tweets go viral

How to Get Your First 100K Twitter Followers

I am just helping a new author to navigate her way through the Twitter-sphere, and to find her first followers.  Searching through my extensive archive, I came up this great info-graphic.  QuickSprout, the creator of this helpful tool offers even a free 100-point checklist.
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How to Get Your First 100 Twitter Followers
Courtesy of: Quick Sprout

From running contests and writing guest posts to reaching out to influencers, you can use at least 10 different tactics to grow your follower count.

Getting it “Right” on Twitter

Twitter

Never too early to start:  Building your brand on Twitter – or any other social media site – doesn’t work overnight.  It takes time and as earlier you start as better for you as an author.  You will want to have a large following long BEFORE your book is finished (maybe even before you start writing) in order to have a great start when launching your work.  
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Twitter is wildly popular and it’s a great way for you to interact with your community and reader audience.  Introduce yourself on Twitter, similar how you do on all social media sites, in a way that makes people interested in who you are.
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Perfecting Your Twitter Name.
The best part of your brand is your name, but your author photo, typography, and colours are also part of your brand.  Brand recognition means that those who remember your name are more likely to pick up and promote your work.  That’s also true for your social media platforms, such as Twitter for example.  Carefully choose your twitter name, background image and your logo.
If your bio, along with your name and @name, is searchable on Twitter, which means people can type it into Twitter’s search engine and find you, without even having to type the account name.  With your @name, try to get the actual name of your small publishing business.  Keep it short to give others more space to retweet your content or send a direct message (DM).
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Photo – Icon – Avatar, aka Logo.
Your readers like to see the person behind the book.  Invest a couple of dollars or more for a brilliant studio photo which you can use for years on all of your Social Media sites, website, blog, Amazon author page or submit to your publisher to use in your books.  Publishing businesses use their logo and stick with it everywhere, to have brand consistency.
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AVOID:
Party images, pics taken with your phone or computer, landscapes, snapshots from your last vacation, images of your children, wedding photos, art work, dogs or cats, cartoon characters, half-nudes unless you write erotic and any dark photos, that don’t reveal your face, or any photos, taken from the side or from behind and show only your hair and no face. Never have a second person on your social media photo.  You might be in love with your partner, but it is less than professional to show this off on Twitter.

  • The portrait needs to be big enough
  • Your face should be recognizable
  • Make sure it’s a photo of “you”, that really shows the best of you

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Use 160 Characters for Your Bio Wisely.
You have only 160 characters for your bio, so make sure your description is clear and concise.  Your bio should read like an elevator pitch.  The first third of your profile should contain keywords related to your books.  Include specific keywords that define your books.   Think about what keywords a potential customer or prospect would associate with your books or your publishing company.  Which search terms would they use to find your book or your website?
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Start Your Tweets With an Attention Grabber.  
You have only 140 characters for a reason, soon maybe 160 – a tweet is supposed to be short and to the point!  Start your tweets with something that will get attention.  Be subtle about this, though.  Don’t use capital letters to show your enthusiasm.  Start a tweet with “New” or “Learn” to at least grab the reader’s attention to lead into what you are talking about.
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How to Increase the Amount of Followers:
Use the search function to find like-minded Tweeps, e.g. type in “reading”, “booklover”, “bookworm”, “avid reader”, and most important: “book blogger”, “book reviewer”, etc.
You will want more readers than writers as Twitter followers, right?   Type into the search function words with hash tags #amreading or #Goodreads.  Check out suggestions: “Who to follow” and there you best click on “view all” on your left bar of your Twitter page.  A as more people read your messages, as more Twitter followers you will be able to invite as Goodreads friends.

If you want to become popular on Twitter and have your tweets go viral, check out these small, but significant challenges you might not be aware of.  Avoid them.  So whom do I follow – or better NOT…

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Celebrities:
Well, often they only think they are one. They do not follow back, even if they have 10’000 followers, they just follow 66 of their friends.  In writing/publishing/photo/marketing circles I found them mainly among literary agents, YA writers and business advisers.  Fine with me.  As they are not interacting with me, nor re-tweeting anything I am posting, why should I follow them?

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Me, Me, Me’s:
They consider Twitter as a free advertising board. When I go to their profile and scroll down I can’t see any re-tweets whatsoever.  Some even never re-tweet.  Only their continuing posts, varying from three to six subjects, and this for pages and pages… What I found so far: 80% of these are male and/or are introvert writers or leadership business advisers.
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Over-Social:
Too much of a good thing.  They are lovely people, don’t get me wrong.  They are re-tweeting, re-tweeting and re-tweeting some more.  And if you want to thank them and reciprocate you cannot find anything they are tweeting.  Maybe on page 41…  But I don’t have time to go through all these hundreds of re-tweets to find anything they originally posted to return their favor.

