Authors: When is it Time to Shift Gears on Twitter?

Authors: When is it Time to Shift Gears on Twitter?I’ve written multiple blogs and even a book about how to get followers on Twitter.  There are many ways to do this.  However, once you get to a point where you have lots of followers, then what do you do? 

Of course, maintaining your following is important, so we all must keep up with retweets and supporting our fellow authors.  But there does come a time, as an author, where we must shift gears.  Why?  Because what starts to happen is you just get so many retweets of your posts and tweets that you can’t keep up.  And it becomes so time-consuming that you must change your ways.

I’m very happy with my Twitter platform at the moment; at over 8300 followers (more than I ever dreamed I’d have) and a plethora of wonderful followers and supporters who have helped me so much I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am.  You all know who you are, and I thank you.  So what do you do with all your loyal followers?  The ones you want to be sure to support with retweets as much as possible?  You compile a Twitter list.  For steps on how to do this, please see a previous post.

Then you open your list daily and retweet only from that special list (or lists).  Still check your other retweets (so you can pinpoint who else is going to be included on your list) and respond to them if there are direct mentions, etc.  That is very important since one of the keys to author success is engagement.

As an author, I’ve also learned that it’s important not only to follow and support other authors, but to follow and support book clubs, reviewers, publishers, and any other key figures in the literary world that you may find in Twitter land.  They may not follow you back, but if they tweet your work or even a retweet of yours, it makes a much larger impact than you’d expect.

Full disclosure here:  the idea of using only the list for retweets came from a wonderful fellow author and blogger: Bad Redhead Media.  That one piece of advice has saved me so much time and frustration, I can’t even tell you.

Do you have any advice to offer?  Add your two cents in the comments below.

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About sandyappleyard

Sandy left her desk job in 2006 to pursue a full-time writing career. She's now the author of many titles, both fiction and non-fiction. Canadian born, Sandy is married with two children. Want to know more? Click on her bio or just ask!

3 Comments

  1. Thanks Sandy for raising this issue = on Twitter it is possible to become too popular and maintaining your Twitter presence could potentially take over your life. We need to realize that we are authors first, and we cannot neglect our writing. Priorities must be set, so any trick that will make it easier to handle Twitter while not keeping our followers loyal is really appreciated.

    • Absolutely, Ellis. It is so important to set your priorities. It is also far too easy to become addicted to social media and this is one way to prevent that from happening.

  2. Pingback: Best of the Web Book Marketing Tips for the Week of Feb. 10, 2014 | Author Marketing Experts, Inc.

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