You didn’t “trend” … and other subtle Twitter confusions

If you google “Twitter mistakes,” you’ll find a whole slew of big-picture twitter snafus to avoid. While those are (usually) good, that’s not what this post is about. This is just an FYI on some of the smaller Twitter misunderstandings that tend to confuse people (and me when I try to explain them – so please ask questions in the comments if I didn’t explain something well enough).

1. You didn’t really “trend”

Have you lately noticed a lot more tweets like “Yay! We got #randomhashtag to trend!” than you used to see? There’s a reason for that.

 Twitter recently quietly changed the default trends you see on twitter.com to “tailored” trends that are specific to both your geographical area and the people you follow. How can you tell if you’re seeing tailored trends or not? Click on the word “Change” at the top of your “Trends” list.

If you are seeing tailored trends, you’ll see something like this:

If you want to, you can click on “Change” to choose to see trends that are worldwide or for a specific country, including the US – or even to a specific city.

I prefer tailored trends because I have not seen the word “Bieber” in my side bar since they made the switch – but I do occasionally look at them just to see what the world is talking about. Note: If you follow a wide range of people (i.e., not just publishing industry people), your tailored and national trends are going to be similar.

There is good news, though! Assuming you follow people who are similar to (or influence) your target audience, you’re still reaching who you want to reach!

2. Limiting your tweet’s audience 

Here’s another thing a lot of twitter users don’t realize: If you start a tweet with the “@” character, only the people following both you and the user belonging to the “@” will see it in their stream. Meaning, people who follow you, but don’t follow the other user will not see your tweet. For example:

@mtgreviews is my favorite book blogger! Check out her review & giveaway of PIVOT POINT! mtgreviews.com/book-review-pi…
— Sarah Nicolas (@Sarah_Nicolas) February 21, 2013

(Yes, we currently have the same avatar, sorry for any confusion this may cause!)

In this tweet, I’m probably trying to tell all my followers about Jenna’s awesome giveaway, right? (Seriously, go enter. And follow her. *ahem* back to the post…) But only those who follow both me and Jenna will see it in their stream. This means I am not reaching anybody she hasn’t already reached with her own tweets.

“But I can still see it.” When I try to explain this to Person 1, they sometimes go to Person 2’s page and point out they can see Person 2’s tweets to users Person 1 doesn’t follow. Yes, you can see it on their page, but not in your own stream.

So when you’re posting a tweet that you want all of your followers to see, you can either reword it so it doesn’t start with “@” or start your tweet with “.@”



I definitely didn’t intend for this to turn into “This is how you’re doing twitter wrong,” so how about we go in the positive direction with some little-known features of twitter.

3. Turn a user’s RT’s off

Do you know someone who you love to follow because you love their original content, but hate that they RT every single thing Justin Bieber (or whoever) tweets? I think we all know someone like that. It’s a tough decision: keep following them and put up with the ridiculous RTs or unfollow them and miss out on their awesome original content.

 You don’t have to make that decision.

Twitter allows you to turn off RTs from an individual user. Yes, a lot of clients allow you to do this too, but twitter.com itself has a way. Go to that person’s page (I’m going to use Jenna again as an example but I know she won’t take offense… right?) and click on the little button to the left of the Follow/Following button:

Easy, peasy!

 4. Twitter’s Advanced Search 

Twitter has incredible search functionality – but so few people know about it! To use this, start by using the usual search function – however you access it. You will see results like those below for “#sunshinetour.” In the top right corner of the search results there is a gear symbol, click on that and then click on “advanced search.”

You can then use any of the options shown below to narrow your search. Again, I’ll use Jenna as an example:

You can also use this to narrow your search when you are searching for something that is part of a common phrase. For example you can enter “lady” in the “any of these words” field and put “gaga” in the “none of these words” field.

(Seriously, play with this one. It's fun!)


That’s all I have today – but please leave any questions you may have in the comments! Anyone who’s been following this blog for a while knows how much I adore social media so I’m always happy to answer general questions. I hope I’ve helped!

