What should authors tweet?

Twitter can be a great marketing tool, but many authors have no idea what to tweet after they've announced that their book is available. On the flip side, many authors tweet all day long about things that are so irrelevant and/or annoying that it makes me not want to read their books.

Here's my advice for how to do it right:

If your book is non-fiction, a smart marketing strategy is to position yourself as an expert in a particular area, and Twitter can help you do this. Let's say your book is a guide to financial management for parents with young children. Of course you can tweet tips and statistics pulled directly from your book, but you can also tweet interesting tidbits, articles, and general news about financial management that aren't in your book. You can even provide links to information about parenting in general. The key is to be seen as a trusted resource for information that is relevant to your target reader. (If you write novels, like I do, you can tweet about writing or publishing, or maybe even things related to the themes in your book.)

Twitter can be a great way to build a fan base for your work

How do you find this information? One way is through Google Alerts. If you set a Google Alert for a particular term (e.g. financial management), the search engine will notify you any time that term pops up in a new piece of online content. Then you can quickly evaluate the link and decide if it's something you want to share with your followers. (To set a Google alert, do a web search for the term "Google alert." It's very easy.)

The key to building a Twitter following is to provide useful information in a consistent manner. Unless you're a celebrity, people don't care what you ate for breakfast (except maybe your mom).

-Maria

Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of the romantic comedies Perfect on Paper, It's a Waverly Life, and Honey on Your Mind. She also provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.

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Comment by Catherine McNamara on September 21, 2012 at 1:55am: There is a lot of uninteresting banter on Twitter - not for nothing does it employ the word twit! I too find myself at a loss more often than not, and could probably use some instruction on how to make it work for me. Grateful for your comments

Comment by Maria Murnane on September 19, 2012 at 10:06am: @Frances, I'm glad you found it helpful. Another great resource for articles to Tweet is http://alltop.com/, run by my friend Guy Kawasaki. Definitely check it out!

@Daphne, for fiction, I also created a Twitter account for the protagonist of my novels (@WaverlyBryson). I have her tweet funny stuff in character to give existing and potential readers a sense for what they'd get if they read my novels. Perhaps you could do something similar?

Comment by Frances Brown on September 19, 2012 at 9:49am: What a great blog. I am one of those people who sits on Twitter wondering what to tweet. I find myself following the timeline looking for someone who tweets something I can retweet or respond to. I was not aware of Google alerts. I've already set up two. Thanks so much for this very useful information!

Comment by Daphne Q on September 18, 2012 at 5:55pm: Hi, Maria. Thanks for the post. Any advice for someone writing a fiction book?

Comment by Maria Murnane on September 18, 2012 at 3:38pm: @ Anne, I usually tweet about writing and grammar, which often earns me new readers for my novels (romantic comedies) because while people may originally find me for writing tips, when they click through to my blog posts they end up liking how I write a with a sense of humor. :)

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