a robot. And as we have established, that is a bad thing.

10 – Promote your Twitter account

Chances are, you’re using other social media platforms besides your Twitter account. Pretty much all of them give you the ability to put the info of your twitter account there. This will be especially useful at the very beginning, but you’d be surprised how many followers it gets you over time.

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