Twitter is a really great tool, one which writers are often encouraged to use for marketing and promotion purposes. Honestly, I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read because I learned about them or got to ‘Twitter know’ their authors on my favorite social media site.
Here’s the thing about Twitter, though. It is a SOCIAL media site. Like Facebook and other social media, it is about relationships, although unlike Facebook it is more about affinity groups and people you find interesting, rather than necessarily people you know in real life. The best way to get followers (aka, people you will be able to tell about your book when it comes out) is to be both interesting and interested. This means your tweets should be engaging in some manner, and you should engage with other people’s tweets. BOOM, you build relationships and create people who are going to encourage and support you when you need it, and buy/borrow, read, and maybe review your book when it comes out.
Somewhere out there, it seems that someone periodically tells authors that a good way to use Twitter as a marketing tool is to find a bunch of people who are involved in books (it can be anyone, publishers, agents, book bloggers, other authors), and send tweets directly at them with a message that they should buy the author’s book. You guys. This is not effective marketing, this is actually SPAM. It isn’t going to make anyone buy your book, it isn’t going to increase your name recognition. All it is going to do, especially if you send the same message out to a bunch of people, is get you blocked at as spammer and possibly even kicked off Twitter.
Make connections, form relationships, and then share with all of your followers (by not @replying any of them) select exciting book news. You’ll find it a much more effective, and dare I say, enjoyable, way to use Twitter.
