social media – Writer’s Edit

What makes a great Twitter profile? What should writers tweet about? What hashtags should we use? What are the most common mistakes writers make on writer? We talk to our Twitter Account Manager and Head of Tech, Dave to get all the answers, as well as his tips and tricks for making a writer's Twitter profile stand out. Dave Hickman has been managing the Writer's Edit Twitter account for over a year and half, and under his leadership, it's grown from about 4,000 followers, to over 40,ooo followers. With a background in internet marketing and social media, Dave chats to Founding Editor Helen Scheuerer about his experiences with the social media platform, and what he thinks works particularly well for writers. The first thing you've gotta remember about your Twitter profile is that it's your personal brand. Just like a company has a brand... how they're depicted in the media, a company has to look after their reputation, you've got to do that yourself, and only you are responsible for that..." Watch the video in full below, and scroll down for the show notes. Highlights from Top 6 Insider Tips & Tricks for Authors Using Twitter What makes a great Twitter profile for a writer? Represent your author brand accurately and professionally. Use your real author name, so you're easy to find and follow! Use a real (and respectable) photo of yourself for your profile picture. Write a simple and direct bio. Feel free to list what you'll be tweeting about. Use the 'Pinned Tweet' feature to link to your latest blog post or published work. What should you tweet about? Writing and industry-related news/feature articles. Helpful, resourceful tweets - direct your followers to articles by other writers that you found helpful or inspiring. Motivational images/quotes. Make sure your tweets contribute to the writing community on Twitter. Don't be all about self-promotion (asking people to buy your book). How to use hashtags, and what hashtags should you use? Be sure to change the hashtags you're using according to what you're tweeting about. Don't use sentences in hashtags. Check out the tool Hashtagify, which acts as a "search engine" for hashtags, explores the latest trends and related hashtag terms. Should you use images on Twitter? Keep your images basic and easy to view (and read, if they're quotes), nothing too busy! Get the dimensions right (the width should be double the height). Use Canva for image creation, as they provide you with the correct dimensions from the beginning, and offer super easy design features. How often should you tweet? Remember that the lifetime of a tweet is just 5 minutes. You can tweet as often as you like, as long as it doesn't take you away from other responsibilities and writing! Use Buffer.com to schedule tweets to go live, which means you don't have to be on Twitter all the time! Common mistakes writers make on Twitter: Getting too obscure and creative with their tweets. Not using simple language. Using superfluous words and taking up prime 'tweet real estate'. Using too many hashtags (3 at most). Using silly hashtags (sentence long hashtags, like we do when we speak). Being negative - don't whinge all the time! Trying too hard to promote and sell their book. *** Remember to follow Writer's Edit on Twitter for awesome writing advice, industry insights and feature articles. Got questions about being a writer using Twitter? Comment below and our team will do our best to help.