36 Twitter Tips for Book Publishers

By Noelle Skodzinski

Tips for Maximizing Your Twitter Following

1. Retweet. “‘RT’ or ‘retweeting’ is simply taking a Twitter post from someone else and rebroadcasting it to your followers. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile.”
Source: Kevin Rose, TechCrunch guest post and Kevin-Rose.com

2. Cross-advertise your Twitter profile in other places, like your e-mail signature, networking sites, blogs, personal or company Web sites, and “everywhere else you live online.” Don’t forget in-person opportunities (e.g., business cards).
Source: Kevin Rose

3. Provide incentives for following. An example Rose cites is Jason Calacanis. “@jasoncalacanis offered a free Macbook Air if he reached the No. 1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers … brilliant.”
Source: Kevin Rose

4. Hashtag (see note below) your content. You can also join hashtag memes—conversations on popular “trending” topics.
Source: Kevin Rose

5. “Follow the top Twitter users.” Note the style and type of content. Track your traffic using tools such as TwitterCounter.
Source: Kevin Rose

6. Use Twitter plug-ins to make your posts more follower-friendly and easy to share (e.g., one-click option for retweeting).
Source: Marko Saric: “Make Your Blog Go Viral With Twitter Retweets”

About Hashtags: Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash (#) symbol (e.g., #ebooks). Hashtags were developed as a means to create “groupings” on Twitter, without having to change the basic service. … Hashtags were popularized during the San Diego forest fires in 2007 when Nate Ritter used the hashtag “#sandiegofire” to identify his updates related to the disaster.
Source: Twitter Fan Wiki
(Twitter.pbworks.com/Hashtags)

For better or worse, Twitter has become part of our culture. While some people still may not see the value in engaging on the online social networking tool, many do. According to ComScore Media Metrix’s October figures, Twitter had more than 20 million unique visitors in the United States in September. Many businesses find Twitter useful for connecting with customers, and publishers are no exception. “If you are a good Twitterer, people will trust you—even if you are a brand—and will trust your recommendations. And word-of-mouth is the best marketing tool,” says Malle Vallik, director of digital content and social media at Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.

Vallik says that, for Harlequin, there is no doubt about Twitter’s value. “We track clicks through a tool like bit.ly [see tip No. 24], and when you see the numbers increase dramatically, it is more than worthwhile.”

Another benefit, she says, is that it’s “fast and friendly. [It’s] not a big investment of resources, although it’s addictive.”

Here are Book Business’ 36 tips for using Twitter effectively from those who have quite a few tweets under their belt.

Tips from … Jesse McDougall, Co-Owner, Catalyst Webworks (social media consultancy)
Twitter.com/jsmcdougall

1. After signing up for Twitter, cruise through WeFollow.com, Twit-Dir.com and the new Twitter Lists to find and follow folks in your niche.

2. Create several Twitter accounts based on the niches in which you publish.

3. Avoid the temptation to automate. It is important that you are on Twitter to respond to the community.

4. Sell books by adding substantive information from your books and authors to the conversation. No hard sales pitches, please.

5. Have fun. Invent new … ways to engage your Twitter community—contests, polls, jokes, raffles, giveaways, etc.

Tips from … Jeffrey Yamaguchi, Online Director, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Twitter.com/AAKnopf, /doubledaypub, /VintageAnchor, /PantheonBooks

5 Ways Your Company Can Benefit From Twitter

Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, is a frequent Twitter user (Twitter.com/MichaelHyatt), as is his company (Twitter.com/ThomasNelson). Here is his list of 5 ways he believes that using Twitter has positively impacted his company:

1. Visibility. Our use of social media has raised the visibility of Thomas Nelson in the marketplace. I had several tweets from people who said they had never heard of our company until they started following me or one of my colleagues on Twitter.

2. Personality. Generations X and Y have a fundamental distrust of institutions. They connect with people rather than organizations. Our use of social media has put a “face” on our company and made us more real and personable.

3. Connectivity. People don’t often connect with publishers. In fact, they rarely know who published their favorite books. However, social media have enabled us to connect with our customers in a way that makes them feel like they are a part of what we are doing—and they are.

4. Loyalty. Connectivity is good. Loyalty is even better. Many people responded that they actively seek out our products as a result of connecting with us on social media. This is something I never thought I would hear customers say about a publisher.

5. Leadership. Finally, our use of social media has positioned our company as a leader in our business segment. While many companies are sitting on the sidelines in fear, we have jumped in with both feet. We’ve certainly made our share of mistakes, but, regardless, people perceive this as leadership.

Note: Reprinted with permission from Michael Hyatt’s blog at MichaelHyatt.com.

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