Twitter Chats for Writers

When I first started getting serious about both publishing and twitter, I learned a lot about the industry and the market through twitter chats. (I will forever owe a debt to Colleen Lindsay and her #askagent sessions.) I also met some of my earliest writer friends this way.

Twitter chats these days are much more frequent, numerous, and organized. I highly recommend them for aspiring authors who want to learn more about the industry/market and meet new friends. Here are a few regular chats I know of. Let me know in the comments if you know any more:

• #yalitchat - Every Wednesday from 9 pm to 10:15 pm EST. Focuses on Young Adult topics. Three weeks out of each month there are guided discussions. The remaining week is always an open discussion.
• #indiechat - Every Tuesday at 9pm EST. Focuses on self-published topics. Hosted by The Indelibiles.
• #nalitchat - Every Thursday at 9pm EST. Starts this week! Will focus on New Adult topics.
• #kidlitchat - Every Tuesday at 9pm EST. For YA and MG writers.
• #mglitchat - Every Thursday at 9pm EST.
• #scifichat - I think this is every Friday at 2pm EST.

 Tweetchat

The best way to follow these chats is to log in to www.tweetchat.com with your Twitter account and enter in the hashtag you want to follow. The website will show only tweets including that hashtag, whether or not you follow the tweeter. The stream auto updates, but you can pause it and change the refresh rate. Additionally, every tweet you write from that window will automatically have the hashtag at the end so you don't have to worry about remembering it. Additionally, you can choose to feature a person (such as the moderator or featured guest) and block people (like spammers or trolls).

Tweetchat is not the only way to follow a chat. You can also use your desktop/mobile twitter client (like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite) or go old school and simply use search.twitter.com.


I hope to see some of you around #yalitchat and #nalitchat this week! (Say hi if you see me on there!) Let me know if you have any questions about writerly Twitter chats.

Twitter: Please stop this

Ok, guys, I know I talk about Twitter a lot. I can’t help it, it’s done so many good things for me and I want it to be as helpful for you as it was for me. Usually I keep this conversation positive: How-to, tips & tricks, etc. But today, I want to talk about things people do on Twitter that piss me off.

This picture is only tangentially relevant

No seriously, if you do these things, you need to stop. You’re probably losing more followers than you will ever gain.

1) #ff (Follow Friday) everyone you follow (or lots of people). Your followers really don’t need to see you tweet everyone you follow. They could go to your following list if they want that. 

Also, it’s annoying. And insincere. 

 

2) Start a self-promotional tweet with “Worth the RT?” Worse: Start every self-promotional tweet this way. For me, this is an automatic unfollow and you should feel lucky that we’re not in the same room because I really want to slap you. 

If it is worth a RT, people will RT it without you asking.

Note: This is not for those tweets where you really need a lot of people to see it for less-than-selfish reasons. Like if you’re looking for a person who does a specific thing and/or is in a specific area. (Like my tweet that said “I’m looking for book bloggers, writers, etc who live near Orlando, please RT.”)

3) You have your own Twitter account and you manage another (for a business, your book, etc). Stop tweeting the same thing from both accounts at the exact same time. I know TweetDeck makes it ridiculously easy. You know what else is ridiculously easy? Eating pizza every day for every meal. That doesn’t mean I should do it.

I follow two accounts. I want two separate streams of posts. For an example of how to do it well, check out @bookgirl96 and her company @kmspr 

4) Vague passive-aggressive tweets that are obviously about someone specific. This doesn’t piss me off so much as make me worry it’s about me. Please stop.  

5) Tweet the same tweets over and over again. Don’t think we notice? We do. (Especially if they are self-promoting or you think they’re super clever.)

One self-pubbed author, whose twitter I enjoyed otherwise, would post the same exact one-line pitch for her book every day with a link. For months. It was like Chinese water torture. I recently unfollowed her. I will never see anything she has to say about her next book.

6) Post only self-promotional tweets. I will keep saying this until everyone gets it: Twitter is a conversation. Would you walk up to a crowd of people trading publishing jokes and pictures of Ryan Gosling and say “buy my book” every three minutes? No? Crazy, right?

I know our readers have some Twitter Pet Peeves. Go ahead, let it all out in the comments below!

(Yeah, I also have a problem with softening my angry posts with lolcats.)

*tap, tap, tap* Is this thing on?

Grinning, I plop down on the couch next to my sister. She raises her eyebrows so they almost look like question marks.

"I got a query rejection today," I say, still smiling like I used to on ice-cream day in kindergarten.

Her eyebrows now fall into a crease. She knows query rejections are usually followed by chocolate consumption, wallowing and/or a glass or three of wine. She is probably wondering if I've finally snapped. "Why are you --" she begins but, in my excitement, I interrupt.

"The agent said she recognized my name from Twitter and blogs."

"Oh," she says. It's all she needs to say. Because she's supported me on my writing journey since day one - and because she's my sister - she understands.

---

I put a lot of effort into my social media presence and I often sing the praises of twitter and blogging for writers. But even I have doubts sometimes. Is anybody really paying attention or am I just talking to myself on here?

So that little line in that email from the agent? It was like a warm wind filling my sails after several days of stagnant air. Yes, it's such a small thing to get excited about, but we really must celebrate even the tiniest of victories on this long obstacle-laden journey - if only to fend off cabin fever.

Critics will point out that I was still rejected. While that's true, I received a personalized email with a specific reason as to why. Which, as any querying writer will tell you, is golden.

What's my point? It's the same one I've been making all along: Social media can truly have a positive impact on your writing career, even before a book deal. It's worth it; someone is paying attention.

In the spirit of this post I invite all of you to post your social media links below - and to follow, interact with, encourage, build relationships with each other. I'll start.

Twitter @sarah_nicolas
My blog at www.sarahnicolas.com
My tumblr

And if you do go over to my blog today, I'm talking about a new interactive blog project I'm pretty excited about!

The Case for Twitter

I often teach basic social media classes for local writers and artists. The other day I was consulting with a writer who recently retired to focus on his writing. I was telling him about blogging and forums when I casually mentioned cross-posting on Twitter.

"Oh, I draw the line at Twitter," he said, nose high in the air.

"Actually," I said. "Twitter is often the first step I recommend."

"Really?" He shifted in his seat, uncrossed his arms and focused entirely on me. "Why?"

I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir here on YAtopia, but Twitter often gets a bad rap. If you mention the word in a room full of 100 people, you'll average about 97 eye rolls and pointed sighs. Explaining Twitter to people is very difficult, especially if you're explaining it to someone who already thinks it is dumb or pointless.

So, to answer this writer's question: Why Twitter?

1) It's easy.

I know it sounds confusing, but Twitter is probably the easiest-to-use social media platform. You only have to communicate 140 characters at a time - no longer-form blog posts required. You can engage as much or as little as you want to - though the more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it.

2) Learning.

The literary community has adopted Twitter in a big way. There is a wealth of information being shared about the publishing industry and the process of getting published. From literary agents (like @literaticat, @elanaroth, @bostonbookgirl, and @DeidreKnight) to published authors (like @veronicaroth, @kierstenwhite and @TaherehMafi) and organized chats (like #yalitchat, #askagent and #kidlitchat), it's like getting a full-scale education on the publishing industry.


3) Community.


Writing is often a lonely endeavor and there probably aren't many people in your life who truly understand what it's like to pursue publication. Twitter is a ready-made pool of thousands of writers who will be there to encourage you and celebrate with you through this trying journey. Some of the people I most heavily rely on (emotionally, when it comes to writing-related things) are people I've never met in person.


4) Privacy.

With Twitter, you only share what you want to share. On the other side of it, people can follow you without you following them so agents and editors are more open to sharing on Twitter than Facebook, which (more or less) requires you to give your followers access to all of your other information.

So, for those of you who don't 'get' Twitter. I'm going to ask you to check it out. You may have to give it some time before you really get in the swing of things. Feel free to follow me, I'm here if you have questions.