The Music Muse

Music can be a writer’s muse. Some listen while they write with heads bobbing in time to the beat. Others listen to lyrics and dream of the story. Are you a writer you loves to listen while you work?  Click here to read the rest at the Diamond State Romance Authors' Blog.

This post is a continuing series for those of us trying to find best practices for Twitter. I don't claim to be an expert. I don't even play one on TV or the internet. If you want to visit an expert, follow @KristenLambTX . I take all the advice I can get, and she's very knowledgeable about social media.  As for me, I have three previous Twitter Jar Tip posts here if you missed reading those. Here we proceed to Tip #4!

I do believe it is the quality and not the quantity of your Twitter numbers. A person can have 10,000 Twitter followers, but it's useless if you don't cultivate any relationships. If you have been on Twitter long enough to follow very many, you may feel overwhelmed by the constant stream of chatter.  Solution? You should make Twitter lists.

The Twitter list allows you to filter according to certain categories. Think of it as similar to making folders for your email inbox. You give the list a name and then you add Twitter people into the list. I have several Twitter lists. There's a category for writers, publishers and agents, friends, and I even have one called "fun".  Okay now...don't check my "fun" list for your name.  My "fun" list actually contains some celebrities and rock stars who may never know I exist, but I follow them because they make me laugh.

When you have a Twitter list, you can easily click on it to see ONLY the tweets from the people on the list. Now, instead of trying to hold conversations with a room of a thousand people, you've narrowed it down. I might have anywhere from 10 -- 100 people on my lists. Circulate...visit...and interact by replying to the tweets and holding conversations.


The list in the image to the left contains BOOK SAVVY PEOPLE. Click on it to see a larger image. You can see the number of people I am following on the list. Sometimes, people like my list and follow it. See the smaller green box to the right.

This isn't a ploy to cut out the interactions with all the people you follow. It's merely a way to make a large follow list manageable.  Sometimes I place a person on a list the minute I begin following them. Other times, I get to know a person on Twitter and then add them to a list. 

Let's go straight to the directions on how-to.  These directions are for the desktop version of Twitter. 

First, log in to your Twitter account. Go to the List Menu heading and click. You will see a link to "Create a list." Click on it to begin. 

A dialogue box will open with a place for the list title, a description, and if you want the list to be public or private. If private, you'll be the only one with access to names on the list.

Once you SAVE the list you've created, Twitter immediately takes you to a screen where you can add some Twitter users to it.

Or you may want to browse through your Twitter friends and click on their picture/profile. Here you will see the drop-down list of options that allows you to "Add to list" and you will see all your lists with checkboxes available. You can add a person to more than one list.

I've added @IsisRushdan to my FRIENDS and WRITING-SAVVY-PEOPLE lists. Isis is popular; she's a member of 80 lists.

Here's a list of my peeps from the #writingcampaign I'm engaged in with the Platform-Building Campaigners. Anytime I want to see what these writers are tweeting, I click on my list to see only their tweets as opposed to the 700+ I follow in my Timeline view that opens when I log in. 

Angela Scott, aka as @whimsywriting, is on my list and you can see that she's also been added to quite a few lists. Quality tweeting will do that for you.  I hope this post has helped you to see the value in creating a list for use in the Twitterverse. It's a big place out there, but a list can organize your tweeting experience.

How do you know if you are doing it right? I've been on Twitter for a
couple of years, but I only got serious about using it in the last
several months. There are lots of tools out there by 3rd party
developers. Here is one to let help you assess the Twitter identity you
are creating.

The address for the website is www.twittergrader.com. It's easy to use
and see what score and ranking you get in the world of Twitter. I put
my username in recently  to discover that I'm making a grade of 87,
and I ranked 1,249,877 out of 9,520,956 Twitter users at the time I
checked.

The more interesting part is the algorithm used to come up with this
score. Why do they think I'm making 87%?

Several factors are used:
Followers: Yes, the number of your followers matters. Additionally,
the power or reach of those users is also calculated.

