Welcome To Wednesday Wing

Here we pass on Tips and advice to the Book Community

Today Terry Tyler is bringing us Part 1 in a series of #TwitterTips follow Terry @TerryTyler4

#TwitterTips

Part 1: Getting more followers

Rosie @rosieamber1 asked me to write a few short guest posts about how to get the most out of Twitter, so I’m starting with the basics—getting followers.

Much of Twitter’s effectivity is down to how many eyes see your tweets—so whether you’re promoting your book or your blog, growing your business or just hoping to entertain people/get your voice heard, it makes sense to give that number a boost now and again.

At the time of writing I have 72.3K followers, with very little effort – and no, I didn’t buy them! Don’t ever be tempted to do that, as those for sale are not real profiles, but spam accounts. Yes, a proportion of my followers are accounts trying to get me to buy followers, or porn stuff, people who don’t speak English or general spamming, but I do get followed by many real and interesting people every day.

I’ve found that once you get to around 10K followers, and if you are active on the site (using it most days, retweeting others), your following grows automatically, because you appear on the ‘Who To Follow’ lists.

Here’s how to expand your following:

- Follow others. Sounds obvious, but many don’t bother. Pro-active following will make you appear on ‘Who To Follow’ lists, too.
- How to find the right people? Enter the subjects that interest you into ‘Search Twitter’ at the top right hand side of the screen. For instance, you might choose ‘bookworm’, ‘book bloggers’, ‘history’, ‘reading’ ‘traveller’, etc. Then click on ‘People’. This will give you a list of all the people with that word mentioned in their bio.
- You can also put hashtags into the search, for instance #bookblogger #author #SciFiWriter #TuesdayBookBlog #bookreview, etc, and seek out People in the same way.

Just following 10 or 20 accounts every time you log on will soon get it all moving.

When you RT people on hashtag days such as #TuesdayBookBlog or #MondayBlogs, follow them, too, and follow anyone who RTs you. This helps to expand your reach out of your usual circles.
You’ve seen #FF, the Follow Friday hashtag? Use it! Click on any user names mentioned—any mentioned by others will be active Twitter users who interact, retweet and post interesting stuff.
Click on your ‘followers’ every day, and follow back anyone who looks useful/interesting. Don’t follow back spam or pointless profiles, or you’ll end up getting followed by more and more of them; it’s best to block them.

That should get it all moving! I started trying to grow mine about three years ago, just before I started a free promotion for a book; I was determined that as many people should see it as possible, so made it my aim to get to 10K followers. Just out of interest, I’d like to mention that my proofreading sister, @ProofreadJulia, has developed her whole successful business entirely through Twitter, from my original tuition about the site. Of course she is very good at what she does, and has a good business sense, but this just goes to show how powerful Twitter can be if used to its full potential.

Next Week: Expanding Your Reach

Here are links to previous Wednesday Wing Posts

Checking your WordPress is linked to your Twitter helps others share your posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7L2

Writer’s Craft books by Rayne Hall full of REALLY useful tips http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Ma

Hyperlinks, Short links and Linkys http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Rl

Making your post titles easy to share on Twitter to maximise views. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7SA

Creating Twitter pics that fit http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Y4

Creating a slideshow on WordPress http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Yo

Getting the most out of Google+ posts http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7YM

Automated Tweets, LOVE ‘EM or HATE ‘EM? make use of them http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-7Za

What’s Your Book Genre? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84S

Should you write dreams into your work? http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-84Q