10 Tools for the Author on Twitter

Photo by Stitch

1. SocialOomph: There are not enough wonderful things to say about SocialOomph.  If you are managing multiple pages like a personal page, an author page, and a page for each of your novels, SocialOomph allows you to manage several accounts from one place.  It also helps you to remember to tweet, as you should tweet at least once a day to remind people that you are out there.  If you simply can’t remember to do so, you can set all of your tweets for the week or the month in one sitting, setting specific times and dates at which they will be posted to your account.

2. Automated DM: Social Oomph is a free service; however, for a small fee, you can set an automated Direct Message to be sent to any new followers, thanking them for following you, inviting them to join you on Facebook, or directing them to your website.

3. TwitLonger: You just can’t say it all in 140 characters?  Use TwitLonger, which allows you to post a long tweet; however, don’t allow yourself to get lazy and overuse it.  Make sure that the first words are compelling enough for people to click the link and read the full tweet, or its effectiveness is lost.

4. Qwitter: Qwitter allows you to find out who has “unfollowed” you on Twitter.  It is important to maintain a strong base of followers, so this may help you to evaluate the effectiveness or relevance of your tweets and re-strategize your Twitter presence.

5. @Mentions: Hitch your wagon to a star.  Whether they are a real celebrity, or just a Twitter celebrity, finding someone with a huge Twitter following, someone considered an authority in the literary world, or someone who is just plain famous and mentioning them on Twitter can be effective.  Don’t expect results, but it does happen once in awhile.  Scan through their Twitter feeds and see who is good about responding to or re-tweeting their fans.  Or find someone popular but not so popular that it is impossible for them to respond to everything that they receive.  Ex: Kim Kardashian is not likely to re-tweet you or respond, but Camille Grammer stays very on top of her Twitter mentions.  If you get re-tweeted or mentioned by someone with 10,000 or 100,000 followers, chances are, someone out of all of those people will follow you back.

6. Account Linking: You can link your Twitter account to automatically update your Facebook and vice versa; however, you should use caution in doing so.  A status update with hashtags and at-mentions is likely to annoy your Facebook friends and a Facebook status update will not do much to expand your reach on Twitter, as it is free of hashtags and at at-mentions.

7. The Twitter Updater: When you make changes to your blog, The Twitter Updater will automatically publish your Twitter account.

8. Twilert: Sends you an e-mail alert whenever someone tweets about your name, product, book, or a particular keyword.

9. Humor, Creativity, and Common Sense Tweeting something funny, clever, or eye-catching is a lot more likely to increase your re-tweeted tweets and get people to follow you, click your links, etc.  Don’t forget, people can use applications like Muuter to technically follow you but not actually have to hear from you, so make sure that you are a valuable part of their social media experience.

10. A social media professional. Twitter can be fun, rewarding, and a great tool to build your presence and customer base; however, it can also be confusing, time-consuming, and frustrating.  If you just don’t have the time or the skills, find a social media professional, Twitter jockey, or internet marketing company to take the guesswork out of Twitter.

Need help with writing, editing, publishing, or book marketing? thepublishingguru (at) gmail.com