Twitterpated

Scrolling through my Twitter feed this morning, I noticed someone saying that no matter how interesting a person sounds, they won't 'follow back' if the person isn't engaging with their followers.  I took that to mean doing things like having conversations in tweet form.

Ummmmm...

Yah....

Totally not good at that.  Hell, I'm not good at starting conversations with the people I follow on Twitter, let alone engaging in witty repartee.  Sometimes, with friends, I can achieve something like that.  Banter.  Chat.  Whatever. 

I can do that in person.  Sometimes.  Occasionally, 'hey, can I help you reach that?' at the Walmart (because I'm tall and they aren't, or they're old and I'm not) turns into fifteen minutes of conversation.  Yes, I can turn an offer of aid into a conversation if I encounter the right person. 

I can do that via email. 

I haven't yet found a way to do that on Twitter.  I'm wordy, for one.  Trying to encapsulate everything I want to say in a 140 character blurb is exhausting.  And I detest longer tweets that are broken into segments (pt 1 of 3? Do they have a program for that?) because I have a tough enough time following a tweet thread without having to piece together a sentence from disconnected parts. 

I do enjoy chat.  Facebook chat.  Gmail chat.  The problem with that is when someone wants to chat and damned if I don't have something else I have to do right when they want to chat.  I'd chat all day, if I could.  Heh, that's pretty much how I managed to bomb my last year of college - too much time chatting on the mainframe.

Another part of the problem with all the socialization stuff is that I don't want to be a bother.  Or sound stupid.  Or be weird.  If I don't know you that well, I'm less inclined to take the risk of coming off like a total freak.  If I know you well, you already know how much of a freak I can be, and you're either okay with that or not.  LOL

Anyway, I guess whoever that was on Twitter won't be following me back.  And I'm okay with that.  I am who I am.  If you're out there and want to engage with me, I'll engage right back, but don't expect me to start the ball rolling. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be sitting over here against the wall, watching the world go by. 

Hashtags

Okay, so I admit to not being the most Twitter-savvy person on the planet.  Hell, I'm probably not the most Twitter-savvy person in the Ozarks, and that's saying something.  Still, I think I might have a little insight and I'd like to share it.  As always with online advice - especially from a non-expert - take what works for you and throw the rest out.

Anyway, there are these things called hashtags.  For the less-initiated than me, it's pound-sign and you put it in front of other words or phrases to bring wider attention to your tweets.

Say you have 500 followers.  They'll see what you tweet.  But there are millions of twitter users.  If one of those millions do a search for tweets about a specific hashtag, they'll see your tweet whether they follow you or not.  I think.  Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure.  The reason I think this is because when I started using hashtags, I started seeing more follows and more sales, and people started re-tweeting things I'd said, even though I know they weren't following me.

Not exactly scientific, but it seems logical to me.

What hashtags did I use?  Well, for Dying Embers (which I tweet about as #DyingEmbers), I added #suspense.  Now anyone who searches Twitter for #suspense will find my tweets about my book.  (Amongst the many thousand others, so it's still needle in a haystack, but at least my needle is in there.)  For Accidental Death (#AccidentalDeath), I did #mystery.

And when those books were on sale for 99 cents, there's a handy hashtag already in use - #99cents.

Now, you can make any hashtag you want.  A friend of mine regularly hastags whole sentences like #Imhavingawesomeday or #cannotbelievewhatisawtoday.  But I suspect those will only very rarely draw someone to your feed.  Good thing for us all that as soon as you start to type #, Twitter offers you suggestions.  They aren't always what you're looking for, but they can give you an idea of the different things people are looking for out there.

Use the search box to help you find buzz words, too.  If you're lucky and your book is about something that's already trending, you're in like Flynn.  If not, you just have to hope that someone looking for #booksaboutmurder will find your mystery or suspense or thriller.  And your #mysterywithcats has a following.

I think it's all about finding what works for you, trying different things, and staying on top of how people might find your books.  And really, that's all we can ever do.

Any hashtags you use regularly to help people find you?  If you're not a writer, and you use Twitter, what hashtags do you search for?  I used to have a saved search that helped me look for agents accepting twitter queries. 

The Tiring Marketing Part

Now I know why some people pay other people to do their marketing.  It's a tiring process.  Tweet, post, chat, blog, respond, comment, submit, lather, rinse, repeat.

But it's necessary.  Because when you stop - even for a day - sales trail off.

I took the weekend off.  I just couldn't bring myself to say another word about anything related to my books.  (Yes, I still tweeted because it takes like 5 seconds - but my tweets were lame because my heart wasn't in it.)

And yes, I realize that if you're following me closely, you may have seen the same sort of tweet, nestled in between witty repartee and interesting information, several times.  Those repetitious tweets aren't for you.  They're for the people who may only read a tweet from me every once in a while.  And for new people.  Do me a favor and ignore them.  I promise not to tweet only about buying my books, but understand those sales tweets have to be sprinkled in there along the way.  Otherwise, B.E. don't sell no books, and no sales means I'll have a harder time publishing more books down the road.  (The well of fundage is not infinite.  It's finite.  Very very finite.)

I want to keep doing this.  I love doing this - even the tiring marketing part.  I have books already lined up and more books coming.  Basically, I want to still be writing and publishing my books when I drop over.  In order to do that, I have to sell books, and in order to sell books, I have to market them.  So, be patient with the commercials.  You never know when one of them is actually telling you something you want to know - like a new widget is out or there's a sale on your favorite widgets, or whatever.  And like I said, I'll try to sprinkle them in with things that are actually enjoyable, interesting, educating, or witty. 

Thanks again for your support.  You rock.

(And no, this post wasn't for my staunch supporters who know me well, but rather for those who don't and might choose to stop following me because they feel like all they're seeing are ads.)