Twitter Pitch Party July 15th with 27 Publishers...

[Emurelda]

So far, I'm still sending a thank you for following to each one. We'll see how long that lasts. Had to send 200 or so this morning.

Wow...i thank them by following back

 

[Jason Byrne]

Wow...i thank them by following back

I do that too, but I'm trying to build brand loyalty!

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Yes its not hashtag it is correctly the symbol for 'number'

 

[Carol Rose]

I do that too, but I'm trying to build brand loyalty!
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LOL!!!

 

[Nicole Wilson]

No worries. It's hard enough to find my own in an empty house. Well! Been about a week; I'm up to 568 followers. Trying to break 1,000 to be considered as having a "sufficient social media following" to be taken seriously as a writer's page.

Um good grief. I just hit over 100.

 

[Emurelda]

I do that too, but I'm trying to build brand loyalty!
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Hehe...you do that mate!

 

[Emurelda]

Yes its not hashtag it is correctly the symbol for 'number'

I still use it for short hand abb.

 

[Bernard Stacey]

Been about a week; I'm up to 568 followers. Trying to break 1,000 to be considered as having a "sufficient social media following" to be taken seriously as a writer's page.

I don't use Twitter much except as a news source as I follow a handful of journalists / organisations but if you have gained 500+ followers so quickly does that mean you follow them all back? And if so, how do you find time to read all their tweets (my timeline is often too much to deal with and I follow about 20 accounts)? And if you don't read all their stuff, what are the odds that they read yours? And if they don't read your tweets, how does this help build up a brand?
I can see that someone with a large following (and a high 'followers-to-following' ratio) can use this 'Twitter-muscle' easily, but that's a relative minority. For the rest it seems to me that everyone is following everyone else in a desperate quest for numbers but the resulting vast amount of tweeted information must surely get lost in the morass.
Or have I got this all wrong??

 

[Emurelda]

I don't use Twitter much except as a news source as I follow a handful of journalists / organisations but if you have gained 500+ followers so quickly does that mean you follow them all back? And if so, how do you find time to read all their tweets (my timeline is often too much to deal with and I follow about 20 accounts)? And if you don't read all their stuff, what are the odds that they read yours? And if they don't read your tweets, how does this help build up a brand?
I can see that someone with a large following (and a high 'followers-to-following' ratio) can use this 'Twitter-muscle' easily, but that's a relative minority. For the rest it seems to me that everyone is following everyone else in a desperate quest for numbers but the resulting vast amount of tweeted information must surely get lost in the morass.
Or have I got this all wrong??

No you've got it right.

But twitter isn't always about reading timelines as and when they happen. Not only does a large following showyour active engagement in social media but what I do is select a few of my followers a day and read through their timeline fave ones i like and retweet ones i fancy. Those tweets aren't always in vain imo. Also when you search for a term then old tweets come up, priority are you followers.

I personally don't view it as brand loyalty in the same way as Jason does. But it is more relevant for him to see it that way i'm going to guess.

 

[Emurelda]

Like you @Bernard Stacey i use twitter mainly to read news and reactions to news items. Also see which agents are active and what their wish lists are amongst other non-number swelling foci. Numbers of followers only matter for 'ticking a box.'

I don't proactively follow others as much as follow back out of politeness for following me.

 

[Jason Byrne]

I don't use Twitter much except as a news source as I follow a handful of journalists / organisations but if you have gained 500+ followers so quickly does that mean you follow them all back? And if so, how do you find time to read all their tweets (my timeline is often too much to deal with and I follow about 20 accounts)? And if you don't read all their stuff, what are the odds that they read yours? And if they don't read your tweets, how does this help build up a brand?
I can see that someone with a large following (and a high 'followers-to-following' ratio) can use this 'Twitter-muscle' easily, but that's a relative minority. For the rest it seems to me that everyone is following everyone else in a desperate quest for numbers but the resulting vast amount of tweeted information must surely get lost in the morass.
Or have I got this all wrong??

I'm up to 1,100, with about 200 timeline updates a minute — there's no way to read everything. I just zoom through it until I think I see a familiar face or #writing, look for an interesting perspective, and retweet it. I'm going purely traditional publishing, so I need to cultivate a following that will be there when I post that I got a publishing deal, but won't get bored and leave if I post nothing but "still looking" for a year. By then, I need to have a large number of people that actually care. I'm trying to go about everything the "right" way.

 

[Emurelda]

Well i have reached my limit to follow others. So have to start unfollowing those who aren't following me in order to keep reciprocating the follows.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Well i have reached my limit to follow others. So have to start unfollowing those who aren't following me in order to keep reciprocating the follows.

I'm in the same spot. I get why they do that, but I wonder how the people following 65k and with 151k followers got around that.

 

[Emurelda]

I'm in the same spot. I get why they do that, but I wonder how the people following 65k and with 151k followers got around that.

151/65 ratio leaves room for following more people. The ratio is around double. So 2/1 is the max.

I'm at 1/2. So I should wait for more followers or unfollow those that are not following me to let up some free 'space'.

Yours should be free soon if you are actively engaging and by the looks of it you are. So wait a few hours in your case! lol

 

[Jason Byrne]

I just dumped 382 accounts that were not authors/agents/publishers. Mostly big corporation pages, musicians, social media gurus, and CEOs I was following.

[insert some idiom about pruning trees here. I can't remember. Some damn thing.]

Time to FOCUS.

 

[Emurelda]

I just dumped 382 accounts that were not authors/agents/publishers. Mostly big corporation pages, musicians, social media gurus, and CEOs I was following.

[insert some idiom about pruning trees here. I can't remember. Some damn thing.]

Time to FOCUS.

Unfortunately I can't find the time to clean up that sort of social pruning. I have over 11,690 unread emails!!! and that's on one account! Someone's OCD's going haywire as I type - I can sense it. Time is such a luxury for me.

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Someone's OCD's going haywire as I type - I can sense it.

That would be mine... good grief, I freak out if I have 10 unread emails!

 

[Emurelda]

That would be mine... good grief, I freak out if I have 10 unread emails!

I wish I could contain it - I really do..but boom it's always exploding. Sorry but I weighed up the time it takes me to organise to the time I've got to do 'other' stuff. Guess which wins

 

[Alistair Roberts]

I've seen a large increase in numbers too, but nothing like yours Jason! And yes, who has time to really check it all?

 

[Emurelda]

Just removed 900 twitterers who weren't following back to make room for those that are! Now I have it down to around 1:1 ratio.

 

[Bernard Stacey]

Thanks for all the explanations but I still don't really get it. If one doesn't read ones timeline but only dips in and out at random and retweets the odd thing then when one does post some exciting news about ones own publication date or whatever, how would one expect this ever to be read unless by chance.
It sounds like printing an advertisement poster but then chucking it out of the window into the street in the hope that someone might pick it up off the floor, read it, and pass it on.
Are we sure this isn't just about having numbers?

 

[Jason Byrne]

Thanks for all the explanations but I still don't really get it. If one doesn't read ones timeline but only dips in and out at random and retweets the odd thing then when one does post some exciting news about ones own publication date or whatever, how would one expect this ever to be read unless by chance.
It sounds like printing an advertisement poster but then chucking it out of the window into the street in the hope that someone might pick it up off the floor, read it, and pass it on.
Are we sure this isn't just about having numbers?

