Ask Annie: Meeting People on Twitter, Hanging Out, and Getting Found
By Annie Neugebauer | May 9, 2015 |
@AnnieNeugebauer WU Twitter question. Writers “meet” each other on Twitter. How? How do people “hang out” with Tweets? I’m a noob. :)
—Abigail Welborn @AbigailFair
This is a great question! The answer is simpler than it might seem: they tweet to each other. If you don’t include a handle (a person’s username following the @ symbol) in the beginning of a tweet, that tweet goes “public,” meaning it will appear in all of your followers’ timelines. (Do keep in mind that all tweets are technically public, and that if someone wants to find them they can.) If you open a tweet with someone’s handle as the very first thing, that tweet goes to that person specifically, and only people following both of you will see it in their timelines. (There’s a brush-up of @ mentions here.)
So how do people meet and hang out? They have conversations by tweeting back and forth! That’s really it. To “meet” someone on Twitter, you usually follow someone who looks interesting and tweet to them to say hi, introduce yourself, or comment on something they’ve tweeted. If they’re interested in socializing, they’ll usually follow you back and answer your tweet(s) with their own. A conversation can be slow and ongoing, where each person responds every few hours or days as they happen to get on Twitter, or it can be concentrated and brief if both people happen to be online at the same time.
It might sound overly simple, but that’s really all there is to Twitter. You find people, connect with them, and maintain that connection by occasionally having conversations. Thanks for the question, Abigail, and welcome to Twitter!
What is a good way to get discovered on Twitter?
[pullquote]The most reliable way to get discovered on Twitter is to do the discovering.[/pullquote]Hi Barbara! Thanks for this question. I’m going to assume you mean “get discovered by people who want to follow you” and not “get discovered as a writer (by agents and/or editors, etc.).” If you mean the latter, my answer is: I have no idea. (If I did I’d be famous already, jeeze!) But if you mean the former, here are my thoughts.
The best and most reliable way to get discovered by other people on Twitter is to find them first. Seems backwards, doesn’t it? But it’s true; most people find other people by following them back. This is especially true of people who’ve been on Twitter for some time. So if you’re newer and/or interested in broadening your following, the most sure-fire way to get discovered is to find others and engage with them. If you follow someone and open an interesting and friendly conversation, like I mentioned in the question above, they’ll notice you. They’ll check out your profile and see if they think you could be compatible. Then, hopefully, at least some of them will follow you back and engage in a conversation. Voilà: discovered.
Of course, there are other ways to get discovered. One of the most important is by having a thoughtful bio description in your profile. What kind of people do you want to draw? Make your description match that, and choose key words that they might search for to find someone like you. For example, I made sure I have “horror,” “poetry,” and “@WriterUnboxed” in mine. I would like to note that a word does NOT have to be a hashtag to be searchable in your profile description. I don’t recommend cluttering your profile with hashtags.
Speaking of hashtags… they can also be a great way to increase your discoverability. Want to be found by people who like the same things you do? Include a relevant hashtag when you talk about that thing, and they might find you in that hashtag’s timeline. For example, I want to meet other people who are going to the conference I’m attending this weekend, so I’ll be using #WHC2015 a lot over the next few days to help them find me. I’ll also be watching this hashtag timeline to find other people, which circles back to my first point; the most reliable way to get discovered is to do the discovering.
Which brings us to the end and a final note: I’ll be at a writing conference this weekend! (If you’ll be at World Horror Con in Atlanta, please come say hi! I always love meeting fellow Unboxeders!) I’m going to be busy stuffing my brain to capacity with writerly goodness, so I’ll be later than usual responding to your comments here. But please do leave any questions or thoughts you have below, and I’ll read them and respond just as soon as I’m back home and recuperated enough to be coherent. :)
Do you have a question about Twitter that you’d like answered here on Writer Unboxed? You can leave your question in the comments below, fill out this quick, easy online form – there’s an anonymous option if you’re shy – or simply tweet your question with the hashtag #AskAnnieWU. (You can send them to me directly @AnnieNeugebauer as well.) I look forward to getting more of your questions!
How do you meet people on Twitter? What’s the craziest way you’ve been “found”? Extra tips, funny stories, and random ponderings are welcome in the comments below.
Annie Neugebauer is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author with work appearing and forthcoming in more than a hundred publications, including magazines such as Cemetery Dance, Apex, and Black Static, as well as anthologies such as Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 3 & 4 and #1 Amazon bestsellers Killing It Softly & Fire. She’s a member of the Horror Writers Association and a columnist for Writer Unboxed and LitReactor. She’s represented by Alec Shane of Writers House. She lives in Texas with two crazy cute cats and a husband who’s exceptionally well-prepared for the zombie apocalypse. You can visit her at www.AnnieNeugebauer.com for news, poems, organizational tools for writers, and more.
