Twitter. Everyone knows it’s an important tool but not everyone knows how to leverage it. Twitter is not effective if just every few days you post a link to your website. Spammers are looked down upon in this community and people are no longer interested in hearing the truth about tooth whitening. The whole point of this application is that updates are made in real time, often, and must be only 140 characters long (for newbies, this is referred to as a Tweet). You must encourage direct communication and be willing to give away some books in order to get word of mouth advertising.
- Job number one is to set up your own Twitter account at http://twitter.com/ and take the time to fill out the profile information and put an actual picture of you in the photo spot. It’s also a good idea to use your book cover as your background. Not published yet? Follow other authors on Twitter to see how they are leveraging this application.
- Once you are set up and take some tutorials, you’ll want to increase your traffic and followers on your Twitter feed. Visit https://www.tweepme.com/ this does cost money (12.95) but it’s a small amount if you want to get a lot of people reading your tweets in a short amount of time. Of course this means you must tweet often and try and connect with people through direct messages who may be interested in reading your book.
- You should also list yourself in the Twitter directory under Authors or Literature: http://wefollow.com/ and also list your business (if you have one) with Twibs http://www.twibs.com/index.php These directories help people find YOU which always means more followers.
- Don’t just follow the obvious on Twitter – follow businesses and see what they are doing to increase traffic. Find small businesses (or big ones) that may want to partner with you and other people with companies/products/books like yours.
- Find book reviewers on Twitter. Reviewers may accept your book if you connect with them and they are interested.
Here are just a few to follow and the list is growing by the day: