How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Book : Twitter

This week we continue our five part blog series on How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Book On-Line! Each week we will discuss a new and original way for you to use social media tools to publicize a new book, draw in a broader and more diverse audience and create a personal brand on-line. These tips will allow you to not only connect with your audience but they will help you bring in a new batch of fans that you may not have known existed!

This week we will delve into the world of Twitter! The topic of Twitter is so broad that this will be a very small glimpse into the world of Twitter. Be sure to contact me with any questions you might have in regards to using Twitter because I want to help you succeed with your promotion, not overwhelm you!

Twitter is, in its simplest form, a short messaging services or mini-blog that you update with 140 character answers to one simple question, “What are you doing?” This popular social media site can be an amazing tool or an amazing time waster, depending on how you work with it. Before you dismiss Twitter and decide that you have no time for such a tool, let me give you a few easy ways to explore Twitter that WILL NOT take up hours and hours of your time!

In an article posted on Nielsen Online researchers found that over 60% of new Twitter users fail to return for a second month, mostly due to the fact that they join without a clear goal in mind for their account. If you join without a plan you are dooming yourself from the beginning! Let me give you a few examples of how you can start your Twitter account with clear goals and actually get some marketing use out of this great tool!

Similar to what we suggested in our previous post dealing with how to set up a blog, you can create a Twitter account for a fictional character from one of your books and post random musings and ideas from that character that relate to the book. There’s no limit to what your character might say and this might be a great idea for discovering new book ideas as well. You can also use your Tweets as little teasers for an upcoming book. Post interesting quotes from the book each day or each week for a few weeks or months before the book is released. This way the reader is drawn in by the quote and by doing it on a regular basis you will create a following that will continue to come back on a regular basis! By using a site like Hootsuite or Tweelater you can schedule tweets ahead of time and send tweets for multiple accounts! For example – You could schedule your quotes to go out every Monday at 8:00am and update several character accounts at the same time without logging on and off of the accounts each time!

Please remember that these tips and activities will only work to promote your books and yourself if you add followers and follow users in return. Be prepared to spend some time your first month  building a following and connecting with your followers. Even though Twitter has a built search feature, you will soon realize that it is lacking when it comes to finding followers. Try using one of the many other Twitter searches to help find users to follow. Not everyone you follow will follow you back, but a great majority will; you will just need to be patient when you first start up! Twellow is a great way to find users by interests and occupation and it’s the search tool I use the most to find new followers.

You will also want to connect your tweets with your blog, website and Facebook page in order to draw more followers to your profile. Twitter has several embeddable widgets for your blog or website (check out my side bar for an example of one type of widget) that will show your updates and help advertise your Twitter usage. (We will discuss more about how Facebook fan pages can help promote your book in next weeks blog post so stay tuned!)

If this still seems like too much to deal with, consider hiring a virtual assistant or social media consultant to help create a plan for your Twitter usage. Twitter can be a great addition to your marketing plan as long as it’s used correctly. A VA can help you decide what to update as well as how and when to update as well.

Here’s your summary for this week’s tip:

1. Create a Twitter account!

2. Decide how you would like to use Twitter. Choose one of the following to get started:

• Personal updates
• Professional updates
• Character updates
• Book promotion (quotes)

3. Search Twellow for new followers!

4. Schedule 5-10 tweets using Hootsuite or Tweetlater.

Twitter is an excellent tool and can be very useful when trying to promote yourself, your business or your new book but be sure you go into it with the right plan in mind and the patience to stick with it and see results!

Here’s some Twitter humor for you to enjoy! Twitter is definitly a great marketing tool but it can also be a lot of fun, as long as you don’t get carried away!

Have a Great Day!

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