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Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of Briana Morgan’s authortube videos. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of Youtube as a social media site, but she has a great selection of writing tips and hosts a live write-in every month on her channel if that’s more up your alley. My app of choice is Twitter, so I’m going to share some of my tips for writers just starting out on social media.
(Disclaimer: There are no hard rules to follow on social media. These are just tips I’ve gathered from my years as a social media coordinator and adapted for Writer Twitter.)
The first step is the most obvious: make an account! For me, Twitter is the most convenient site for writers, so it’s important that you start yours as soon as possible in order to build up your community. (Note: I didn’t say build up your followers — we’ll talk a bit about followers later.)
When choosing a username, it’s important to think about memorability. You’ll want to choose something that relates your name or your penname. Most writers have “books” or “writes” in their username. I am one of those writers — @kaywritesya. Kay is my penname, and the genre I write in is YA. Plus, I think it sounds catchy. Most well-known authors will usually go with their full name, and you know it’s them by the little blue check mark beside their name.
Once that is set up, you need to gain followers. The easiest way to do that is to follow likeminded people. Do a search for “writer” or “author” and narrow it down to people — this will come up with accounts who have those terms listed in their bio.
Do. Not. Unfollow. As soon as they follow you back. This is the worst possible practice, and you will lose more followers than you will gain. When you’re just starting out on Twitter, seeing an uneven followers-to-following ratio is a bad look. That means you only care about the numbers, and not about creating lasting relationships in this fabulous community. Follow people you find interesting — start with your favourite authors, then search through the people they follow, and work your way down to the people who are just like you — writers who are just beginning to play around with social media.
You can curate your feed however you want. That means blocking and muting the accounts you don’t like and the words you don’t want to see. There is an ugly side to every social media site, and Twitter is no different. If someone comes into your mentions and starts saying things you don’t agree with, block them. If you’re worried about seeing the latest Game of Thrones spoilers, mute those words. Your feed is yours to do with as you please.
One of my favourite features is the turn off retweets function. I follow people who use Twitter as a fun, micro-blogging site. I want to see tiny snapshots of their life and their writing. I don’t want to see content from an account I’m not following, and some people are way too liberal with that retweet button. Every time I follow someone new, I hit the little drop down menu next to the follow button and their retweets don’t show up in my feed. Their quote retweets still will, which is an excellent function in its own right.
(Use this function at your own risk. Retweeting is a great way of getting more people to see your content, and to see other people’s content, but it can bog down the stuff you really want to see in your feed. If you want, only turn it on for specific people.)
Don’t stress if you spend years with only a few hundred followers. I have been using Twitter as an author for over a year, and I only have 421 followers as of writing this post. I am thankful for every single one of them. I don’t tweet about my writing nearly as often as I should, but that’s what I like about Twitter. You don’t have to always tweet about what you think you should tweet about. Had a great lunch? Tweet it. Saw a cat in a tree? Tweet it. Add a picture if you can. You don’t need to go viral; you just need to have relatable content that reminds everyone that you are still a person.
That’s where building your community comes in. This is your space. Make it fun, make it witty, make it whatever you want. The writing community is vast (and problematic and annoying and daunting and every other adjective imaginable). You are not going to please everyone, but you will have a great time with the community you build if it’s the right one for you.
That means engaging and participating. Do your part and engage with other users. This is the easiest way to build up your community. If you see a tweet you like, give it a heart! Maybe even retweet it. You can even — gasp! — comment on it! That shows your followers that you are actively enjoying what you’re seeing.
I have a terrible habit of not commenting enough. I like as many aesthetic posts and selfies as possible, but I rarely comment on them. It’s in part due to my own anxiety about coming off as annoying, but chances are, plenty of people feel the same way. Some friendships start with a simple gif comment, and you’ll see comment threads that last days. (Side note: Please untag people when you want to reply to something. This is especially important for Follow Friday posts, where there are many users tagged, and you only want to reply to one person.)
Do your part. Engage with the community. Participate in monthly hashtag games. Another thing you can do as a Twitter newbie is enter contests. Many authors or publishing houses will hold contests to win book swag or ARCs. All it takes is a simple retweet and the courage to understand that even as a writer, you are allowed to participate. But please do not go overboard on the contests. Remember that people are following you to see your content.
Twitter is fun. In many ways, it can be the most fun social media site for writers. It’s less formal than Facebook, and focuses more on the words than an image-sharing app like Instagram. After all, writers like to write and readers like to read. That tasty doughtnut you had for dessert is definitely worth sharing in 280 characters 🍩
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