Comments on: 5 Twitter Tips to Success

By: Roxanne St. Claire

Roxanne St. Claire — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:44:30 +0000

I loved this post (found it via twitter, natch) and just want to jump in and say I’m a total facebookphobe, but I just adore twitter. It feels like an office door to me – one I can open and cruise the halls for laughs, info, links, news, insights. Or I can close the door and work in silence. Some days I’m twitter happy and post 20 times, some days I don’t open up my tweetdeck more than once.

I know authors think of twitter as a marketing tool, and I suppose it is, but more than that, I find twitter a social lifesaver in a lonely job. I also think it’s a tremendous source of incoming information (links to blogs, youtube videos, news stories) I would otherwise never find.

Great post, Malle. I’ve been following you for a long time!

By: Kate Diamond

Kate Diamond — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:52:45 +0000

I have yet to Twitter. I already spend so much of my writing time on Facebook… I think one more opportunity to tell the world what I’m doing might be a bad thing!

Great post, though. Thanks for the info.

By: Malle

Malle — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:25:52 +0000

All 3 commentators raise excellent points. The plethora of social media tools is confusing and there is no need to participate in every new area. I like Twitter because it’s fast — I’m a fast talker, reader, worker — so Twitter matches my attention span.

I like the cocktail party analogy.

Some people follow me because I am in publishing and every once in a while I mention my blog. I can see my blog traffic increase when I do this.

By: Jeannie Eadens

Jeannie Eadens — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:24:03 +0000

I like Twitter. Even knowing what people ate for lunch can be interesting sometimes. My favorite author to follow is Susan Mallery. She posts sort of random things that she finds on the internet that are funny or interesting, and she also posts about her books.

When I read about Twitter, it sounded overwhelming, but it’s really not. It’s just sort of an ongoing cocktail party. You can hop into a conversation if you feel like it, or you can go away for a while. If you miss something, no big deal.

By: Kimber An

Kimber An — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:28:35 +0000

I don’t have time to Tweet right now, but I do follow a few people with useful and interesting tweets.

As for authors, my advice is always the same. Be where your readers are. If they’re on Twitter, then you should be too.

By: Terry Odell

Terry Odell — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:17:30 +0000

This is one bandwagon I haven’t jumped on. Heck, I’ve made it a point to stay at least three streets away.

I do have a Facebook page for social networking (as well as blog, website, and author pages here, there, and everywhere). My current pet peeve is dealing with all those people who put their tweets onto Facebook, especially when they’re basically ‘private’ communications between themselves and someone else I don’t know. I finally created a separate filter on my Facebook users so I didn’t have to look at all their tweets on the page.

There are too many folks out there who are in the ‘what I had for breakfast’ community, and who seem to think that their worth is measuring in how many followers they have.

I prefer my blog. I may not have 17,000 followers, but I think the folks who read it are there because they want to know more than what I’m cooking.