Hi, Annie,
Thanks for this piece. And you’ve highlighted one of the most important parts of good Twitter operation: the importance of the bio.
In addition to your good points about it, I’d just riff along this way.
When you say, “thoughtful bio,” I’d add not a joke, not a cute line, not a quote from stupid things your spouse says, not a reference to yourself as “Gladys and JoJo’s mother,” not your cat’s favorite place on the windowsill, but good hard info. News we can use. Data.
Remember, the bio is how we (power tweeters) find you. And you want us to find you.
If you have a book out, for God’s sake put the title of that book into your bio. Put the word “author” into your bio. Do you have a publisher? Put that publisher’s name in your bio, and use the company’s Twitter handle, as in @StMartinsPress. Always use Twitter handles on Twitter. That’s what they’re for. They “light up” in the system and let their owners know you’ve used them. So don’t write “St. Martin’s Press,” write @StMartinsPress. Don’t write “Harlequin author,” write @HarlequinBooks #author.
(I’m going to disagree with you, cordially, about not using hashtags in a bio. I say use anything that lights up on Twitter, anything and everything — the entire idea is to get connected, and that’s how it’s done.)
Basically, the mistake I see made by so many in Twitter bios is that they (a) don’t think of what other people need in order to find them and (b) don’t use the power of Twitter’s devices (hashtags, handles) to energize those bios.
Heres how these mistakes play out:
(1) I learn that a new book called NEW BOOK is coming out this month.
(2) I decide that I will tweet the upcoming release of NEW BOOK for its author. I was delighted to do this just this week, in fact, for @WriterUnboxed contributor @ErikaRobuck whose new THE HOUSE OF HAWTHORNE came out from @BekrleyNAL on Tuesday. https://amzn.to/1IZotws
(3) So in hoping to tweet up NEW BOOK, I check that author’s name: It’s John Doe.
(4) I dive into Twitter’s search to find John Doe, the author.
(5) I find 28 people named John Doe. Not one of them has a bio that says “author.” Not one of them has a bio that says NEW BOOK, the title I’m looking for. Not one of them has a bio that says @TORBooks, the publisher of NEW BOOK.
(6) So I can’t find the right John Doe, the author. He hasn’t put enough actionable, clear data into his bio to make him identifiable. Instead, his bio reads “I make up shit for a living and people buy it.” He thinks that’s funny. I don’t. It tells me nothing, it’s just him being what he thinks is cute or clever or something. The only way I have of searching 28 bios is by logical keywords such as book, author, NEW BOOk, Tor, etc. And he comes up under none of those things.
(7) Result: John Doe and his book don’t get tweeted. I move on to another book. Why? Because I’m not going to waste any more of my time and none of my tweets — impressions of which may be amplified thousands and millions of times — on a book and author I can’t even identify.
John Doe has just lost out.
This probably sounds a bit tough, but this is the reality of a system that depends on identifiable data as its currency. To your first questioner’s issue, sure, you can “hang out” on Twitter.
But if you want Twitter to help you move through marketing channels and into reader consciousness, you need to remember that Twitter is a creature of data. Everything on Twitter is data. What data you put into it will have huge influence on whether Twitter helps lift you or leaves you in the dust.
John Doe got left in the dust on his book’s launch because he didn’t take the few minutes of time and the simple steps of logical thought to create a decent, useful, actionable, findable, discoverable bio. What a waste, huh?
And John Doe will now be standing around telling everybody that Twitter did him no good and is a waste of time. What a dude.
Thanks, Annie!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi Porter,
I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you; I was trapped in Atlanta for a couple of days after my conference (and typing on a smart phone is just no fun).
I think you have some really great tips in here! I disagree with a few of the things you’ve said as well, but I think much of this comes down to how you want to use Twitter. Most writers starting out now are not going to get famous by tweeting. They’re probably not going to be “discovered” that way, either, and I have my doubts about the number of Twitter followers who can be successfully converted into actual book sales. Frankly, I don’t think Twitter is good for that unless you’re one of the few people who got in at the right time and built a big empire before things became crowded. (Or if you’re already well-established, in which case it’s a great place to connect with readers and remind them when you’ve put out new work.)
For the average Writer Unboxed reader, I think the goal is to network, not promote. Promotion is necessary, but in today’s social-oriented platforms it can quickly turn to work against you. Over-promotion is the number one reason I unfollow people—even famous people. Most readers are on Twitter to connect, not be advertised to. They’ll tolerate some advertisement and marketing if the personal content is primary and interesting, but anyone whose primary goal is publicity is limiting the reach of their content because today’s followers are savvy, and me-me-me is off-putting.
