Twitter – friend or foe?
I’ve been using Twitter now
for the best part of 4 years, long before I decided to become a copywriter. In that time I’ve
been followed, unfollowed, made friends, unmade friends and even met some of
them and formed long lasting friendships.
I get sick of Twitter and
threaten to abandon it on a monthly basis. However here I am, still here after
all this time.
It almost sounds like an
excuse for a song – but sometimes I wonder, if you’re using Twitter to promote
your business, how far should you go? I'm still learning and fearful of putting people off rather than turning them on to my talents.
The keyboard is mightier
than the written word
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| Have you read my book?. |
From the point of view of
someone that follows other users who use Twitter to promote their work, I can
say without a shadow of a doubt that it can be a tad irritating when all you
get is a constant stream of tweets with links and short phrases. Some writers are
notorious for it. They never talk about themselves, they never seem to reach
out to their audience, other than to try and sell you their latest book. If you
send them a message they usually have so many followers they don’t have a clue
who you are and your message gets ignored. This doesn’t make me want to buy
their books; in fact it puts me right off. I say some, not all.
Another thing that I find particularly
irritating is when someone is complimented on their work, regardless of what
they do and they feel it’s their solemn duty to share it with the rest of us, so we can see how
wonderful they are and how wonderful their product is. So endless retweets then of
how amazing Johnny Smith is and his first foray into science fiction.
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| I'm selling mirrors |
Links, links and then more
links
If someone follows me I
usually check out their profile quickly, I’ll take a quick look at their
bio and then at their tweets, if there’s nothing there other than a
constant stream of links and they don’t seem to be saying anything else of
interest then it’s unlikely I’ll follow
right away. I’ll leave it for a few days and then maybe I’ll ask them
something, if they can’t be bothered to reply and this happens more than a few
times, then I definitely won’t be following them – and that’s bad news if they
want to sell me something in the future. I especially hate it when someone fills
my timeline all at once with endless plugs. That’s why I’m reluctant to over
promote myself or my blog - no matter how much I want people to read it, I don’t
want to alienate people.
Personality – let it shine
I did buy one book from
someone on Twitter once who actually gave some hint of a personality, giving
away little snippets of what she liked and disliked and what she gets up to,
not an autobiography mind, in forty characters that’s impossible, but just enough
to make her seem interesting, so interesting I wanted to read one of her books.
It made her seem human. And she still carried on following me after I bought it. And I say this with
good reason; another follower of mine bought a book from someone only to be
unfollowed by them after the purchase!
How much is too much?
If you want to promote
yourself on Twitter – should you try and interact with your followers, or just
go for the hard sell? I think a combination of the two with a bit of soft sell,
maybe a bit of subliminal selling. You have to be clever to do that and it’s
not something I’ve quite mastered yet. It helps if you try to connect
with people. I’m not suggesting you have great meaningful conversations on philosophy,
far from it, who has the time for that? But if you give the impression you have
time for people, that you’re warm blooded, that you give a s**t, it makes all
the difference in the world to those that follow you - especially if you want
them to buy something from you somewhere down the line.
Striking a balance
But when is talking about yourself too much, how do you really strike a balance between making yourself seem interesting and not over marketing yourself? How you come across as interesting and warm and not vain and self-glorious? It's a difficult balance because all social media platforms are about narcissism to a certain degree, it's all about the self. If you come across as warm, human, giving a little away about yourself and show interest in others then a balance can be achieved.
You are not a robot.
Be human, be real and connect with your
followers, because they could be your future clients or customers in the
future. If they see you as a real person
and you come across as being approachable then they might ask you something,
something that may lead to further enquiries about what you do, your services
and who knows, perhaps a purchase or a recommendation.
And no that hasn’t happened
to me yet on Twitter, but I’d be interested to know what others experience of
self-promotion on Twitter has been, have you had success? Has it led to further
clients/customers? Do Americans have it covered; are they better at
self-promotion than the Brits? Should we take a lesson from them, or steer well
clear?
Tell me what you think.
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| I love you! |
Gillian Jones is a copywriter and freelance writer. If you want to make use of her services, contact her on pandora.77@hotmail.co.uk and find her website here www.taith.net
