Six Twitter Surprises

What's Twitter, I asked?  A Social Media site.  You must be active on Twitter to sell your book, I heard in reply.  I posted here a while back about finding out how to forget trying to read the whole stream of Twitter and get in.  Go ahead and follow me/follow you in excess.  The stream of Twitter is a lot like a real water stream.  It is constant, it has molecules of every dead king and live star, it is always moving and never the same, and there is no way you can experience it all.  That was my first surprise.  The second one was hearing things before they officially happened.  In the Arab spring we all know this now.  Tweet before news even after repression.  But that's a surprise we all got at about the same time.  Here's something else I, who thought of Twitter as an outgoing publicity machine, never expected: moments of transcendent beauty.  Instant poems that transfix me as the stream rushes by.  Referrals to lightning storms set to gorgeous music.  Images of volcanos erupting.  Moons covered with frost flowers from a winter window.  And moments of connection with people I really don't know were another surprise.  A young woman whose cat died.  A man whose father never hugged him even once.  Simple, direct appeals to the open universe for support by these tweets.  And fifth is the #ww and #ff system.  These symbols are for lists of people (tweeps) you recommend for others to follow.  If they like you, they might like them too.  And it's a good way to reward people who follow you and put you on their #ww and #ff lists.  Last, but by no means least, there are hashtags.  Want to find authors?  Go to #writers or #authors.  Want to work with working writers?  Go to #amwriting.  There you can even go to the associated web site and post a bio.  Want to read writing tips?  Go to #writingtips.  Writing memoir?  Go to #memoir.  You can even make up your own hashtag and start including that in your tweets.  If you're irresistible, others will follow and you can manage the hashtag list.  There is a heck of a lot more to Twitter than I thought!  Enjoy.

Fun with Twitter

Two or three weeks ago, a writer friends and I both had Twitter accounts with perhaps 20-30 people following us, maybe following about the same number of people.  The other day, I clicked on her name and she was being followed by about 300 people.  I was amazed.  I don't know if that's good, but probably it is, especially when both of us have new books out we hope people will read.  So, I asked her how she did it.  She told me she picked two categories she wanted to emphasize and followed lots of people in those categories.  Then, she used hashtags to recommend these people to each other for following purposes.  I had no idea about hashtags, but I've spent about a week playing with them on Twitter, and found out some interesting things.  If you see a tweet with #something in it, you can click on that (it's a hashtag) and get a list of messages about that.  So since I wanted to find memoir writers, I clicked on #memoir and read the tweets looking for ones not YA, not over the top, not boring.

 I followed a lot of those people.  I also tried other categories, and some of the people Twitter recommended on the special tab at the top of my home page.  I soon was following 100 people, with 30 following me.  Then, I picked out a few really good ones and listed them after this hashtag, #WW  or #FF.  They thanked me for recommending them, and some followed me back.  I retweeted some of their special comments.  More followed me.  I'm creeping up, now at sixty, which is twice where I started.  It's a bit addictive, though, you can lose an hour if you're not careful.  But I suspect just a few tweets a day will keep things going once I've ratchetted up a few rounds.  It's very interesting to read the tweets about writing and see all the energy that goes into writing and reading in these days when we keep hearing that books are dying.  I think they won't, but ebooks are growing more and more important.  Anyway, in case you need to have a Twitter presence, I thought I'd pass on the glory of hashtags.  Have fun!