(Songs have nothing to do with topic. I just like them. Also don’t play all 3 at same time.)
I’ve been toying around with Twitter and Facebook to see if anything brings in different numbers in terms of sales. This has been an accidental experiment since it began during the 2 week break that my son had. Basically, I missed days or tried something to save time on what I was doing. I’m going to do this as a list though because it’s hard to put my ‘findings’ into any other form. As usual, this is only what I’ve experienced and most of what I say could be different for others.
First some Twitter mechanics revelations:
- Pinned tweets do not come up as pinned when using the phone app. So if you pinned a tweet last month and are depending on that then you will run into a small problem from those who only use their phone. Scrolling through tons of retweets to find that one original post can be annoying.
- To counter the issue of #1, if you wish to return a retweet to someone who did that then find the name of their book. Do a search for that book and you’ll be able to find more recent tweets about it.
- You cannot send a Direct Message on Twitter to someone if they don’t follow you. So people that I follow who send me a message and don’t follow back are going to run into a problem.
- Personally, I don’t think you have to make a public thank you to everyone who retweets your stuff. There are other methods of thanks here. A ‘top RT list’ where you thank the big ones of the week or even just doing it in groups would help. I get a lot of retweets throughout the day, which is why I do the simpler ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ retweet.
Now for the sales and numbers stuff:
- Posting in the Facebook groups and not posting in the Facebook groups had the same effect on my sales. Absolutely nothing. In most of these groups, my post got shunting down the list within minutes. One even had it pushed ten spaces down in 30 seconds. I skipped days and that didn’t make a difference. There might be a ‘sweet spot’ to hit, but I’ve never found it. The smaller groups where you interact are probably better and I should get back into those.
- My new Twitter system is one tweet every 3 hours, return the retweet favor, do a few hashtag searches throughout the day, and pin the best post of the previous day. I just started this two days ago.
- Retweeting is very important because it shows you care and helps with networking. Even doing it near the end of the day while you eat turn or before you turn in for the night will help. Be more than a self-promoting bot.
- Twitter has a faster ‘drowning’ rate than the Facebook groups, but you can ease the harshness of this with hashtags. Genre, various book groups, and #Kindle can actually work here. Things that are part of your genre can help too like #dragons and #magic for me. There are tons of hashtags out there, so take a little time to find the ones that will work. One thing to beware of is to choose a hashtag that will have no traction like #obscurereference or #tapirsgogreatwithsalsa. You need something that won’t be saturated while also being something that people may search for.
- Finally, I don’t think Twitter does a lot for actual, immediate sales . . . I’m guessing people left the room before I finished. I do see one BIG benefit of Twitter though and that it’s easier to gather a following/network. This can help spread your tweets, so it increases your exposure. All you have to do is remember to retweet and follow back, but I always recommend examining the people before you follow back. Some are bots and others are best not to associate with. Now I know some people are scoffing at this and that’s fine. This advice is solely for those that are looking at Twitter as a marketing platform first and then a social gathering.
- Side note: Nobody on Twitter gives a damn about what I’m doing, which is why it’s only marketing. I tired wit and ‘my day’ tweets, which went about as far as a flea’s cough.
