Top Ten Ways Authors Can Use Twitter: Dana Lynn Smith

This guest article from Dana Lynn Smith is part of the virtual book tour for her new book, The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing.

Twitter, the wildly popular micro-blogging site where users communicate in 140-character messages, is a terrific tool for developing relationships and keeping in touch. Here are some ways authors can benefit from Twittering:

1. Help others by sharing information, while you gain a reputation as an expert. You can post links to helpful articles, recommend resources, and teach mini-lessons.
   
   
2. Meet potential customers and stay in touch with existing customers. Promote your Twitter URL everywhere you're listed online, and include keywords in your tweets to attract followers who are interested in your topic or genre.
   
   
3. Stay on top of news and trends in your field and get ideas for your articles and blog by reading the tweets of the people you follow.
   
   
4. Meet other authors, experts, publishers, marketer, and vendors. Twitter is ideal for networking and it's a great place to meet potential joint venture partners.
   
   
5. Promote live and virtual events such as book signings, podcasts, virtual book tours, teleseminars, and book launches.
   
   
6. Gain visibility and new followers by hosting a Twitter contest where you give away a prize to a randomly chosen winner, or give a free gift to everyone who follows you and re-tweets your contest message. See this post for tips on creating a Twitter contest.
   
   
7. Ask for help and get instant responses. When you request product recommendations, referrals to experts, or help with a technical issue, it's amazing how helpful folks are.
   
   
8. Spread good will by helping your peers. Introduce other people in your field or genre, or recommend other related books or products. For other ideas on what to tweet about, see this article.
   
   
9. Promote your book and other products and services. The key is to be subtle and make promotional tweets a small percentage of your overall communications, so people feel like they gain value from following you, not just a stream of sales pitches.
   
   
10. Keep in touch when you're on the road. There are a number of applications that facilitate twittering from mobile devices.
    

Have fun! It's fascinating to meet people from all over the world, gain a glimpse into their lives, and develop a cyber-relationship.

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer Guides.