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I have to admit that the whole concept of a twitter account confused me. How important or helpful could it be? As an older woman, I didn’t see the value of tweeting anyone! As a long-winded novelist who couldn’t write a short story if my life depended on it, I couldn’t quite grasp the appeal of just using 140 characters. Who would submit themselves to such constraints? I had no idea how important and valuable this internet tool would become to a writer who needs to get the word out about their work.

A younger writer in my local writing group laughed at my confusion and instructed me on the value of keeping in touch with the very young people who use twitter daily. Younger readers use twitter as we used to use the telephone! And realizing that the very readers  I was trying to reach were on twitter sealed the deal for me. First I had to understand the basic language of Twitter.

Trying to use Twitter without understanding the lingo is like speaking to the United Nations without a translator. So here are the basic definitions of the language of Twitter.When you sign up for a twitter account, one of the very first things you need to do is create a handle. What’s a handle? That is your twitter name. You have seen them. They always start with @.  Being creative, I came up with a unique and unexpected handle – my name at @karenkellyboyce. It is your user name and it shows up in every tweet you create. Many people create eye-catching handles that reflect their work, viewpoint or interest. I do not regret using my name. After all, I am trying to get my name out there as a known author. Some users (and I plan to try this myself) create handles for characters in their books. They answer questions and create conversations about current events as the character would. It can create quite a stir and spark interest in your book. However, starting out you need a basic handle.

One of the important uses of Twitter is the mention  of somebody else to promote them. You could also mention  yourself or have  another person promote you. For example, if I wanted to recommend another writer, publisher or friend the tweet I create would have their handle in it. Perhaps I would mention @ellengablehrkach. This mention would not help her at all! Why? Because that is not this talented writer’s handle. Always make sure that your know the proper handle of the person you are trying to promote. If you want to promote Ellen you need to use her real handle which is @ellengable. Now is a good time to try it – give our illustrious president a mention!

One of the terms which you probably know already is the link.  If you want to include a site where the recipient can buy your book, or read the article or like the blog, you need to include a link that they can just click on to connect. Don’t ever use your link first because spam tweets always start with a link and you will be ignored or filtered out. However, do use your link early so the reader can click on without searching. Now the dilemma with Twitter is that you are limited to just 140 characters and you don’t want your meandering link to use up all your space. That is why there are services that allow you to shrink those long links. Some of them are free like Hootsuite, Buffer or bit.ly. Some of them keep track of how many people clicked on your link.

One of the aspects of twitter that really confused me in the beginning was the hashtag. A hashtag is always started with the symbol #. In my day that was the symbol for number. However, hashtags are here to stay and in order to use twitter properly I needed to understand them. Let’s keep it simple. A hashtag is a topic or conversation that you want to follow or want be a part of. For example #childrensbooks or #presidentialrace. If you put a search in twitter it will direct you to all tweets about that subject. If you want your tweet to rise up when someone researches you need to include a hashtag in your tweet to identify it. For instance, if you are tweeting about your latest murder mystery you should place a hashtag in your tweet like #murder #mystery. In a sense it is like a tag on facebook.

There is still more to learn about how to use twitter as a marketing tool – next blog!

 

Karen Kelly Boyce lives on a farm in N.J. with her retired husband. She is a mother and grandmother. She is the author of “The Sisters of the Last Straw” series published by Tan Books. You can see her work and learn more about her on her website: www,kkboyce.com

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