Tweet No. 43,265: Does Twitter Help Authors?

I recently surpassed my 43,000^th tweet.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2009, a few years before I started blogging.  For a while, I hardly tweeted. I was more of a voyeur, observing what others were saying.  I spent some time seeking to get more followers, which proved more time-consuming than I thought it was worth.  I understand why authors feel it’s a big time-suck and low on ROI, but there is value in building up one’s Twitter presence.  It gives you a platform to share ideas, connect with others, and shape a brand.

In the past year and a half, I’ve come to use direct tweeting a lot. Some days I may send out up to 120-150 such tweets.  Of late I’m tweeting out my annual book marketing and PR toolkit. Feel free to tweet it out:

Happy #Holidays! Free Resource: 2017 #Book #Marketing & #PR Toolkit http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/2017-all-new-book-marketing-book-pr.html

Yes, that was a shameless promotion!

I do find that many hits to my blog come from my Twitter activity. You just never know which posts will resonate with people or get shared often.

Twitter is also a good exercise for those who want to delay Alzheimer’s from settling in.  It forces you to create a thought-mode to fit your message into its tight 140-character limit.  It’s like piecing a puzzle together.

I also use Tweetdeck, which is a great way to schedule your tweets.  If you want to Tweet at 3am, there’s no reason to be up at that hour.  Why tweet then?  There’s less competing traffic.  If you do it on the EST, it’s only midnight in the West and it’s 8 am in the UK.  I schedule a tweet an hour.

It adds up.

From Tweetdeck alone, I will tweet 8,760 times in 2017.  If I direct tweet 50 times per work day, that’s another 250 per week- or more than 10,000 tweets in 2017.

I rarely read the tweets of others. I use Twitter as a one-way street -- a microphone -- to get a message out.  Could I be doing something else with my book marketing time, something with more reach and/or less annoyance?  Perhaps, but I’ve grown dependent on the thing I despise.  I begrudgingly admit that Twitter is a necessary evil.

Twitter is better than telemarketing or handing out fliers in the parking lot of your supermarket.  It’s still less effective than other methods, but it has its place in today’s book marketing arsenal.

Do you tweet?  How often”?  Whether you’re up to your 423^rd or 42,300^th tweet, keep at it as long as you see progress.  Otherwise, find something else.  

Twitter is like the boyfriend you know you should leave but you haven’t quite found someone better yet.

All-New 2017 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit 

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/2017-all-new-book-marketing-book-pr.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.

Named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby 

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs