Twitter: a profound waste of time for marketing

[Montero]

To be fair, if they paid me $630,000 I would genuinely like them.

I've tried out Twitter a little, mostly following publishers and agents, but only ever posted one tweet ("yes please I'd like this month's giveaway book" - or something to that effect - I didn't get it.)
Yet despite being stunningly boring I gain followers...... Who go away after a while, then more turn up.

To me it is useful as a more reliable version of the RSS feed on websites. (The RSS doesn't seem to do the prompts I expect it to.)

 

[Hex]

So, a couple of thoughts, first that I like Twitter for finding out about people -- I don't tend to follow people I've never heard of who are always advertising their books but I'll check out the books of people who have been interesting about other things (so recently I had a look at One by Leigh Ann Copans who I follow because I like some of her tweets -- it's superhero stuff so a little out of what I normally read, but I'm thinking about it because I "know" her from Twitter. She has never tried to sell it through tweets.)

Second, though, many gatekeepers -- agents -- think Twitter is useful. That's it, really. I know nothing about all this stuff, and I wanted an agent at least in part because I didn't want to go about researching it, but even if I knew Twitter was absolutely hopeless for sales I'd do it because it's a way to show willing and play the game.

 

[mistri]

Twitter doesn't work if you use it purely for marketing. As others have said, it's an engagement tool.

I follow interesting authors/agents/tv critics/work colleagues/old friends/TV forum friends etc and there is always something going on. It's great for when you want to get an instant insight into what people think of the latest news or TV programme.

Every now and then a writer I don't know follows me. I thought maybe they want to chat about writing and follow about half back. But it's extremely rare that they respond to any of my tweets about writing (or in fact anything else) - they only seem to talk about their own books. Well, I'm not interested in that and will eventually unfollow them.

Some authors never promote their own books but are so interesting that I look up their work anyway, or they talk about their own books but only occasionally/when it make sense in the conversation.

 

[Montero]

Mistri - out of curiosity - how many authors do you find that you like their books after you liked their Tweets?

Partially thinking of conventions I've been to, where I've liked what authors said on the panels then found their books not to my taste.

 

[mistri]

There haven't been that many - because I was already aware of most the published authors I follow (and I don't expect them to interact with me anyway), but I have bought at least three (so not huge numbers) after seeing them talk online.

What I should've made clear above is most of the people who follow, then spam, are unpublished or self-published. I'd love to chat online with more would-be-published-authors like myself. But I can't do that if all they do is self-promote.

 

[Montero]

Just wonder whether Twitter is more important in terms of YA market - as suspect highest proportion of population who Twitter are those who grew up texting. (Not that I have any data on that whatsoever ).

In general self promo folks are often a bit OTT - Goodreads can be a bit swamped by them.

 

[StormFeather]

Tried Twitter - just don't have the time for it really.

But, I've found that Pinterest is quite good for pointing people to places that you want them to go - and in fact, one of my friends who works in Financial PR & marketing has admitted that they're looking for ways to use that site as it provides more click-throughs than any other forum. Did a quick search on Terry Pratchett and loads of pages came up - 'sff Chronicles' came up with 2!

Worth an alternative thought . . . . . ?

 

[Warren_Paul]

My experience with Twitter hasn't been remarkable either. All I see is random people following each other in the hopes it will get their name out there and known, and that people will notice them and follow them back.

In the end, it seems to be more useful as a social presence for people that already have a name for themselves.

 

[Montero]

Tried Twitter - just don't have the time for it really.

But, I've found that Pinterest is quite good for pointing people to places that you want them to go - and in fact, one of my friends who works in Financial PR & marketing has admitted that they're looking for ways to use that site as it provides more click-throughs than any other forum. Did a quick search on Terry Pratchett and loads of pages came up - 'sff Chronicles' came up with 2!

Worth an alternative thought . . . . . ?

Um. So I went and had a fossick on there for the first time and am somewhat baffled.

People post photos on topics - some very nice photos. They collect the photos into appropriate groups - DIY, My best recipes, or whatever.

You follow the group.

The rules say you must not make nasty comments.

Not yet seen HOW you make comments.

You can put a pin on a photo (not tried that yet) - which presumably pins it on your own pinboard.

What else is that people do on there and how is it supposed to work?
I'm not seeing anything for chatting, such as on this forum for example.

 

[MattC]

Thanks for posting this I, Brian.

For what it's worth, I've got around 300 Twitter followers, and I follow a similar amount. I would say I only actively read about 10% of those I follow, because 1) they aren't aggressively promoting or aggrandising their work; 2) their tweets are either funny, informative or generally entertaining; 3) they actually engage with their followers, having proper conversations rather than just using twitter as a bulletin board.

I confess, of the other 90% I tend to only follow them because they follow me first, or by following them I increase the number of my own followers (which is oddly how Twitter works, though god knows why).

My own use of Twitter, I guess in terms of percentage of tweets, is:
30% on news on what I'm writing and what is being published in the near future
30% on general musings
45% on conversations with the twitterati
5% on publicity (that's your basic, "by the way you can purchase my book from blah blah blah"). I tend to keep this to a minimum, mainly because when I read it constantly from others, it bugs the hell out of me.

I've found Twitter to be a great place to network and keep in touch with readers, but not for marketing (though I suppose the networking and the readership thang is another part of marketing anyway, but not explicit or aggressive). Echoing others on here, Twitter in isolation is a blunt marketing and publicity tool, just as blogging is, or Facebook. The problem is that tying them all together is time-consuming and for aspiring writers it can take up valuable writing time.
For newly published, or established writers though, I believe that it can be time well-spent and these days publishers are more likely to take you on if you have an online presence, including social media, regardless of how effective a tool it is.

 

[StormFeather]

Um. So I went and had a fossick on there for the first time and am somewhat baffled.

People post photos on topics - some very nice photos. They collect the photos into appropriate groups - DIY, My best recipes, or whatever.

You follow the group.

The rules say you must not make nasty comments.

Not yet seen HOW you make comments.

You can put a pin on a photo (not tried that yet) - which presumably pins it on your own pinboard.

What else is that people do on there and how is it supposed to work?
I'm not seeing anything for chatting, such as on this forum for example.

Hi Montero!

Pinterest works like an online pin board of all the things you see that you like - when you join you get the option to download a button to your browser which you can use on most websites, but not facebook, and therefore probably not twitter either although I've not checked that.

When you're on a site or blog of something that takes your fancy, you click on the Pinterest button, and if there are more one images on the page you choose which one represents that interest, and you 'pin' in to your chosen board. This pin then appears on the main homepage of pinterest for all other users to see. You can also tag the picture to help others with similar interest find it.

Anyone who likes the image, or is interested can click through onto the image and they will be taken to the blog/site where the image originates.

So, if a favourite author is posting about a new book, you could pin an image from their site onto your 'Books I must read' board (or similar - you name the boards as you see fit). Other people see that - some might start following that board, others might follow you overall. And anyone can click through onto that authors site and read the information for themselves if they're interested. Or do it for your own site or blog when you post something new - I did it with my scarves and got a few click throughs onto my blogs at the time. Too busy, and distracted to follow it up now though!

You can also link it to Facebook in that when you pin to a board, it'll pop up on your feed. You could probably do the same with Twitter, but, like I say, I really don't use Twitter enough to know.

Oh, and when you first click on the photo, it enlarges into a pop up box, and you have the option to 'Like' it, 'Re-pin' to one of your own boards, and or comment. A second click takes you through to the original page.

Does that help? I hope so - am tired so what is making sense in my head probably doesn't translate!

And, final edit - if you are at all crafty and have a vague idea about doing anything - knitting, sewing, painting etc, you can lose almost as much time on that site as you can here - type in something like crochet cushions (if such takes your fancy) and you'll be lost in amazing ideas and patterns . . .

 

[Montero]

Thanks, yes, that explains it.

Yes, there are some very beautiful photos on there.

 

[Warren_Paul]

It's a great place for finding entertaining photos as well on the humour boards. Had many smiles and laughs perusing photos on pinterest.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Just to update - these days I'm finding the response rate to be nearer 0.5%. This is from Google Analytics tracking of Twitter links.

That means my observation is that for every 1,000 listed followers for a typical Twitter user, only 5 are actually active.

This varies according to size, with smaller Twitter accounts tending to have the larger % of active users, usually because friends and family are involved. However, once a user gets in the 10's of thousands, the % of active users drops markedly.

Additionally, I've found what I can only describe as the Twitter equivalent of Ponzi schemes running - where users agree to follow their followers. This results in large no's of followers being recorded by a small number of people. The trouble is, the situation means that most of the time the users and followers are ignoring one another's Tweets, resulting in lots of people talking and nobody listening, except perhaps for a short period at the start, The result is that the 0.5% active figure is going to be far lower.