Veeerrryyy long names:
Like “@Writer-Angelina-Christine-Parastopolis”.  If one takes up half of the space just for the name, there is barely anything left for conversation.  Just cut it at least in half, thanks.
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OK, enough said.  These are just four of many challenges that make it difficult to interact with others on Twitter – or prevents tweeps to click on Follow you and for you to build social networks and build a platform.  To become popular and successful on Twitter:

Follow others, tweet something valuable for others and don’t use Twitter as a cheap way to advertise!

  • Create a nice mixture of your own, really interesting tweets and do some re-tweeting.
  • Choose a very short Twitter name.
  • Make it as easy and convenient as possible for your fellow tweeps to engage and interact with you.

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Do You Use Twitter To Its Full Potential?
One of the most common questions is “Why Twitter?”  Well, Twitter was built to share news and updates from you or your company.  Twitter users expect to receive them from you.  It is built to send people to other websites – or your author sales page.  When done right, you can promote your content over and over again without seeming spammy – something most social networks don’t allow you to do.

The key to a successful Twitter use is to build the right audience. A targeted, engaged Twitter following allows you to succeed.  You might have a million followers, and they would be worthless – if it is not the right audience.
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Here are Some Strategies:

  • Create a list of popular bloggers (use Google search) in your field
  • Use the search function on Twitter and type in relevant keywords
  • Follow or create Twitter lists

The purpose of these steps is to help you build a solid following that retweets your posts and will follow you on all your other social media platforms and on your website and book sales pages.
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#Hashtags Increases Your Visibility.
Tweets need to be optimized for Twitter’s search engine. Similar to GooglePlus, the inclusion of the right keywords in tweets will allow you be more visible in search queries.  Using the right hashtags, links, and images will set you up to be more optimized for Twitter searches.   Twitter is allowing people to search through every tweet, ever published.  Make sure you have at least 2-3 hashtags on each tweet you post.
Add #hashtags to your tweets and also create tweets based on hashtags that are popular on Twitter at the time (you can see these as “trends” on the left-hand side of your Twitter home page).
Include a #hashtag or two in your posts to get better search results as well.  To optimize your hashtag usage, search for the most used hashtags in your industry.  Try going to search.twitter.com and enter the hashtag you would like to include in your tweet to see if it’s being widely used.  You can also go to hashtags.org to see what’s currently trending.  Ask for retweets (but not too often).  Studies showed that more than half of all Tweeps will retweet if you simply ask them to!  More tips what and how to tweet:

  • Tweet the latest news
  • Pick the right time of day
  • Leave room for a retweet
  • Use top re-tweet-able phrases
  • Write a tempting headline
  • Don’t make the tweet about you
  • Pick the right time and day of the week, Monday & Friday
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Don’t Buy Followers. Never! Ever!
These artificial followers (not real people, just virtual twitter accounts) will never re-tweet you or buy your book.

If you have anything like these numbers – you are in trouble:
268 TWEETS 2004 FOLLOWING 345 FOLLOWERS
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Un-follow people who haven’t followed you back after a couple of weeks.  This is especially important to avoid “follow limits”. The first limit at Twitter you might hit, is when you have followed 2,000 people.  You won’t be able to follow any more until you have 2,000 followers.  So remove your non-followers, using Manageflitter.com or Unfollow.com.
However, don’t use their really annoying feature that tweets on your timeline: “Got 5 followers and 9 unfollowers”.   This is not only an absolutely useless tweet, but makes you at the same time a free advertiser for them!
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Get Enough Twitter Followers.
Don’t be a Tweep with a pathetic following of less than 100 people.  And don’t sign up with only one or two Social Media sites.
Take advantage of the great possibilities of sharing among all these sites.  It is almost the same “work” if you are on one site, compared to having a presence on six or eight sites through the help of plug-ins and sharing buttons, as outlined in former blog posts.

Visitors on your Goodreads page click on the Google+ or the Facebook icon and send a message about you and your book to thousands of their followers.  Google+ then sends the message automatically to Twitter.
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To have lots of Twitter followers is also beneficial for your Goodreads presence, as you can transfer Twitter followers with only one click over to Goodreads!
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Easy Scheduling.
Tweet consistently and tweet at least several times a day.  Sign up with the free version of Hootsuite.  It really saves a lot of time, helps you planning your tweets over the day (or days) and frees you time to really interact with your followers.
It ensures your consistent presence on Twitter when you’re unable to tweet in person.  Once you are familiar how it works and you have lots of followers, you might change to the professional version.
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Timing of Your Tweets:
It seems Monday and Friday are the best days of the week, to get re-tweets.  Tweet between 8am and 9am and 12pm and 2pm to get a maximum of re-tweets for your Twitter content.  If you have a website / blog: Did you already install the “Retweet” button?
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Retweet Buttons.
People are naturally inclined to share content they find valuable.  It shows to their followers that they are someone worth following because of the useful information they share, making them a valuable contributor to the social networks.  Encouraging your readers to share your book’s content in social media also extends the reach of it to people outside of your direct network.

Special retweet buttons allows readers to easily post a tweet into his or her Twitter account.  And it’s not just any tweet, but one that is pre-fabricated by you and links back to your e-book.  Retweet buttons allow any reader to easily post a tweet into his or her Twitter account.
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Retweet Buttons: Step by Step Explained.
Create a small graphic (a blue bird on the graphic gives a visual signal to Twitter users) you can place it in your manuscript. Place the retweet image in more than one location of your future book.

So where do you want to send readers?  Certainly to your books’ sales page!  Use a link shortener, such as bit.ly, as the original Amazon link is too long.  Create a short recommendation text to accompany the link.  But avoid hashtags in this text or replace them with %23, so instead of #reading, use %23reading.
Acrobat Pro will allow you to create hot-links inside your e-book file.  Use the “Link Tool” in Acrobat Pro (under the advanced editing menu), locate the retweet buttons you added into your file and create a clickable link for each retweet graphic.
To keep the link type invisible, highlight style to ‘None’ and select ‘Open a web page’ as the link action.  Then hit the ‘Next’ button.  You will be prompted to enter your special URL.
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Sell Your Free Book for the Price of a Tweet.
Instead of locking your book to Kindle Select and let it download at five days for free, let your readers “pay with a tweet”.
Another great way to introduce your upcoming book to readers: Write a prequel in form of a short free book, including links to your book sales page or your website.  But how to let as many readers as possible know about your free one – and at the same time about your new upcoming book?  Use the help of Social Media and let your free book or other written content go viral via Twitter by retweeting to your customers friends and followers.  Yet, not only can your readers pay with a tweet: FB, Google+ or LinkedIn Posts are possible too!  Nowadays it’s sometimes more valuable to have people talking about your book than the money you would earn for a sold copy.

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Comparing Social Media Platforms is Hard, as there is no “Better”.
Twitter lets you follow a hand-picked community of people. Unlike Facebook, where you likely have, out of your total friend base, a few hundred friends you wouldn’t have chosen, Twitter is meant for tailored follower groups, a world not made up of all of the people you have ever met but rather a community of people you admire or would like to know.  Tweeps get more immediate responses and it lives somewhere between the worlds of email, instant messaging and blogging.  Twitter has a loyal following, especially among the technically savvy; bloggers, online marketers, writers and anyone with something to promote seem to find Twitter extremely valuable – and it really is!
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Twitter is More Mobile-Friendly.
Tweeting from a mobile device will always be quicker and easier.  That’s because Twitter was born as a mobile network, like Instagram was.  Facebook was born as a website that adapted, as all websites must, eventually to the mobile space.  You have only got 140 characters; how long could that take, even if you add a photo?
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What to Post on Twitter?
Your first step is to organize your tweets: Start a file where you place all your posts to use in the following months or years.

  • Take a dozen of your most popular blog posts and break them down into quotes
  • Share other people’s content
  • Post video clips and images
  • Check out “Trends” (in your field) on Twitter and re-tweet
  • Post excerpts from book reviews
  • Quotes are always popular…
  • Thank your followers often and mention them

Scrambling what to tweet?  An important point with Twitter is to choose your passion, the topic you want to talk about and also to have your own brand, something people know you for. You certainly can send the occasional tweet about something completely different, but for the most part stick to your important topics.

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Content to Tweet About:

  • Re-tweet news in your field on the Internet (Internet & newspapers/magazines)
  • Articles from your website, or your own blog posts & guest posts
  • Set up Google alerts (http://google.com/alerts) for news content

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How Often Send Out Tweets?
Unless you have ten-thousands of followers, the chances that many people will see all your tweets and click on links are very small.  The number of followers and the tweeting frequency should match.  As no one is 24/7 on Twitter, you might have to send your posts two or three times a day, maybe in the morning, around noon time and early evening.  As more followers you have and the more you want to build a brand, or announce events, the more you should tweet.
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Automate and Save Time.
First of all: Create a file (Notepad or Word document) and create a long list of tweets, using your own blog, guest blog, news etc. from which you copy/paste tweets, using headlines and URL’s.  Second: create a folder where you place all your images you might use on Twitter or Google+, some you used on your blog, but also new ones.  Automate your tweets so that you don’t have to sit in front of the computer all day long.  There are several tools you can use: We are scheduling on Hootsuite and also on Futuretweets, other providers are Gremln.  They are slightly different and they serve different purposes.
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Twitterfeed
Twitterfeed http://twitterfeed.com/ feeds your blog to Twitter, Facebook etc. A YouTube video shows you step by step how to start Twitter feeds, however there are approx. twenty more videos to watch on YouTube.
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Gremln
Twaitter.com – now Gremln is a free product that allows you to schedule your own tweets (up to 20 an hour) on a single or recurring basis.  The process is very easy.  You will also find Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn integration, detailed analytics, customizable dashboards, stunning reports, multi-user management, and a whole lot more.
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Link Your Blog to Twitterfeed Gremln.
Every time your blog – or website for that matter – has something new it will be sent to Twitter.  When you’ve built up thirty or fifty blog posts, you will have a handful of favorites that you would like to recommend others to read. Post the links in Twaitter or Twitterfeed and schedule them.
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Important:

  • Re-tweets other people’s content – a lot!
  • Decide what your brand is on social media sites
  • Set up automated tweets based on your sources
  • Post often on Google+ and connect it with Twitter (automatically transfers to Twitter)
  • Write a blog and feed the posts automatically to Twitter, FB, LinkedIn etc.

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Monitor Your Traffic.
With the increased flow of tweets you will get more replies from people.  Be prepared to answer them!  You’re also going to have to carefully monitor the traffic that’s coming to your blog and from which Social Media site or organic search it is coming.  This is a great way to understand which of your tweets are working and which are not.

Using the analytics on your blog, you can see how many hits you are getting: When do you get peak traffic? Rearange your tweets a little bit and don’t forget to use hashtags with relevant keywords.  Try new things.   A few video blogs from YouTube, or a series of special blog posts that you can link to.  Over time, you can get others to discover you and getting them to re-tweet your posts.

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Last But Not Least: Twitter Lists.
What is a list?  Similar to the Google+ Communities, Twitter has it’s lists where you can follow or being followed by people with the same interests.  A list is a curated group of Twitter users – for example readers in your book’s genre.
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You can create your own, or subscribe to lists created by others. Following a select group of users can be very useful, and a great time-saving feature.  But tweets from your lists don’t show up in your primary feed.
Marketing Specialist Whitney Zelmer: “The process of generating ROI from Twitter lists takes time, so be patient. Keep engaging and offering interesting, timely information and you’ll eventually notice that others will start adding you to their lists.”
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Where to Find Your Twitter Lists?
Click on your Avatar icon on the right upper spot where it says: “Profile and Settings” and you will find the word “Lists”.  The message: “You aren’t following any lists yet” appears.  Now click on: “Create a new list”.  Give your list a name and a (very) short description.
To add someone to your list, go over to his or her Twitter profile.  Click on the Settings icon (right upper row, the small wheel icon, next to the follow button).  Scroll down to “add or remove from lists”.  You can create up to 20 lists and you have the option to make each one public or private.
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Social media star Michael Q Todd gives these tips regarding Twitter Lists: “You can only follow a certain number of people per day and in total.  When you make lists however this restriction is blown away.  You can make 20 lists and have 500 people on each of them but 500 may be way too many if all those people are highly active.

Your lists help to brand your account.  If I want to know what a new connection is primarily interested in I can quickly scan through the topics of the lists that they have created.  You can learn a huge amount about people from this.  So be careful how you brand your lists!  This includes the description as well as the title.”  He also advices:

  • Thank people when they add you to a list
  • Add your lists to Klout
  • Constantly modify your lists
  • Add yourself to your lists (Many people miss this.  Where it is powerful is when others start using your lists.  They are following lists that I am on and see my tweets because of this.)

Some Twitter users never check their “Home” Twitter feed, they always use their Twitter lists to narrow down interests.  Invest more time in your lists! 

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SocialMediaExaminer recommends:
“Twitter is a widely used resource to collect and share information, as well as interact and develop relationships with others in your field.  To fully utilize the benefits of Twitter for your business, you need to get organized.  As Twitter continues to branch out, information will get even more random and difficult to filter.  Well-kept lists act as a permanent filter for each of your interests.”
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Get More Twitter Tips:

http://www.socialquant.net/twitter-lists/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/12-tips-to-engage-people-on-twitter/

http://kimgarst.com/how-to-use-twitter-lists-for-time-management-and-profit

http://www.highachievingwomen.biz/business-growth/what-i-have-learned-about-twitter-how-to-introduce-yourself-and-get-noticed/

https://www.savvybookwriters.com/9-habits-of-successful-writers-on-twitter/
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Is there anything you think of, people can do to become a star in the Twitter-Sphaere, other than to post really great content and be social with others?  Any good advices you have for them (or for me : )  Happy Tweeting!

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How NOT to Greet Your Followers on Social Media

Direct Messages.
I must confess that I opted out of receiving all “Direct Messages” (DM) from Twitter.  Here is the instruction to opt out DM’s for iOS and Android users.

With three Twitter accounts – @111Publishing, @ebookPR and @ebooksIntl, and over 25,000 followers it is not only very time-consuming, but also often frustrating and annoying to be bombarded with “offers”.  I could use one of these automated messages to save time, but I choose not: when I answer I do it in person – or not at all.
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There will be for sure some DM’s that I miss: the ones who are just saying friendly hello, and which I should respond to.  However the majority (approx. 95 – 98 %) are from people who follow me (and in return I follow them) send their automated welcome messages via CrowdFire, UnfollowSpy, Commun.it or similar auto-DM-sending companies. In one way or the other, they summon me to do something for them – without even knowing me or having a social media “relationship” yet.
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Examples from one of our Twitter Accounts:
I just copied / pasted the DM’s of one day. To protect the identity of these tweeps, I either deleted their twitter name or placed some dots instead of the social media account. So here it goes:
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Thanks for following me. I’d love for you to join me on Instagram as well! instagram.com/bet….oi/ : )
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Thx for following, Doris-Maria. My sci-fi novel, …anica, is a pre-teen & teen “fave read”. FB: On.fb.me/1o…..
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In my opinion, auto DMs are worse than a mild case of the flu. ‘So why have you set one up?’ I hear you ask. Well, you can blame my publisher. She threatened to beat me with a sharp stick if I didn’t write one this instant. So now that I have been browbeaten into setting one up, what should I say? I suppose I should say hello. And welcome to my twitter world. I doubt that following me will change your life, but you never know, we might have some fun together from time to time. To keep my stick-wielding publisher happy, I should probably mention my website -….msauthor.com and my blog blog……msauthor.com I have even got a Facebook page, but no one ever clicks on those links, do they? -via @crowdfire
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Thanks so much for your follow. Wishing you the best today and every day, whatever that means for you. (Send custom messages to new followers via the unfollowspy.com website)
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Hey 111publishing thanks for following! I’d appreciate your vote for my commercial fiction novel, A Dress …… of the Sky. Here’s the link! soopllc.com/blog/book-idea… Thank you!!
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Hey, thanks for the follow. If you read or write romance, thrillers, or whatever, check us out at the…..bookreview.net
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Grazie per il follow 🙂 Posso ringraziarti con un ebook fantasy? Iscriviti alla mia mailing list: https://t.co/YNc6DIrwAD O preferiresti il cartaceo con autografo e dedica?
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Hi, I appreciate the follow. If you want to know more go to markrafidi.com or follow me on m.facebook.com/MarkRafidi.aut… -via @crowdfire
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Thanks for following. I’m promoting my books. If you like gritty British thrillers, please click on my author page amazon.co.uk/…../…
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Thanks for following Author’s Info, please come join our free network author…..com where you may review your favorite books.
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Hello Doris-Maria, please connect with me on LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/….etwood
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While Facebook is still a thing, why not say hello and follow my page there – no go on – facebook.com/danteh….…
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Thx for following. Check out my free, erotic short, …… on Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B00RW……
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Thanks for following me! You can check out more of my portfolio at chad-……sites.com if you decide to purchase something, please use the code MGVPZP for a $5 discount.
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Thanks for the follow!! Authors – goo.gl/1…… Sending a quick tip to help ensure you don’t lose your hard work while writing books.
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My twitterverse just got brighter now that you’re in it! Don’t hesitate to reach out and say hello ~Cheers JM -via @crowdfire
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Just letting you know Everv…..ackenbone will be Free on Amazon Worldwide 11/22/15-11/26/15 See my pinned tweet. Please add it to your calendar.
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Thanks for following me! Much appreciated! Let’s like each other on facebook!facebook.com/Te….. -via @crowdfire
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I’m going through my followers list and saying my thanks once more. What I do now wouldn’t have happened without you. So thanks, Doris. Your follow means a lot to me.
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Hi! If you’re looking for web apps for business we compiled some great resources and comparisons at c….sk.com. Plz let me know if you have any feedback 🙂
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Thanks for following me! I hope you’ll enjoy my posts. If you want to get to know me better, visit me at …..ek.com, or check out my blog at …..ek.com/blog/, Facebook at facebook.com/….ek and Instagram at instagram.com/….ek. If you’d like to sample my books, drop by Amazon (amazon.com/A…..unse…). Be careful — reviewers say my psychological thriller is deadly. Cheers!
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You Rock! Thanks for the follow. More Dark Fiction at c….ero.com Tweet you later!
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Thanks for following, I support other IAs and tweet/retweet as much as I can. Also, Like me on Facebook facebook.com/D.A….uther…
\Thanks for following. Let’s link up on Facebook too. I always reciprocate. Mine is facebook.com/….ntLei… Have a great day! -via @crowdfire
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Shared @…..Tweet and said: Hey Doris-Maria Heilmann, please grab your copy of “Jack’s W….Lant….le for Halloween &amp; Samhain)”: https://t.co/….r4Q [Today it’s #FREE] You can also RT &amp; Win the #Halloween #audiobook of it read by an Irish ba…
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Thank you SO much for following me! Please check out my works here: amazon.com/J….ne/e/… PS. You’re beautiful!
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Thanks for following ! Check our FB goo.gl/j….5 & IG goo.gl/…JTl. Send us your links in a FB message & we’ll like back!
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I truly appreciate the follow! Would you be so kind as to like my FB page? facebook.com/….ichaelsauth…
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Thanks for following! You can follow my adventures on Facebook @ facebook.com/…ventures… or on Insta instagram.com/….ventures… -via @crowdfire
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Sincere thanks fo the follow…..truly appreciate it. Want to connect on facebook or linkedIn too? facebook: goo.gl/w3pSWH LinkedIn: goo.gl/L4RbVn or check out paulmcgillicuddy.com: goo.gl/BlM9hY Thanks! Paul
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Thx for follow – DANKE fürs Folgen! Jetzt GRATIS-Muster für Sonnenschutzsystemen anfordern => bit.ly….CH… (in German, they offer free samples of a sun-protecting home system)
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Thanks for following “Books du Jour,” all about books and the people written them. Check out our TV series at booksdujour.com . Have a new book coming out? Reach out to us via site submission page. Never know, you may end up on TV for one of our panels. Need a push to promote your book? We can help you there too. Looking forward
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Thanks for following me! Please like my Facebook author page (in progress)! facebook.com/andrescruciani… -via @crowdfire
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Hi! Please turn on my notifications! I promise you’ll enjoy my tweets 🙂 x
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Thanks for the follow! Make sure to enter our giveaway for a free PACK Organizer! bit.ly/thepacksgear
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I am truly grateful that you are following me. Join me on FB on.fb.me/1IRQJQA or my blog bit.ly/1h…o -via @crowdfire
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Hi Doris-Maria Heilmann, Pleasure to connect with you on Twitter! Are you crowdfunding? If so, you may find this article on the #1 Reason why Crowdfunding Campaigns Fail interesting: bit.ly/1LdpId5 Kind regards, Team @BookCrowdfund
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Hi, a pleasure to connect with you. acrosst…..rkness.com -via @crowdfire
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Thanks for the follow! Looking forward to interacting with you more : ). Please follow my blog @ com….egal.com and connect with me on LinkedIn too bit.ly/1…X
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Hello! It’s a pleasure to connect with you on twitter. thepoeconsequence.com -via @crowdfire
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Hi Doris, I hope you’re doing well! We’ve been connected for a while, so I wanted to reach out to you personally to see if you’ve had a chance to sneak-a-peek at Storiad. What we do is very simple: we work with authors to build long-lasting and exceedingly affordable bookselling campaigns. To do this we develop three interconnected plans: 1) a Research Plan, 2) a Networking Plan, and 3) a Marketing & Publicity Plan. When all the dust clears, you’ll have the plans, software, and contacts database you’ll need to run a creative and effective bookselling campaign. If this seems like something that could be helpful to you or your bookselling efforts, I would be happy to send you some more info by email. Just let me know. Many thanks! Bye for now.

Well, this one is especially ridiculous as from someone who has not even read the introduction on top of my Twitter page, otherwise they would not offer a book marketing campaign to a book marketing and publishing consulting firm….
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IMPORTANT: What to Avoid in Direct Messages:

  • Don’t try to sell new followers anything in your welcome DM.
  • Don’t try to summon then to like your Facebook site, follow them on other social media sites, such as Instagram or Pinterest, or to sign up to receive your blog / website automatically via email. You get a message in your mailbox that someone mentioned you. Curious, you check it; but no, you are only summoned to go to their Facebook account and LIKE their page. Or, they send you the link to their book’s sales page. Do they sign up with Twitter only to advertise their wares? My reaction is to immediately UNFOLLOW. Thanks, and nice to meet you…
  • Don’t ask them to vote for your book (which – for sure – they might never have heard of, nor read it).
  • Don’t try to get your new followers to sign up for your mailing list—this includes trying to tempt them with a free gift for a free anything in an automated DM.
  • Never, Ever, Use TrueTwit Validation Service! At first, I answered, telling them that I DO NOT use TrueTwit Validation Service, but then I gave up and just ignored the sender. The irony is that these people often follow me, and then when I follow them back, their annoying message appears! Why did they choose to follow me, and then want ME to validate??? in order to follow back. Hey, you just lost a reader, a customer, a potential fan, a potential reviewer…
  • The most successful direct messages do not come with any links at all. These are seen as more trustworthy and can open the door to further communication!
  • You don’t need to add links to blog posts that your followers would be interested in. Thanking a follower on social media is enough. Recommending an article to them can be done much better in a tweet. And if you introduced yourself professionally on top of your Twitter page, you don’t need to tell them about your own blog or website. Compare it with a party where you meet new folks. You don’t say hello, nice to meet you – and add a commercial-like sentence next.

Do What I Say – Don’t Do What I Do  : )
Try to check your direct messages regularly and respond to them if possible. This is a huge trust-builder and will lead to more engagement in the future. Good advice for Twitter accounts under 5,000 followers…

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More About this Topic:

Why Twitter should remove DM’s altogether
http://www.socialtechzone.com/wordpress/twitter/twitter_remove_dm/
Who to Follow on Twitter
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/whom-to-follow-on-twitter/
All Mistakes to Avoid at Twitter
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/17-social-media-mistakes-to-avoid-on-twitter-2/

Easy for Your Readers: “Click to Tweet”

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Twitter-Feature.

Another great way to invite readers to spread the word about your book is to implement “pre-fabricated” tweets, where you choose the text from your books manuscript (similar to a link).  You can set up this clever feature in your blog posts or website pages, for example in the first 10 percent of your e-book, in the middle, and at the end.
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To implement pre-worded tweets use a website called “Click to Tweet“, and make it easy for your readers and followers to recommend your books on social media or on reader communities, such as Goodreads or LibraryThing.  And don’t forget to add this code into your LinkedIn articles!   Your readers only have to make one click, which is so much easier than to type a text and add a link to it.
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As you have already a sales page on Amazon you can add the URL in your tweet form.  Here is an example of the code for a useful guide- book for authors, how to create a book trailer that we published a while ago:
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<a target=”_blank” href=”http://ctt.ec/Rsd37″><img src=”http://clicktotweet.com/img/tweet-graphic-1.png” alt=”Tweet: Tweet: 111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer” /></a>
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Once you are signed up at “Click to Tweet” it will show up as ready-to-send-tweet.

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Everything in this HTML Text is already “pre-fabricated”, you only have to add your title.  And best of all: you will receive the statistics for your tweet, as announced:

We’ll track all clicks on this link and provide detailed analytics.

We’ll shorten any links in your tweet and provide tracking stats.

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Here is a great video that shows you how to implement the tweet to your text.  “Click to Tweet” is not only a great tool to spread the word about your book, it should also be implemented in each of your blog articles or in your website.
More about this at YourWriterPlatform  @clicktotweet
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BlogTyrant Writes:
“Use a website called “Click to Tweet”.  All you do is enter your quote in the box on the right and then click “generate link”.  You then use the URL that they give you as the destination for your anchor text.  You can add these at any part of your post, it doesn’t have to be a block quote.  It could just be a cool little phrase you use to sum up a paragraph or article.  Make sure you make the quote short enough to allow people to retweet it within Twitter itself and make sure you include a tiny URL of the post where the quote came from.”

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You will realize that the number of tweets about your books or other text skyrockets!  Another way to use tweets: Let readers “Pay with a Tweet“.  Instead of giving your book away for free, let your readers promote your book first before you give it away – which means more free promotion and exposure for your book.  Read all the details in this article.  Who needs KDP Select free days anymore…?  You can do this even from your own blog or website.

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If you would like to get a mentor and our support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day!  Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting / Book Marketing for your success: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

To learn more about professional book marketing and publishing, please read also “Book Marketing on a Shoestring
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UAVL3LE

Our email newsletters with free insider tips are sent out once a month. To sign up, just go to the form on the right site of each blog post.

9 Things Authors Should Never Do on Twitter

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Twitter-Social-Network

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If you want to become popular on Twitter and have your tweets go viral, avoid these errors, and check out the small, but significant issues you might not be aware of, and change your Social Media approach for the better.
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Having no Avatar – Instead an Image of your Pet
Who wants to talk with an egg, or a cat, child or your dog? OK, if you have a company, you can use the company logo, but for everyone else: get a great studio photo once in ten years and use it for all your marketing needs including your book cover or on your website. Would you send a potential employer a photo of your house pet, your book or a toddler’s image? No? Why then show these annoying images to your potential customers? Be professional! Sometimes I am inclined to publish a book with the worst avatars! Hope yours is not included. Use an attractive portrait or logo and stick with it everywhere, in order to have brand consistency.

Having no Bio or Real Name
Your name and @name, should be searchable on Twitter. It means people can type you into Twitter’s search engine and find you. Use your own name o try to get the actual name of your small publishing business on Twitter. Keep it as short as possible, to give tweeps more space to re-tweet your content or to communicate with you.

Choosing Other Writers as Followers (only)
Why would you not choose readers, reviewers or other interesting people to follow? If you are on Social Media to network, hang out with READERS! A no-brain-er … Use the search function to find like-minded Tweeps, e.g. type: reading, book lover, book worm, avid reader etc. You will want to get more readers, than other writers as Twitter followers, right?

Talking about Your Book (only)
Buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book – pretty boring, isn’t it?
Aim to send out entertaining, thoughtful, funny content or news, that are interesting for your fellow tweeps. You could for example improve these points:

  • Tweet the latest news
  • Pick the right time of day
  • Leave room for a retweet
  • Use top re-tweetable phrases
  • Write a tempting headline
  • Don’t make the tweet about you

Not Being Social – or Being too Social
In the process of choosing followers, one can sometimes scroll down their timeline for a whole week and don’t find a single re-tweet. Or the opposite: you want to re-tweet and cannot find anything the person ever tweeted … only re-tweets of others’ content.  Or they talk only with their friends, without ever turning to the rest of the Twitter-sphere.

Not Having at least 2,000 Followers – or Stuck With 2,000
Some books and blog articles advice to never follow anyone with less than 2,000 followers. Doesn’t sound fair, as everyone has to start somewhere. On the other hand some tweeps click on every name they see on Twitter to reach 2,000 followers very fast – and then stuck. For them, instead to un-follow successive those who do not follow, they just wait it out to get 2,000 people who follow them, in order to continue their growth. But this can take forever, as no one wants to to follow THEM – and then wait for months or even longer, until they reciprocate – or worse: never do.
Un-follow people who haven’t followed you back after a while. This is especially important to avoid “follow limits”.  If you have anything like these numbers – you are in trouble:  268 TWEETS – 2000 FOLLOWING – 345 FOLLOWERS

Barely Ever Re-tweeting Others, or Answering Them
Twitter is a SOCIAL network, don’t use it as a advertisement board only. Answer or re-tweet others – and they will return the favor. Stop your continuing posts, varying from three to six subjects, and this for pages and pages… What I found so far: 80% of these are male and/or are introvert writers or leadership business advisers.
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Greeting new followers with FB likes promotion / Book promotion
You get a message in your mailbox: Someone mentioned you. Curious you check it, but no, you are only summoned to go to their Facebook account and LIKE their page. Or they send you the link to their books sales page. And that’s the greeting for following them… Do they sign up with Twitter only to advertise their wares? Same: Sending DM’s with advertisements. You open the Direct message and you are greeted with advertising. My reaction: UNFOLLOW. Thanks and nice to meet you...

Never, ever, use TrueTwit Validation Service
Author Sean Munger reminded me of this one. Almost forgot about it, as I am not able anymore to read every email / Direct message with ten-thousands of followers (can’t make Twitter a full-time job : ). Some are nice Welcome messages, but 90 per cent are spam (see #8). But I read them in the past, first I answered, telling them that I DO NOT use TrueTwit Validation Service, but then I gave up and just ignored the sender.
The irony is, that these people are often following me, and then when I want to follow them back, their message appears! Why did they choose to follow me and then want ME to validate??? Read Sean Munger’s blog post, especially if you ever used this useless “service”. Sean’s most important message, to which I fully agree: “Most importantly for you, it means I will never buy your book. You just lost a reader, a customer, a potential fan, a potential reviewer”.

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OK, enough said. Don’t want to go into further rants … : )  These are just a few of many issues that make it difficult to interact for others on Twitter – or prevents tweeps to click on FOLLOW you and for you to build social networks and your writer’s platform. To become successful and popular on Twitter do this:

Follow others, tweet something valuable for others and don’t use Twitter as a cheap way to advertise!  Create a nice mixture of your own, really interesting tweets and do some re-tweeting.
Choose a very short Twitter name.  Make it as easy and convenient as possible for your fellow tweeps to engage and interact with you.

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