The Social Braggerts - These people tweet mostly to toot their own horn. Their Twitter feed is filled with posts about everything they’ve accomplished, how awesome they are and the latest accolade they’ve earned.
The Sunday Funnies - These people may not be comedians in real life but they aim for it on Twitter. Their posts (either real or invented) are designed to amuse and may give some insight into their lives, but mostly it’s about the laughs.
The Everyday Folk - These people generally tweet about their everyday life. If they went to the grocery. What they bought. The three times they sneezed in a row. They share things little and big, some of it interesting and some of it not.
The Home Shopping Network - Twitter is for marketing! All other uses are frivolous and beneath these tweeters. Their Twitter account exists for one reason only: to promote their book and they will shout and tweet and bombard you with info about that book 24-7. The HSN tweeps also tend to band together so they will follow liked minded people and occasionally retweet their posts as well. It’s a marketing brother/sisterhood with everyone shouting as loudly as they can: “Look at my shiny, fabulous book! Buy it! Buy it now!”
The Middle of the Roadsters - These people are a mix of the other four groups. They post funny tweets, everyday tweets, the occasional tweet promoting their writing and the occasional tweet when they’ve got something to crow about.
Personally, I mostly follow Middle of the Roadsters and those are the sorts of tweets I try to create. HSN people on Twitter exhaust me and perhaps I’m wrong but I just don’t feel that’s the most effective way to promote yourself and your book. Twitter is about personalities. If people like YOU they may decide to take a look at your book. If all they want is to find something new to read there are better places than Twitter to go.
Twitter is unique in that it lets us connect with authors and others we wouldn’t otherwise get to interact with. I admit I’ve danced around like an over-sugared five-year-old after an author I fangirl replies to one of my tweets. Best. Feeling. Ever. And I love following other authors, getting a glimpse into their day, what they’re working on. People like Maggie Stiefvater, Jackson Pierce and Maureen Johnson, all well known published authors, entertain me to no end with their Twitter hi-jinks. For me at least, Twitter is about the people first and the books second. Though let’s be candid for a moment, I’m a book addict, almost everything comes back to books eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment