Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Giveaway Winner + Twitter Pet Peeves=This Post

First, the winner of my 200 follower giveaway is...Leslie! I'm emailing you about the details, Leslie. Please respond within 48 hours or the prize may be forfeited  to someone else.

And now, today I'm going to be talking about twitter.
Ah, yes, that social media sight in which we writers must hone our want to be wordy and keep it all in 140 characters or less. Many writers use it in hopes of building their audience and platform, helpful if they have published a book or want to prove to an agent they have a platform. Others are book reviewers and again, want to increase their traffic so they're more likely to get ARCs and such. Well, these are a few of my personal pet peeves when it comes to twitter and might make me less inclined to follow the person back, buy their book, or read their posts.


  1. Tweeting about your book and only your book. One gentleman I followed (and ended up unfollowing) only tweeted about where to buy his book, what reviewers said about his book, when a sale was happening for his book, etc. I didn't know a thing about him other than he wrote this book. First, when tweeting every hour to buy your book, it gets old. Second, I didn't know anything about him. I didn't feel like he was a friend or that I had any knowledge about him. Tweet about your crazy morning or your delicious lunch or about a book you've read and loved. Keep us up-to-date on your WIP. And then yes, go ahead and tell me where to buy your book or if there's a sale. I might actually buy it at that point if I feel like I know the person behind the tweets.
  2. Over-tweeting. Some people tweet A LOT. I'm going to be honest. I've followed some people where I constantly see a block in my feed of just their tweets. Yes, sometimes you need three or more tweets to get something out. But when I constantly see one tweeter taking up blocks of my feed once a day or more, I start to skip those tweets. I don't read them. That's not the point of tweeting. You want people to read what you're writing. But in order for them to find it interesting, you have to keep it low. That doesn't mean you can't tweet more than once a day, just, have courtesy to your followers' feeds.
  3. The contest tweets. This kind of goes along with over-tweeting, but I feel this has its own category. Now, tweeting about a contest, I like that. I've entered contests because I see someone else's tweet. I tweet about contests myself. But tweeting for an hour straight as you enter all of your contests, well, I tend to start overlooking your tweets again. If you like entering contests and they want you to tweet it, maybe get another account just for your contests. And then tweet about the ones you really want to get exposed on your twitter for networking.
  4. Unfollowing when you don't get the follow back. I've started to look at people's twitter before I follow them back, so I don't go through all of those things above that bother me. Now, obviously I don't follow back the people who tell me that their tweets will help my finances or my mental well-being. But when their bio says something about writing or reading, I bite. I look. And sometimes, I can tell that what they tweet about I don't want to follow. This happens rarely with readers and writers for me, but it does. It irks me when people follow, and then they unfollow me after I've gotten on, followed other people, made a tweet. I get they're trying to network and don't want to follow many more people than who follow them. But here's my thing: don't follow someone on twitter who you don't want to keep following. I'm not irked that they unfollowed me. I'm irked that they find twitter nothing more than a marketing tool. Your followers and the people you follow are not numbers. They are PEOPLE. I don't like Justin Bieber. So I don't follow him. I wouldn't follow him and then unfollow if he doesn't follow me back. And I'm following people right now who don't follow me, and I'm talking more than celebrities here. But I don't unfollow them because I like what they tweet. I want to see what's going on with them. 
Do you use twitter? Have any pet peeves about it or advice to people trying to market their work?

2 comments:

  1. I think you hit the nail on the head. (or nails) - I'm afraid from time to time I'm an overtweeter - oh well. :0)

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