Thursday, April 19, 2018

Tweet-Twit-Twitter ... Aw, Whatever!







by Linda Thorne

Is it me? When I found a publisher in 2014, Black Opal Books, they sent me their standard to-do list. The salient points were: get an author website, join Facebook and Twitter. As soon as I finished my website, I joined Facebook for the first time and mucked around learning how to maneuver through it.

Twitter was a whole other animal. I’ve spent what I think is excessive time trying to use all the online instructions and posts to figure it out. I’ve followed my author friends, which I think is good, but I’ve also followed too many other people recommended to me by places I’m unfamiliar with.

Lately, all I do is tweet my public posts (like this one) on Twitter, but other than that, I don’t participate much. I find myself avoiding it.

I wanted to title this post: To Tweet or Not to Tweet – That is the Question, but if any of you googled anything with a couple of the words I just wrote, I’d look like a copycat. Those words are all over the internet. So, there are others out there feeling pros and cons.

If I felt strong enough about Twitter as a useful tool, I think I’d need to get a BA in chirping to “get it.” The tweets are so short. Who is the audience I should choose? Are there written instructions that don’t look like a master's thesis?

I find myself avoiding this very popular site I started using in 2014. Some authors swear by it, and some waiver. What about you?

6 comments:

Morgan Mandel said...

I use Hootsuite most of the time for Twitter. I can schedule posts there and also check my feed and see who retweets me as well.

authorlindathorne said...

I've heard of Hootsuite before. I'm yet to figure out how to use these groups on Twitter.

Unknown said...

Twitter is easy for me, but Goodreads is a mystery, and I really don’t care for Instagram... I’m not a fan of any social media, but Tweets are quick and easy. I hear Instagram is where you it’s at, but it’s not as clear in their notifications . I lose too much writing time playing with it all.

authorlindathorne said...

Zari, for Twitter, I just feel I don't know when to use it or how to make it useful and nothing I've heard or read gives me any direction. I use Google rarely and have not heard anything positive about what it might do for us. If I can't adjust well to a popular Twitter, then Instagram is not something I want to go near.

Unknown said...

I prefer Twitter to Facebook as it's more "professional" & business-like. I too use Hootsuite. And I too am not a big fan of social media. It's great to connect with other authors but I am trying to connect with readers - much harder. Thanks for sharing post, Linda. Best wishes. Mollie x

Marilyn Meredith a.k.a. F. M. Meredith said...

I don't use Twitter as much as I should. Others do a great job with it, but not sure how much it helps. I do use Facebook a lot, and love it.