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Saturday 3 January 2015

My Beginner's Guide to Twitter for Writers 2015/16





*THIS POST IS NOW OUT OF DATE. PLEASE FIND UPDATED VERSION HERE, PUBLISHED 23 JANUARY 2017* 

40 comments:

  1. Hi Anita, Love the new blog and will be following. Very informative and helpful.
    Lorraine RNA/ NWS

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    1. Hi Lorraine, thanks so much for your lovely comment, for following and for the retweet. So glad you found the post helpful. Happy New Year! x

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  2. Really useful advice, I never knew about the full stop in front of a name, not that I've done it, but I certainly won't now.

    Thanks for the excellent advice, Anita.

    Sue
    :-)

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    1. Thanks so much for reading Sue and for your comment, so glad you found it useful! x

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  3. Great post, Anita! Really helpful. I shall be following your blog avidly. Happy New Year! :) X

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    1. Thanks so much Jan for your support! Happy New Year to you too.x

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  4. I found it really helpful too – thanks, Anita! x

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    1. Thanks for reading Clare, glad it was helpful!

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  5. Great blog, Anita. Learnt quite a few new things and other points made me think - thank you!

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    1. Thanks so much for reading Kathryn, so glad you found it helpful! Happy New Year.

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  6. I don't have Twitter yet, but I plan to join sometime this year so your post will prove very helpful. I'm saving it. :)

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    1. Hi Chrys, thanks for reading and hope you find it helpful! Best of luck.

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  7. Hi Anita
    A GREAT article!

    Write or wrong, I tend to monitor who if following me - and if the "new follower" is not a writer or we have no other interest in common, then I'll block them. It probably helps that I'm very active of Twitter, but ALWAYS "live". i.e. no scheduled Tweets

    Which brings me on nicely to -

    Twitter (IMHO) works best as a "live media" When I get a tweet from someone I expect that person to be around so if I answer it, I'll get a reply fairly quickly.

    While I accept that writers hoping to penetrate the US or other international markets want to tweet in the right time-zone, this DOESN'T mean sending the same tweet 24 times a day!

    Just my 2p.

    And again, thanks
    John

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    1. Hi John, thanks very much for your comment and best of luck on the RNA's New Writers' Scheme (saw you mention on Twitter!). I agree re the live media thing, but don't think there's anything wrong with the occasional link to a blog post/new book promo at 1am UK time to catch any US followers, otherwise they don't always get to see these Tweets. I have a few US Twitter 'friends' who I chat to often and sometimes they kindly RT my blog post links overnight (and sometimes we chat when I have insomnia, or when they do!). Obvs, the same tweet over and over again all day and night isn't effective though ;-). Re blocking, not sure if it's the way to go in that situation (some info from Twitter here: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170134). Think blocking is intended more for someone who is Tweeting dodgy content or who mentions you in not a nice way. If you don't follow back, then this follower can see your Tweets, but you can't see theirs, so is there a need to block them?. They won't know they're blocked unless they go into your profile-and then they could become offended if they've done nothing wrong (perhaps not worth offending anyone unintentionally if you intend to publish a novel?) Thanks again for reading my post and for your feedback, much appreciated. Happy New Year, and hope to meet you at an RNA event!

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  8. Good information and advice. Thanks!

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    1. You're welcome! Thanks very much for reading, and for commenting.

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  9. Hi Anita, I've only been using twitter a couple of months, and found all your info tremendously helpful. Like most things, I jumped in without knowing what I was doing after watching and reading for a little while. To be honest, I still have that not quite sure what I'm doing feeling! But your information is great, thank you :-)

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    1. Hi Julie, I'm so glad that you found the info helpful! Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment :-)

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  10. Thanks for sharing such detail, Anita - look forward to further posts!

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    1. You're welcome Rosemary, thanks so much for reading!

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  11. Great post, Anita. Full of good advice and I've now added a "Twitter Follow" button to my blog. Thanks for sharing. x

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    1. Thanks so much Jude! Glad you found helpful.x

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  12. Brilliant, informative post as always, Anita - and of course I've re-tweeted!

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  13. Hi Anita, I've just been working my way through this. I only joined Twitter at Xmas and have been guessing at it somewhat. Thanks for the helpful advice!

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    1. Hi Helen, I'm so glad you found the post helpful! Thanks for visiting and for your comment :-)

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  14. Thanks for the great article. Very helpful and I will be subscribing to your blog. I do have a few questions: 1) Can you explain to me what an "impression" is? 2) If promoting a blog or review, what is an acceptable time spread to schedule posts (i.e. every 2 hours?)

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    1. Hi Laura, thanks for your comment, and for following my blog. Glad you found my post helpful. Here's a link re impressions http://marketingland.com/facebook-twitter-impressions-90878. There are quite a few posts on this via Google. Re your second question, it's a personal thing really. I wouldn't tweet a link to my blog more than twice a day (UK times) probably, when I first publish the post, then once a day for around a week; then every now and again. It's worth taking time zones into consideration-you could schedule tweets at 2am for example to catch US followers. Using a relevant hashtag means Tweets can be picked up after they are tweeted, so it's worth doing that where possible.

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  15. Oh boy, my head is spinning, but I now have a much better idea of those terms. Thank you.

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  16. Just trying to move into Twitter effectively so very helpful, Anita.

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    1. Thank you Jean, am so glad you found it helpful!

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  17. When I see all the comments it reassures me to know I m not the only one who needs lessons on using twitter. Many thanks for such a wealth of information

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  18. You're welcome Gwen, so glad it helped. Thanks for reading!

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  19. Back again to say I've just re-read your fab post.

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    1. Thanks Wendy for all your support, and glad it was helpful!

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  20. This will be a very helpful posts for lots of people, Anita.

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    1. Am so glad it's helpful, Anne! Thanks very much for your support here, and on Twitter :-)

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  21. Thanks for this. Much needed, as am a novice and possibly doing things all wrong.

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