Promote Yourself

Use Twitter

Twitter lets you send or receive messages up to 140 characters long. So, what’s so valuable about that?

Their length might make tweets seem a lot like text messages, but there’s a big difference: A text goes to the mobile phone of one person, while your tweet can reach a handful of people—or hundreds. Once you sign up, you choose who to follow, and how to pull the info you want from Twitter’s information stream. You can also push your own message out to all of your followers—and encourage them to check out your audiobook!

Get Started

  1. Go to www.twitter.com and sign up.
  2. Create an account. You will enter 1) your full name as you want it to appear in your profile and 2) a Twitter username, which will appear before each of your tweets. Tip: If you want potential followers to find you on Twitter, use your first and last name (or your professional name) as your full name.
  3. Once you’re signed up, look for some followers. Start with your contacts: Use “Find people” to search for them and then follow them. Hopefully, the people you follow will follow you, too!
  4. It’s helpful to start out by watching the conversations going on. Then, when you feel ready, start to engage with your followers by sending your own tweets.

Get the Most Out of Twitter

Follow the people you’d like to be associated with. Don't follow everyone who follows you. (This can become unmanageable, plus you might not want to indicate an interest in all of them).

  • Follow people who share your interests. They’re most likely to retweet (pass along) your own tweets.
  • Share everything that you want associated with your personal brand: articles, videos, blog posts, books, products, news, etc. Link to things your fans and followers might find interesting. If you post something fabulous to your blog, tweet about it and send the link.
  • Retweet. Post any messages from other people that you consider worth sharing.
  • Try to have more followers than people you’re following. Try for about two thirds more.
  • Create a custom background for your Twitter profile to engage people visually and show your style.
  • You can use Twitter online, from its website and from one of the free apps that bring its functionality to your phone or computer. Try TweetDeck, Twitterific, or Twitter (for the iPhone).
  • Using your blog, Facebook page, and emails invite people to follow you on Twitter.