Oh my word, I needed this. Like many others, I've been on Twitter for I don't even know how long, but I'm essentially a Twitter idiot. Now that my book is being released in March, I feel like I'm missing something BIG if I don't figure this out. But thank you so much for the reminder that no matter how much I hope Twitter increases my audience, it is unhelpful and unappreciated to simply Tweet my blog or book links. Any more basic, step-by-step tutorial you suggest?

In the past six weeks, I finally learned how to really use Twitter after being on it forever. The 90/10 rule of posting 9 times about others before posting once about myself has made a huge difference. My followers doubled once I started being a resource instead of a salesman. I use Hootsuite and love it for posting the same kinds of things on different sites at one time. Will be reading this entire section for ideas.

Great article, and timely for me; I've dedicated this week to researching and learning how to use Twitter for personal and business use. Still trying to get use to it, my biggest problem was grasping its purpose (I didn't understand the hype). However the article and the comments did help bridge that understanding gap. Thanks.

I am STILL figuring it out. Tweetdeck might help - and thanks for that. I'd like to get to the place where the famous writer found himself, sharing.

Needless to say I immediately stating following Margaret Atwood, a hero...and fellow Canadian.
Thx for this piece.

what's a 140-character word for fun?

I'm in the group like your writer friend who moaned about not getting it! I am learning, but I don't yet feel satisfied with Twitter. For example, a person tweeted this: "Obsessing." I mean, what is the point of THAT? I try to read and comment, tweet good stuff, etc. I have 65 followers, some of whom are spammers, I can tell, but many are good peeps w/ whom I share interests. I follow about the same number.

I attended a webinar about writing and followed it on Twitter just to see how it worked in that space. The tweets were, IMHO, fawning and slavish. They repeated the comments from the webinar over and over again. I tweeted a couple of times that the actual topic of the webinar hadn't yet been addressed, because I knew the hosts were following the tweets. THAT was kind of neat, that you could have realtime input - not that they adapted their drift back to the topic, tho.

I have heard that Twitter is great for asking questions, but I've asked a couple (e.g. best wordpress theme for easily displaying comments?) and haven't yet got a response. I have been able to get current info on things like the Iran student uprising, is Gmail down, earthquake in LA, etc., so that is a useful function.

So in a nutshell, I am still optimistic and willing to put in the time but so far it's not gratifying. I will try Tweetdeck again, tho, based on your suggestion. Thanks for writing this.

Thanks for an outstanding article. I downloaded Seesmic and found it immensely helpful. As a 50+ writer, I enjoy tweeting, so I don't think it's a generational thing. Think community. What can you share in 140 characters that's of value to other writers?

My grown son warned me "you can't just regurgitate other people's tweets," and that, if you retweet, it's good to add a comment or opinion. Those who just RT or tweet about themselves don't get it. He also coached me on the importance of finding a catchy name (mine is @lindakay_astray, which is not especially clever, but it's the best I came up with) and don’t be too dry in writing your bio (I'm a "fiction writer, poet & artist gone astray, looking for inspiration & good stories...") and you should have a link to your website or blog, if you have one.

As for usefulness, I've discovered some terrific blogs by writers, gotten tips on promotion for when I get that book deal :), and shared a few laughs. It's not as intimate as Facebook (speaking strictly for myself here) so there's no need to feel guilty if you don't respond to everything or don't have something of great importance to share. There's isn't the same sense of obligation.

This is a useful tip: since tweets are limited to 150 characters, when you paste tweet a link, first go to http://bit.ly/ to get a short version. For example, this page's url is http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/the-techie-how-not-to-be but bit.ly gives you this address http://bit.ly/db2glw

I loved the style of writing here, but I think I need Twitter for remedial students. I still don't get the point of Twitter. And I don't understand: does "tweeting" happen via cell phone or internet. And why is it sometimes considered a great opportunity for social change? I'm completely full to the brim with "things to do in my extra time", and I prefer being outdoors to sitting at a computer, if given the chance. So I'm not looking for more another Facebook. But I have heard twitter can actually be useful. If so, how and for what? I don't imagine answering my question will be very useful to others. But can you refer me to a place for twitter illiterates? Many thanks!

Since we're on the topic of Twitter here's who I love to follow: http://twitter.com/paulocoelho
I'm still finding my voice on twitter (and just generally in the blogosphere).
There seems to be a few tools for finding people- does a list exist for the She Writes community?
Here are the sites I know for finding others with similar interests: http://listorious.com/tags/writers
http://www.twibes.com/writer/twitter-list

Thanks so much! I'm so glad this is helping and good timing! I'm going to get a lot more granular about how exactly to find people, and what all the semantics mean. Not to mention a bunch of other stuff! I promise, there are signals in the noise. Having people follow you (real, nice people) just takes time, but it'll happen.

Lauren, I cringe a little too over the whole twitter vocabulary thing. I find myself feeling less embarrassed when I say "I posted a tweet" rather than "I tweeted" unless it's about saving time or space. I still cringe when I see newscasters pointing to tweets on a computer screen (seriously?), or hear it mentioned in the media by wide-eyed reporters. It's not so much a generational thing exactly, but it's definitely a "getting it" thing. And it's like swimming, I could describe it forever, but unless you immerse yourself for a while, it's not easy to understand.

Thanks so much for this. I have just started 'tweeting' (still a rather embarrassing word in my opinion), and find it confusing, if interesting. I post my blog links, and links to books or articles I find interesting. I sync from my 'goodreads' account, and would like to sync from Facebook but haven't figure out how to do that, yet.

I have no idea how people find me (and not many have), or how to make myself interesting to others in this place (perhaps I'm not), but I find it a good place to discover what folks I admire have gleaned from the web-o-sphere.

Wonderful and timely! I just wrote on Facebook, "What is the point of Twitter." So this comes as the best advice at the best time. Thank you, j.

Great article. Personally, I love the list feature on Twitter. I can curate the groups of people I follow (friends, writers, librarians, runners, etc.) and read their updates on a separate stream. It keeps me organized and less overwhelmed, plus I can legitimately say I'm working when reading my librarian Twitter stream at my desk. ;)
- @evilolive

Thanks, Kamy! My handle is @VictoriaMia

I'm just busting at the seems, I feel like I had to hold so much back in this post, but there's LOTS of good info and advice to come. I think also a few things that may be extra nice for writer-tweeters.

This is SO helpful -- I have not been doing it quite right. Look for substantial improvement in She Writes tweeting! And Mia, what's your handle?? We are @shewritesdotcom.

Thanks for this--looking forward to more, from you and from others here who're ahead of me in Twittersphere.

Totally, Carleen! I definitely appreciate knowing when someone's updated their blog, or published something new somewhere. As long as it's how you describe, as part of your overall twitter participation. Heck, I'll be tweeting a link to this article in a second! I just don't want to flood my followers since I already tweeted twice this morning, hehe.

By blasting, I was referring to the way some folks only tweet "new post on my blog! [link]" with that being the only thing you see over and over on their profile page. That doesn't help anybody ;)

Good post. Though I do use Twitter to announce new posts to my blog. I don't mind when other's do that either. I find that followers most appreciate when you PARTICIPATE--ask questions, respond to other tweets, retweet what others have to say, say hello--rather than always talk about yourself. Twitter is a conversation that's going on 24/7. And nobody likes to talk with someone who only chimes in about themselves.