Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Author Twitter Etiquette by Yahong Chi


Self-promotion is crazy easy now. Creating an account on any major social media site is extremely simple; posting links to your latest blog post or cover reveal is instantaneous and effortless. But it's also never been easier to be impersonal. Or worse, annoying.

We all know a few ground rules: no auto-DMs to anyone who follows you, no following a whole bunch of people just to get follows back (i.e. you're not actually interested in conversing with them). But even if you start out with good intentions, you can fall into habits that will turn off everyone who follows you.

Don't retweet everything said about you. This seems vain and is supremely irritating. Not only are we unlikely to take Bobby Rae's gushing about your book to heart, but we probably already like you and/or your book. Unless it's Kirkus Reviews or another bestselling author, we don't need to be swayed.

Twitter now even has a "Turn off Retweets" for a user you're following, which shows you that this is a definite widespread problem.

Talk about more than your books. A reminder: Twitter is a social media platform for conversation. You want to sound like a genuine person! So talk about your cats, the movies you're excited for, the political parade going through your town. Then, when you do talk about your books, people feel a little more familiar with you, and won't mind clicking through your link.

Near your release day or another major event, you naturally will be tweeting more content related to your books. This is fine!—for a short period of time, say, a week or so. The key is to transition back into normal, I'm-a-real-person-not-a-promotion-machine tweeting.

Don't reply to all tweets with periods in front of the user's handle, or put the user's handle at the end. This makes all your followers view your tweet, not just the followers who follow both you and the other user. There's a reason why Twitter is set up the latter way—we don't need to see out-of-context conversations or dozens of inane "Thanks for the #FF @[username]!" tweets.

Of course, if the tweet has information or content you'd like to share and stands alone, this is perfectly fine. But like everything else, it must be done in moderation.

The takeaway from all this? Don't clog up people's feeds. An overwhelming social media presence might just be worse than no social media presence. And think how you'd want your feed to look like. Remember that Twitter is a conversation tool.

Do you agree? Disagree? How do you use or view Twitter?

15 comments:

  1. Another tip: unlike the Kardashians, be careful about scheduling Tweets. Otherwise you may end up sending out something insensitive on the same day a tragedy strikes.

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    1. Yes! I believe this is a problem for many official publisher accounts, too.

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    2. Amen to that! Matt, I thoroughly agreed with a recent FB comment of yours: "schedule" and "tweet" do not belong in the same sentence.

      And I do not agree with the response you received. Self-publishing is not an excuse for doing it. I DID self-publish, and I didn't do it. I just worked harder.

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  2. As a blogger and librarian, I am quick to unfollow any author who only tweets about their book and/or only retweets reviews & comments about them.

    I do love hearing about works in progress, # of words written (and # of words excised during rewrites = valuable insights for my student writers), research on current/future books - these are the tidbits which help connect authors and readers.

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    1. Oh yes, Katy, that's definitely fun! It helps break that invisible wall between author and reader, I believe, and offers great insight into different kinds of writing processes.

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  3. I'm retweeting this immediately! (Yahong, I have to say that you are an exemplary Tweeter--it's great to get to know you and converse with you through Twitter. I wish more people had your savvy.)

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    1. Oh, thank you so much, Mike! I think I talk a little too much about random stuff to be "exemplary", but I appreciate the compliment very much. You're so fun to talk to on Twitter, too!

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  4. Great advice! Twitter is still a bit of a mystery to me.

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    1. Thanks, Rosanne! Hehe, yeah, if you're confused about Twitter, this probably won't help. :P

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  5. Yes to everything on here!

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  6. Yahong, I loved this! More authors need to know this -- and I need to unfollow lots of people. There IS a basic etiquette to Twitter, and you're only doing yourself more harm than good by breaking it!

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    1. Yes, I definitely end up unfollowing people who don't follow some basic courtesy rules!

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  7. I'm not a huge Twitter person, as I tend to tweet in bursts. But I agree with your points. I hate the self promotion when it ALL the author, or anyone, does on Twitter. A best-selling author just tweeted a week or two ago: Someone asked me why I don't have more followers. Any answers? So I said, "Because you ONLY tweet about your own work. Make it personal sometimes." Or words to that effect. And the clogging the feed thing is true as well, and if you get me during a game one of my teams is playing (especially a playoff game) you'll get annoyed with all my rants. I think it's understandable to have the clog on such occasions, like an Ottawa hockey game (Yahong!). LOL.

    One thing I hate writing related is agents who belittle queriers (vaguely, but still) with their "don't do this.." or "I just got queried with...hello, come on" or things like that. I tweeted about this a few days ago, saying if my agent did that I'd question her professionalism and tact. It simply smacks of elitism and pompousness and it's a turn-off. It'd be like a writer tweeting "hello, agents, do...." or "Editors, stop doing..." Can't stand that, and there are two or three agents I stopped following for this very reason.

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    1. Ahaha, you got me there, Michael! I think if we give a heads-up before going on a rant, then it's a little better... and we don't do it all the time. Good for you to speaking up to that author!

      Oh, and about those agents. Yes. It does smack of elitism. Some people enjoy it, but it can definitely sound rude.

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Thanks for adding to the mayhem!