I don't have anything to say about myself yet, so right now yes, I am merely trying to build numbers, and hopefully forge relationships with some along the way. By the time you have anything to say about yourself, you already have to have people that care to listen, is what I'm gathering of the 'new' publishing world. And as there's no cost in it, I think that's a pretty apt description of Twitter — billions of people zipping off advertisements for themselves and throwing them out the window onto the wind. #informationage

 

[Carol Rose]

I'm rarely on Twitter, but I tweet because I have my Facebook author page set to automatically tweet my Facebook posts on that page. In all honesty, I don't have time to sit on social media all day long. I'm amazed (and not in a good way) by the number of Facebook posts, tweets, message board posts (not here, but on other boards), etc., etc., etc. I see people doing all day long. How on earth do they get anything else done??? I'm a great multi-tasker and I still can't keep up with all that, AND work my "real" job, AND write every day. Either I'm doing something wrong, or a lot of writers aren't actually WRITING. They're playing on social media and on message boards.

 

[Carol Rose]

That being said, I understand it's now a numbers game. Unfortunately (and I STILL do not understand why) agents now feel it's necessary to have a following, even if all you do is tweet crap and nonsense all day long I guess. Makes no sense to me. Maybe someone can enlighten me? I can amass followers, too. All I have to do is follow back every crazy that follows me, whether their profile has anything to do with writing or not. LOL!! But what does that actually MEAN in terms of my writing career??? Not a damn thing, as far as I can tell. Looks like if I decide to write in another genre and go the agent route, I'll need to do things a lot differently. Silly me. I thought all I had to was write.

 

[Jason Byrne]

I'm rarely on Twitter, but I tweet because I have my Facebook author page set to automatically tweet my Facebook posts on that page. In all honesty, I don't have time to sit on social media all day long. I'm amazed (and not in a good way) by the number of Facebook posts, tweets, message board posts (not here, but on other boards), etc., etc., etc. I see people doing all day long. How on earth do they get anything else done??? I'm a great multi-tasker and I still can't keep up with all that, AND work my "real" job, AND write every day. Either I'm doing something wrong, or a lot of writers aren't actually WRITING. They're playing on social media and on message boards.

Truly. The only reason I've had time to develop an online presence is because I haven't been writing — for a couple months now, and I can do it while I'm at work. If either of those were not the case, I wouldn't have the time. The way I figure, I'm meant to be developing my online presence rather than writing, right now, and that's why I'm not.

 

[Carol Rose]

Truly. The only reason I've had time to develop an online presence is because I haven't been writing — for a couple months now, and I can do it while I'm at work. If either of those were not the case, I wouldn't have the time. The way I figure, I'm meant to be developing my online presence rather than writing, right now, and that's why I'm not.

Jason, I apologize if you thought I meant you, although I can see why my post gave that impression. I was talking about so many writers I see on Twitter every single day, who then complain about not having any time to write. I just roll my eyes. Sorry. Seriously. I need to sit on my hands sometimes.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Jason, I apologize if you thought I meant you, although I can see why my post gave that impression. I was talking about so many writers I see on Twitter every single day, who then complain about not having any time to write. I just roll my eyes. Sorry. Seriously. I need to sit on my hands sometimes.

Oh, no doubt there. I see what you mean. I just happened to not be getting any writing done either, but I think I've gathered enough steam on Twitter that I can let it coast away, get back to beta-reading, and after I'm finished with Chains of Blood and Steel celebrate my triumphant return to getting some writing done.

If you ever saw Authors Anonymous (good movie, by the way) -

- they're that guy in writer's group, that never actually does any writing, but calls himself a writer because it's in vogue:

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Oh, no doubt there. I see what you mean. I just happened to not be getting any writing done either, but I think I've gathered enough steam on Twitter that I can let it coast away, get back to beta-reading, and after I'm finished with Chains of Blood and Steel celebrate my triumphant return to getting some writing done.

If you ever saw Authors Anonymous (good movie, by the way) -
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- they're that guy in writer's group, that never actually does any writing, but calls himself a writer because it's in vogue:
View attachment 222

Kaley Cuoco's in it? And it's about writers? Guess I have another movie to watch lol

 

[Jason Byrne]

@Nicole Wilson also this.