Are you familiar with the poem I Meant to Do My Work Today by Richard LeGallienne? “I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in the apple tree…”
My mother used to recite that often, sometimes when one or the other of us had been enticed by something that seemed more alluring than things we knew we *should* do, such as reading just one more chapter instead of doing the dusting. I have been reciting it to myself lately when I think of Twitter.
I am aware that the best way to connect with the target audience for my books (well, future books) is to network on twitter, using hashtags intelligently. I have made some connections with kids’ theatres and such groups, both by following them and by them following me. I know that’s a good start…
But it’s just a start. I know that I need to be on Twitter more, to tweet both my own content and retweet others’ content on a regular basis. But the truth is, in the midst of all else I do in a day, I tend to forget Twitter. I have TweetDeck set up, with columns to search the subjects I’m interested in. But if I have it turned on, the constant updates are too much of a distraction — and if I turn off the updates, you guessed it, Twitter rapidly flies out of my mind.
Debbie Ohi has a detailed guide for writers using Twitter, entitled (very aptly) The Writer’s Guide to Twitter. Scroll down past the Admin posts to get to the real meat of the guide. It’s great, except that it doesn’t leap out of the computer every now and then and say, “Hey Beth! Go on Twitter for a little while!”
Katie Davis has what looks like a valuable course on social media, I Hate Twitter and Nine Other Stupid Things to Stop Saying…which I may take when I finish her Video Idiot Boot Camp.
Meanwhile, perhaps I need to set a couple of times a day to at least go on Twitter, retweet a couple of things, respond to a couple of people, and take it from there.
If you want to follow me — and keep me accountable — just click the little Twitter bird icon near the top of the dark blue sidebar over to the right.
Do you use Twitter? How do you make it work for you? I’d love to see your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.
Well Beth I think it would be lovely if we all had our coffee breaks at the same time and used a hashtag to find each other. Maybe #12x or something. I’m trying to find other places to share the great posts I see because I post too many links. I’m trying to upload a video now, maybe I should take that course too. See you on Twitter.
Good thought about a shared coffee break! (now to figure out that dratted time zone thing… 😉 )
The video course is amazing!
Oh Beth…you described me to a tea! I forget!!! I’m going to try to do better thanks to your post 🙂
There’s so much to do that it’s easy to forget various aspects of the whole social media thing, isn’t it? We’ll both try to do better. 🙂
Nice piece… that’s what I struggle with too… not even on Twitter but FB – it’s such a time hog.
I’m on FB way more than Twitter — it seems to work better for me, or maybe I’m just more used to it.
Thanks for visiting, Yvona!
I’m a relative newbie to the world of Twitter…heard about Tweetdeck but don’t know much more and don’t even know HOW to use hashtags properly. I have people who want to follow me and others I’m following. I post links to my posts as well as retweet stories and other things I find of interest…
I really need to learn more about it…maybe after I invent that 25th hour I need…lol…
Donna L Martin
I need to work on the hashtag thing. Tweetdeck is helpful especially if you want to have all the posts about one particular subject come up — you see things even from people you don’t follow, and it sometimes leads you to great connections. But it can be overwhelming at the same time.
Glad to know you’re working on the 25th hour thing. We all could use that! 🙂
I love Twitter. I especially like to take part in twitter chats.
Good for you, Rena! I’ve never been brave enough to try a twitter chat.
I don’t do much Tweeting. I have WordPress Tweet my posts, and I sometimes Tweet other posts I like from other blogs. I also Tweet exciting news about books coming out/that are just out, authors, etc. (but no gossip!)
Sounds good to me, Erik! And you’ve built such a following with your blog — I am so in awe of that accomplishment.
As they say, misery loves company. So while I am not happy about your struggle, Beth, it is good to know that someone else suffers from this malady! I signed up for Twitter and it’s cousins last year, but haven’t used them. However, at a recent SCBWI-WWA conference, even the illustrators were advised from an agent to use Twitter, Tumblr, and 8 other sites, not including FB! I am working on figuring them all out right now, and I cannot imagine how everyone keeps up with all these social media platforms! How many hours a day on average do you spend on networking?
I’m with you in wondering how others keep up with it all and still have time to write/illustrate/do much else! Gosh, I’ve never figured out how many hours a day I spend networking. Productive time rather than putzing around is the flipside of that question, also… Hmmm…
I can do Twitter or I can do FB…but I can’t handle both and still handle the rest of my life. 😉 I need to go check to see if I’m following you now…
I so hear you on that, Teresa! Maybe we just have to accept that we can’t do everything, and do our best with what we can do? 🙂
Beth, I finally got around to reading this. Thank you so much. Debbie Ohi’s “Writers Guide to Twitter” is extremely helpful.
Thanks, Alayne!