Twitter Tips for Authors

Reach Your Audience … 6 Quick Twitter Tips for You:

1. GET the Most Bang

Know when to Tweet and where the audiences are. According toRadiumOne, there are two peak times during the day to Tweet:

10AM to 12PM and 8PM through 10PM

That’s it, at least for now. If you want to see the most shares, with the highest click-through, you should be Tweeting from 12 noon to 2PM. Remember, Tweets are global, which means global times zones. These cover the basics and a broad span to optimize your visibility.

Of course, this content regulation changes based on where your audience is. Key point: Connect with your audience when they are online.

2. Mix It UP

Variety is the spice of life and so it goes with your Tweets. Yes you can self-promote, but your promos are at the bottom of the feeding chain. Don’t OD your followers. If you have a special event popping, do a “fair warning Tweet—let them know that your stream will be heavy for a few days, then get back to supply terrific info.

Mix it up with approximately 40-50 percent of other people’s Tweets (as in a RT-Retweeting) and links; and 40-50 percent keyword/industry related content to highlight and brand you as a key thought leader and expert. When you are linking to your own articles and blogs, those would be included within this percentage. Somewhere in-between the 80-100 percent, you will slip in the straight-out “promo” for yourself to showcase what you do and have.

3. Get Your Peeps Attention

Snappy, Sassy, Salty is what you should be thinking. Grabbers plain and simple and to the point. Peeps like numbers—Top 10 lists, or 5 lists or any lists like Tips, Snafus to Avoid, How to, etc. Give them a promise; ask a question; or a goose, meaning a call to action—sometimes a “go-go-go” does the trick.

4. Watch Your Words

Numbers, meaning characters, count. Twitter is a land of 140 characters, including spaces and punctuation. Do yourself a favor and limit to 120 or so. That allows for easy RTs of your entire message vs. forcing the RT to edit your message so resend to his or her crowd. Seems logical, yet most max out their Tweets. Help your followers out.

5. Don’t Limit Your RTs with the Wrong Handle Usage

One of the great secrets in Twitterland is the misuse of the “handle” of a fellow Twitterer. At this stage in the game, you should know that the “@” precedes your Twitter name. I’m either@MyBookShepherd or @AuthorU, depending on which line I’m Tweeting from.

If I Tweeted:

6 quick Twitter tips to reach your audience pronto

from the @MyBookShepherd and you thought you wanted to share it with your followers, you might say this:

@AuthorU: 6 quick Twitter tips to reach your audience pronto

Nice … but wrong. If you want to start a Tweet with a “handle,” put a period in front of it, like this:

.@AuthorU: 6 quick Twitter tips to reach your audience pronto

That’s because the Twitter elves see it as a reply and it just goes back to me. A better way would be to put it like this:

6 quick Twitter tips to reach your audience pronto @AuthorU

and you get rid of the need for the period and save a character!

6. The Great Hashtag Debate

Do you or don’t you use the magic # sign in front of a few words in your Tweets. My answer is a quick “yes.” Limit it to two or three and find your Tweets landing in spots and on other Twitter streams. Most likely, you will gather new followers. Think of Hashtag land is an estate with various houses scattered throughout. If you are an Oprah fan, you will find that she uses #SuperSoulSunday; I’m a The Voice fan—at the bottom of the TV screen, scads of #TheVoice appear throughout the program of other fans Tweeting their likes; and if you watch many of the news programs, it’s common to see their running footers with hashtag commentaries and to hear the anchors asking you to send your comments into the show with a preferred hashtag.

For me, I Tweet often, using #book, #author, #amwriting, #getpublished, #authoru #marketing, #pr, #bookcoach, etc. Areas that I want to reach out to get my words and thoughts out to, as well as connect. The question isn’t whether you should or shouldn’t use them. The question is: when are you going to start?

Judith Briles is known as The Book Shepherd, an author and book publishing expert and the Founder of Author U, a membership organization created for the author who wants to be seriously successful. She’s been writing about and conducting workshops on publishing since the 80s. Judith is the author of 30 books. Her latest, Author YOU: Creating and Building Your Author and Book Platforms, is just out. Join Judith live on Thursdays at 6 p.m. EST for Author U – Your Guide to Book Publishing on RockStarRadioNetwork. Follow@AuthorU and @MyBookShepherd on Twitter and do a “Like” atAuthorU and TheBookShepherd on Facebook. If you want to create a book that has no regrets, contact her atJudith@Briles.com.