I think you and I use Twitter differently. Your point about handles and hashtags “lighting up” Twitter’s features is great! I totally agree about using actual handles instead of names, especially if those names/handles are someone big like @WriterUnboxed or @TorBooks, etc. I love hashtags and have recommended the use of them many times in my column here. But at the same time, I caution limiting the number of them (in bios and regular tweets alike), because to most computer users, links—which is what handles and hashtags become—look like requests. Click this, click that, read this, buy that; a cluttered bio or tweet is visually off-putting and makes the user look spammy and low on quality content. It hurts my eyes; I move on.
And while I absolutely agree that bios should be primarily functional—you have great tips about including the primary ways people would search for you—I don’t think a little joke or sense of fun is out of line! I’ve followed many people whose bios were so clever they made me smile or laugh and want to chat with them. I want to connect with people who have personalities, not just credentials. I want both; content and fun—business and social interactivity. If I didn’t want ANY fun I’d just use LinkedIn (ha!).
So in essence, I think everyone needs to find their own path on Twitter. Some people might want to aggressively seek out “power tweeters” and try to use every element of technical data-boosting they can get their hands on. They might try to talk loud and often, and that can absolutely work for some people. But others, like myself, would rather build human connections a few at a time. I want to meet people, talk to them, and I don’t want to be constantly hounded by requests, so it’s important to me that I don’t constantly hound others for requests. And of course: there is lots of middle ground here.
Thanks so much for all of your thoughts and tips, Porter! It’s always great to hear other people’s takes on things so our readers can be well-informed on all of their options.
@AnnieNeugebauer, thank you for answering my question. Yes, I meant “get discovered by people who want to follow you” although getting discovered by an agent, editor or publisher would be nice, too. It’s been a while since I submitted my question. As a retired woman, I’ve been using Twitter for writing practice. With its 140 character limit, Twitter has helped me see how I can say the same thing in fewer words.
In January 2015, instead of retweeting and tweeting tweets pertaining to writers and writing, I began retweeting and tweeting political tweets and retweeting vegetarian photos. I reasoned that politics and vegetarianism were likely to have a different, if not broader following than writing. (Sorry, writers.) I like the way Twitter allows a link to my website (parkcollege1961-1965.blogspot.com), so I can still be found through that link in my profile.
I recently discovered two benefits of the Search Twitter function: 1) entering the word “politics” brings up a list of political sites and writers. 2) Search all people for ____ (insert a name) at the bottom of the search page helps find the correct Deborah Smith.
I’ve also changed my Twitter bio to show I’m passionate about getting @CondoleezzaRice to be a Democrat again and run with @SenWarren to become the first female administration.
Annie, thank you for your thoughtful comments to answer the question I asked. And have a wonderful time at #WHC2015.
Hi Barbara,
I had a great time at the con; thank you! Yes, Twitter can be great for teaching us which words we can do without. :) I’m glad you’ve found a new and perhaps more apt audience to aim for. That’s a tricky but powerful thing.
Twitter’s search feature is actually pretty great. You can also search for more than one thing at a time. For example, you can search with someone’s handle and a key word to see what pops up. Or you can search for a hashtag and a key word. For example, type “@WriterUnboxed Twitter tips” into the search bar to see what Writer Unboxed tweeters and contributors are suggesting for Twitter users.
I’m glad I was able to use your question. Thanks again for sending it in, and good luck with Twitter!
What a wonderful post, Annie. May I also add that to encourage people to follow you, you should be interesting and active. I try to post something silly at least once a week, retweet and favorite posts from writer friends and keep my blatant book marketing to a minimum. That said, buy my book. Puh-leese. Only kidding.
Thanks so much, Besty! I absolutely agree. Interesting and active and friendly! Fun and generous and only thoughtfully self-promoting: that’s most people’s ideal Tweep. Who doesn’t like good content and a sense of humor? :) I’m much more likely to check out the book of someone like that than of someone who tweets the link to their book-buy page seven times a day!
Great questions and answers, Annie. I understand what Porter is saying about the bio, but when I see tons of hashtags in a bio my eyeballs can’t take it in. I’m not kidding. I end up not even reading it most of the time. I’m probably missing out and I realize that Twitter has that data piece that Porter addressed . . . but too much “data” in the form of hashtags and many @(handles) can cross the line from human to robot.
Thank you, Nina! I couldn’t agree more. I want people, not tweeting machines. Everyone has different taste and tolerance levels, I guess, but I’m with you whole-heartedly. Link soup just looks like junk to me.