Updates: How often and how recent...did you tweet one time a month
ago? Not good. Do you tweet every minute of the day? Not good either.
Believe me- you're not that interesting.

Ratio:  Followers to Following .  Here's the brief explanation. If you
are following 100 people and you have 100 followers, the ratio is 1:1.
It says that you are interesting and people follow you AND you are
interested in other people.  If you go extremely outside that range,
it says something else. If you are following 1000 people and only have
100 followers, it says that you aren't interesting enough to follow.
Or you're a spammer. Or something else undesirable. You should be in this to
build relationships. You can't do that if people aren't also following you.  
On the flip side, if you have 10,000 followers and you are following 100 people, 
you are probably famous (or apublishing agent) and don't need to read this 
for advice on Twitter.

Engagement: Are people retweeting your tweets?  Are you funny,
interesting, empowering, or engaging? If you tweet only the mundane,
chances are no one will retweet you.  Are you TALKING to people? Hey,
this isn't Facebook. It's not about status updates.  Tweet links with
interesting content or pictures. Variety is nice.

The website didn't give away the entire algorithm for scoring Twitter
users.  If they did, someone would steal their great idea. What do you
think is important on Twitter?

In response to a question I received a few days ago, here is an explanation on linking social media. I have linked my blog feed to Twitter. Keep in mind that there is always more than one way to do anything. I'm just telling you how I do it with Google Feedburner.  I did notice a message on the right of the image that there were issues connecting their "Socialize" feature  on March 1, 2011. Mine has been working. 

I have a tweet button on my blog page and could always just manually tweet it, but I like automation. Yes... you may think using the tweet button is much easier, but I use Google Feedburner for my email subscription tracking as well. Actually, there are about a dozen cool things a person can do with Feedburner, but that would be a post for another day.  If you want more info on all this (like a video showing you how), please let me know in the comments. In the meantime, all you fearless bloggers should go to feedburner.com.

I'm skipping past the basics in this explanation. Basics include: 

1. Have a blog and a Twitter account.
   
2. You will need to sign up for a Google account if you don't have one.
   
3. Know how to identify your blog feed.

Here is a screenshot of my feedburner page.

Once you have a feed set up, you can click on the Socialize tab to set up your feed to "tweet".  Here is another screenshot.

And some more settings on this page...

Notice that the blog links are shortened for you. See preview-->>>

See the Connect an Account button? Other types of accounts you can link: Facebook, Yahoo, Flickr, LinkedIn, Quora, and Yelp.

This will be a continuing series on what I've learned about using
Twitter. Whether you are using it for fun or business, it makes sense
to learn how to use it correctly.  This tip is meant for those who
have jumped into Twitter and are still learning.

Tip #1:  How to Engage with More People with Your Reply.

Sometimes you want to respond to someone on twitter. If you want to
"mention" the user and comment or answer, then you reply or mention
the person. IF that username comes at the beginning of the tweet, then
place a period (.) in front of the username, and everyone in your
network will see it.  All your followers can then see the conversation
between you and the other user.  Otherwise, only the tweeters
following both of you will be able to see the conversation.

Here's an example: I'm following author John Scalzi. He answered
questions from selected followers during a chat on Twitter. He
answered a question with  ".@Elion_King I wouldn't mind seeing more
humor in science fiction #torchat."  I was able to see his reply to
the question because of the period.  Because I don't follow
@Elion_King in addition to John Scalzi, I wouldn't get to see  a
standard reply. You must follow both to see those.  The period made
the difference.  This is a great way to share conversations with
everyone who follows you.

I love this fun video by Eric Qualman that highlights so much about the impact of social media. The statistics are also reliable as the sources are posted.  Here is the blog URL where you can review the sources: http://www.socialnomics.net/2010/05/05/social-media-revolution-2-refresh/
Notice that the date on this is May of 2010. We can only imagine the exponential growth since then.