I'm also astonished and dismayed by how many writers, editors, agents, and publishers, are simply using Twitter as a marketing channel, when Twitter is primarily a communications channel. That approach is so backward it's unbelievable. It means that their Tweets are often nothing more than spam - both in terms of message, and how that message is treated. No wonder the active user rate for such accounts is so low.

2c.

 

[Nick B]

I use twitter because I totaly despise facebook. I follow a bunch of people I actively like to read - authors, actors, scientists, book bloggers and so on. I have a real distaste for people who follow you, then unfollow you if you dont follow them back, I mean, seriously shallow. My other pet hate is writers who literaly spam it with 'hey my book!' 'look, my book!' 'I'm at number ### on amazon!. I tend to mute or drop people like this.
I read people who tweet about their interests, or are funny, or have interesting things to say. I also look for possible book reviewers and bloggers, both to get ideas of what to read and as possible contacts for when I need exposure for my work.

 

[Dave]

Twitter doesn't work if you use it purely for marketing. As others have said, it's an engagement tool.

Brian - ^^ this!

I've effectively used Twitter to promote a community group but it has taken me 4 years to get 8,800 followers. You can't do that overnight. You can buy fake followers but they are fake followers. I estimate a quarter of my followers are not really active and probably the number actually reading my tweets is as low as you say. The odd tweet will gain a lot of attention but you are more likely to win the lottery than to have a tweet go viral. So, a new author, looking to promote a book should look to direct marketing. If you use it to promote your blog and have a book related to your blog, then that is entirely different. In combination with a Blog it can work very well. If you can run some promotional competition with free give aways that will work, but not until you have a substantial following already. If you are looking for customer feedback, that is different, though a better way would be through a forum, such as Chronicles. Starting a new Twitter account from scratch just takes too much effort if you are only looking for marketing purposes. For a start anyone advertising something is frowned upon by the community. People are looking for information, not to be sold something. I realise that Twitter and Facebook are being "weaponised" for marketing purposes but I think they will ultimately fail because of this.

On the other hand, I record TV programmes and fast forward through the adverts and there are a zillion channels. The spam that comes through my letterbox goes straight into the paper recycling bin by the door. So, traditional advertising isn't what it was either.

 

[NbDawn]

I run a retail website for other kinds of products and have used both Facebook and Twitter for years. You're right, they are both terrible at direct marketing. But they are good at establishing a name for yourself, keeping up a positive reputation, helping you gather a group of like-minded followers who can be helpful in other ways, and with establishing customer loyalty. I also recently found that when I stopped using Twitter and Facebook, the traffic, and therefore the sales, to my website went down dramatically. I don't think this was because my traffic came from Twitter or Facebook, though. I think it was because a large part of Google's algorithm for searches is based on how much social media a website engages in. So even though tweets and facebook posts aren't found in a Google search, Google still looks at how much people are talking about your website and will rank it above or below other similar sites accordingly.

 

[Boneman]

Well, I joined twitter since my last posting on this thread in 2013, and I'm momentarily nonplussed when someone with 250,000 followers follows me. 'Why?' I think...Can't be for my quick wit and repartee, because I rarely instigate a tweet, just comment on other people's. I follow authors and people I like, and that's it. It always amuses me to see people who followed me first, then unfollowing me some time later - "was it something I said?" I feel like saying. And I hate the marketing aspect, will unfollow them quicker than posting a tweet. Sam Sykes: brilliant guy, funny tweets, especially the owls, but his joke 'buy my book' postings ran thin, and I haven't bothered to look at his books. Sorry Sam, I like your persona, don't like the way you're presenting it. It's all personal choice innit?


Forgot to mention: as a one-man protest against the rampant lack of taxes paid by facebook/twitter my New Year's Resolution was to not go on those two for the last week of every month. That's this week, and I've got until Sunday night before my week is up. I've realised I only twit and facepalm when I'm bored, no other reason. Missed facebook more than twitter, mainly because I know all my facebook friends, and hardly know most of the twits (some double up, naturally). I never research on either, always use google (ooh, maybe I should stop using them for the last week, as well!) and I've done loads more writing this week!!

 

[Droflet]

Odd choice of name. Twit ter. Hey, each to their own.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Strongly support twitter. Since I don't text or tweet or what have you and don't have an account I think it's wonderful that all those people who would otherwise be bugging me on other channels have a place to go where they can annoy other people instead! More power to the twits!

Cheers, Greg.