I've been on twitter for almost a year and I still don't have many followers. There are hashtags like #amwriting and #writingcommunity, but I'm still not connected to many writers I didn't know before joining twitter. I've seen people do something called a writers lift to help writers get more followers. It seems like people will follow you and hope you follow them back. And even if you do, then they unfollow you. In addition to that nonsense, none of these fellow writers are clicking on links to my published stuff (twitter tells you how many clicks something gets). If they aren't going to check out your work, what's the point of following in the first place? Does anyone else have trouble branding themselves or promoting their work on social media?
this may be because you've posted in the lounge - i'll move it to marketting which is probably more pertinent personally i'd say twitter is a deadloss for marketting but good for networking with other authors.. facebook is good for marketting as a self publisher (esp via ads) probably not for the sort of brand building you want to do
How are you networking with other writers on twitter. Sure, I follow a bunch. And I'll retweet their stuff sometimes, but most of the writers that follow me or interact with me I already have some sort of connection, either common friends or knowing some of the same people or having stories in the same magazine issue as another writer. I'm not self published, but I do seem to have more interactions with fellow writers on Facebook, but, again, there's some sort of connection or I'm a big fan and they accepted my request. My Facebook is private, but more people from there tend to read and share my work. I guess twitter just seems like some blackhole. For the last few days, I've been losing a follower a day. This is right after one of those writer lifts to help connect writers. I guess just none of them wanted to stay connected for too long.
I've never twitted or belonged to Twitter ...and I probably never will. However, I know people who wouldn't be without it. Dunno. Good luck. I suppose it can't hurt, even if it doesn't help. Sometimes you do wonder if 'folks' are going elsewhere?
Twitter. It is like anything, walk in there with your eyes open. Decide what you want out of it and work out if it is achievable. Figure how much energy you are going to use to attain it. If it is too much hard work then it may be just a distraction from your main focus and goals. It seems that the other people you mention have their goals alright, namely get as many followers as possible. I would most likely have a foot in the twitter camp but not get too invested. Twitter may be helpful as a part of a broader strategy. Maybe it works well for people you meet along the way like professionals in the writing game?
I can imagine that twitter is only really good for established writers, because then it becomes a snowball - you have fans that will sign up and make your account popular to follow and that in turn has more people interested in that genre to stumble onto you. I cant stand twitter or facebook myself. I loathe the idea of having to use them. Its nothing more than a conga line of patting people for following the mob or a circular firing squad with no in between.
I'd probably be more active on Twitter if I found a way to make a second account. Sure, I found instructions on how to set it up, but either they gave Twitter a facelift in the meantime since these instructions were set up or they are not valid in my region. It didn't work. I want to use my Twitter account for two distinct purposes: a) Make acquaintances as writer, and b) use it as information channel and brainfeed. Unfortunately, if I follow writers they'll clog up my feed and I can't use it for purpose b). As purpose b) is more important to me right now, I am not following a lot of writers atm.
you can have as many twitter accounts as you have email addresses, just set up a new email address (ideally you'd have a writers email anyway) and sign up again (with FB you are only allowed one profile, but you canhave as many pages as you want)
Its really much like making friends in the real world, you follow a bunch of people who interest you, comment on their content, ask pertinent questions, help them where you're able and build from there (not really any different to networking on a forum apart from the character limit) I don't spend as much time on it as i did once - but I've made some solid friends (including some reasonably large name writers). Of course you're never going to get to know Stephen King, or Lee Child or Danielle Steele etc... writers at that level aren't running their own twitter accounts (JK Rowling is an exception to that... but the amount of hoo haa she gets into is why big names don't generally run their own) The thing about twitter (and social media generally) is it depends on where you go - people who say its toxic are probably hanging out with a bad crowd and/or being deliberately controversial
I find Twitter utterly pointless. The truth is, your market is not other writers, and really other writers follow you for the same reason you follow them - to get more followers. Are you interested in the works of those you follow? I'm gonna guess probably not. What makes you think they are interested in your work? That's not why they're following you. You need readers to follow you. The majority of these are self-published authors, to top it off, and exist only to rave about each other's work regardless of whether it's good at all. Another thing is, with social media, it's all about the value you give - free books, recommendations, critiques, reviews, advice, and such like. There's no obvious value for a vast majority of people in seeing your book, if that makes sense. I think studies have shown content about oneself tend to be least interactive. The vast majority of interactions are just tag games (another method of getting more followers) and tedious Twitter etiquette of "thanking" people who tag you (by tagging them in the thank you, of course). What you end up with is a lot of utterly meaningless "thank you, amazing, you're the best, love it" and GIF exchanges, which takes up hours of your time. Anyway needless to say, I left. Got better things to do than pander to a bunch of strangers all echoing "You're amazing" to each other in order to be tagged in a pointless chain mail game of silly GIFs.
Again that goes to what i was saying about who you hang out with... if you don't want to play silly games, don't follow people who want to play silly games... all of social media is just a communications platform at the end of the day... its down to the individual who they choose to communicate with. you can use it to network with fellow professionals, or for research, or for talking to friends on the far side of the world, or for sharing cat gifs its really up to you Its rather like this forum really... you can hang out in the top quartile talking about writing, or you can hang out in the lounge talking about what you're cooking tonight... but it would be a bit daft to hang out in the lounge then say the forum was rubbish because it was all about people talking about what they cooked
Problem with Twitter is, unlike the forum where you can choose to visit General Writing, rather than the Lounge, on Twitter it's very hit and miss. It's hard to find people who are there to give value back and not just for followers. With social media, if you wanna do it properly, takes up so much time too. Finding valuable, relevant content, and sieving through people's Twitter accounts long enough to get a sense of the sort of value they bring, and then the live interaction and daily responses required - it's hard to keep up and hard to find the time. It also takes time to build up a personality online. I'll admit though, my lack of willingness to engage in all this is why I think I'll always favour traditional publishing - not just for the validation but also, it's just not how I wanna spend my time.
