Learning How to Be a Writer on Twitter
Twitter for writers welcomes unmatched growth, inspiration, and insight. That is, if you use it the right way.
Whether you are a blogger, an author releasing a book, or a freelance writer — Twitter can be an incredible tool for you with a little bit of effort.
The wrong approach can make Twitter seem like a complete waste of your time as a writer. Well, maybe it is either way — but that’s not for this post to decide.
Posting links that get no response in an effort to get traffic to your website is a losing battle that no writer should be stuck fighting. To begin shifting how you use Twitter, you have to understand an important truth.
Twitter does not want to promote links that lead outside of Twitter (ie; your blog post links)
Twitter’s goal — like any other social media — is to keep you glued to the screen, doom scrolling the Blue Bird’s Droppings. From this tweet, to the next tweet, and a thread of tweets. NOT to your website.
Twitter’s goal — like any other social media — is to keep you glued to the screen, doom scrolling the Blue Bird’s Droppings.
The goal of this post is to breakdown the ways we can use Twitter as writers. I am not trying to be an expert — I’m trying to build my own Twitter, and learning as I go.
Twitter Presence for Writers
Twitter is an amazing place, no matter your profession. In a world devised of mostly text — writers should have an obvious advantage.
To build on your advantage as a writer, there are some simple tips you should keep in mind along the way.
- Be Human
- Be Proud of your writing, but understand that nobody wants to read it (yet)
- Share concepts more than links.
Be Human, Not Just a Writer
An early pitfall that many writers fall into with Twitter is scheduling apps and posting schedules. There are clear benefits from taking a ‘productive’ approach to Twitter as a writer.
You’ll definitely waste less time scrolling, as you’ll be interfacing with Buffer, Hypefury (Affiliate Link) or other scheduling apps. However you’ll miss trending topics, replies, retweets, and organic conversations if you never interface with Twitter itself.
Scheduling out some tweets is great to keep things flowing, but you still have to interact with people on Twitter like a human. You are much more than just a writer posting links and quotes.
A quote that is pertinent to a trending conversation is much more effective than a canned quote that has been waiting to send for a week.
Be Proud, but Humbly Self Aware
Your writing — no matter how good — is not enticing to the average Twitter user. Even after hours spent crafting the perfect Twitter headline, it’s not enough to convert the doom-scroller into a reader.
This flat-lining of engagement can be enough to stop a writer before they even gain momentum on Twitter. That’s why the previous step is so important. If you are humans, you don’t rely on your writing to define you.
With this humanized perspective, you allow yourself room to be proud of your writing — no matter what the analytics show. Fantastic articles can be left unread, and terrible posts can be shared widely. It often makes no sense, so we have to find sense in the craft more than the numbers.
Write on Twitter to Solidify Ideas
Twitter may not want your links all the time, but it certainly does want your ideas and concepts. Each tweet is 240 Characters to test a concept in front of your audience.
An idea doesn’t have to be fully formed to gain traction. Throwing it out, gauging responses is a perfect way to test your concept before you write 2000 words about it. It’s even worth it with few followers.
Writing is a path to clarity, so don’t expect an idea to be perfectly clear before you start writing. You have to vet the idea first.
How Other Writers Are Using Twitter
Twitter is unsurprisingly full of writers. Author Twitter accounts are some of the most popular, and more authors are leaning into the power of Twitter itself. James Clear, the Author of the mega-hit “ Atomic Habits” (Affiliate Link), has taken to Twitter and provides incredible insight about habit building and writing. All while building a huge audience to buy his book.
Beyond the best seller list names, however, there are pockets of communities across Twitter for writers. Many writers choose to navigate towards these communities, and focus their attention there.
For fiction writers, there are different pitching contests that come up, and the hashtags dominate the ‘writing scene’. Some of the hashtags are very useful routes to finding agents and publishers.
To better understand how you should use Twitter as a writer, look up your favorite authors. See how they interact, and how they build their audience. Use approaches similar to theirs, with your expertise targeted towards your audience — and you’ll begin building a dedicated audience.
Writers to Follow
Ideas to Get You Started
There are a lot of ways to get started — the simplest being “just start.” Other ideas include:
- Draw inspiration from everywhere.
- Turn things you have already made into threads.
- Reply and add to conversations.
Tweet ideas for writers can come from anywhere. You can turn your entire life into a source of inspiration. Funnel that inspiration into your Twitter. Those tweets act as proof of concepts, with the most popular deserving a closer look.
If you struggle to find immediate new ideas for what you should tweet about, you can always use something you have already written. Anything you have written before can be condensed, and turned into a thread.
Towards the bottom of the thread, link out to your full post. Once a reader is engaged in a thread on the topic, you are much more likely to successfully carry them to your own website. A single Tweet showcasing the article wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact.
Amongst all of the tweet ideas, be sure to sprinkle in mentions of your writing practice, and where you are at in the process. A follower who feels like they have watched your journey is more likely to purchase a potential book if they were following when you announced it, or when you began working on it.
Replies and Retweets
While original Tweets and threads will be biggest portion of creation, replies and retweets may be even more important for growth.
Each Tweet to your own followers will be shown to whatever number of followers you have, plus a couple from the relevant hashtags. Though when you comment on someone’s Tweet who has 1 Million followers, your engagement could skyrocket.
Twitter For Writers in 1 Step
Have some fun, and forget your expectations of Twitter. If you want to take it ultra serious, there are steps to do that. Though there is something to be said for natural, personal growth on a platform like Twitter.
The focuses we should have going onto Twitter are on personal growth more than follower growth, creative inspiration and intellectual insight from those we follow.
Thanks for reading.
-Anthony
Originally published at https://www.intakecreate.com on May 17, 2021.
