I spent a good portion of the weekend working on my story. With some encouragement from Karen Stivali on Twitter, I participated in a #1k1h sprint Sunday afternoon. I used that time to write a new scene from a different perspective.
Poof! It was magic and just what I needed.
Anyway, back to Twitter. I've predominantly been using Twitter these past few months to interact with my other writing friends, which has been great fun. I also use it to follow a few agents and editors, but I admit I follow those who appear to have more of an online presence instead of those who are directly related to my genre.
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So, okay. I think I'm getting the hang of how this all works. I'm still not clear on retweeting, but I'll get around to that. What I really want to better understand, is how to use lists.
I first discovered Twitter lists when I started to follow Donna K. Weaver on Twitter (check out her blog, Weaving a Tale or Two). I noticed she had seven or eight lists of her own, plus she followed lists other people had created. The idea of organizing the people I followed into lists made perfect sense, but then I was stuck trying to figure out who to follow and what lists to put them in. I can see the logic of following a list made by someone else, someone who knows all the key players to follow and who has already done all the "following" work. At least, that's how I think this following and list thing works.
What I'd like to know is how do you use Twitter lists? I think since I'm just scratching the surface of Twitter, I could soon explore following non-writing related feed. Like New York Yankee feeds, for example. And then, if I'm understanding this correctly, I could drop them all in a list and read all those relevant Tweets when I want?
Also, how do you organize your lists? Editors only? Agents only? Published authors only? And how do you find people to follow? I'd love to hear how you organize your Twitter time so it can be the most effective in the shortest amount of time!*
(*--says the girl who just lost 25 minutes of her day staring into space and clicking down the rabbit hole that is Twitter. I need a daydreaming egg timer...)
I only have one list at the moment - blogger buddies. I have so many following me and I wanted to keep up with those I knew before Twitter. Still haven't figured out hashtags, but I do hold conversations now and then and I'm always Tweeting someone's blogpost.
ReplyDeleteI think you have the retweeting thing figured out. The hashtags, well, I'm totally the wrong person to say anything since I make most of mine up. #isafaker
DeleteLike that. :)
i actually am not on Twitter. Crazy, right? I just kept putting it off and putting it off. I told myself if i got an agent, i'd join twitter and that probably still holds true
ReplyDeleteI'm just going to go out and say it--you're not missing much. My attention span is-- Oh, look. A new tweet...
DeleteTwitter is a bit overwhelming for me. I have a couple lists, buts have never followed someone else's list. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteYup. So I'm looking to people like you and AJC with the massive following to put together a list of people I should follow, okay? Great. Let me know when it's ready.
DeleteI kid.
I have two Twitter accounts: one for my fiction, and one for my non-fiction. I find them to be VERY different communities, and I use my accounts differently as a result.
ReplyDeleteThe non-fiction has less of a community feel - it's more like a news feed, with people sharing tidbits but few people talking amongst each other. Also very few posts about random life things; it feels very business-like. I post nature observations there, occasionally updates on my non-fiction book. I never got in to using it much.
The fiction community is very friendly and engaging in comparison. Not that the non-fiction people aren't friendly, but they don't share it there as much. The fiction people are very casual; a tweet might just as easily be about what they're up to as an interesting link or something business-related. I carry on conversations with my fiction friends, which I virtually never do with my non-fiction friends.
As far as lists, I don't use them. I did try them out at one point, though, organizing the people I followed into "big fish", "little fish" and "non-people fish" (published authors and agents, non-published writers, organizations/companies). I find people tend to post different types of things depending on where they are in the publishing process.
However, I use TweetDeck because I can follow and use both my Twitter accounts at once there, and TweetDeck doesn't handle the list thing very well; tweets regularly don't show up in the list feed even when they'll display in your all-friends feed, so I ended up removing "big fish" and "non-people fish" from TweetDeck and putting my all-friends feed back in. I've still got the "little fish" feed because I can glance through it quickly for tweets from my writing friends.
Oh, and re: finding people, mostly I poach off other people - I'll check out who someone I like is following, then follow anyone there who catches my eye.
DeleteYup, I'm working on perfecting the art of Twitter Poaching. :)
DeleteI tried to use TweetDeck once but I guess it doesn't work for Mac users? Seeing as I follow 98 people, it's not that tough to keep up. Usually.
On Twitter you get so many people who follow you simply because they want to advertise to you. I swear there are a couple of people I follow (strangers) that every time I get on Twitter their face is at the top of the feed. They never stop tweeting about their book. So...I have a private list that I can go to so that all I really have to read are the people I want to read....mostly blogger buddies.
ReplyDeleteAnd, hey, I realize they probably filter me out too, but that's just the way it goes. It's overwhelming otherwise.
LG--I noticed the same thing! I thought I'd be nice and not block writerly related people, but EVERY FREAKING DAY... multiple times! Since I have more friends I follow than spammers, I might put all of them in a private list and just ignore it.
DeleteI've been on Twitter a couple of years and I still don't use lists. I have managed to snag a few created by others, but I don't follow a lot of people with my writing-centric account so it's still pretty easy to keep track of everyone. I noticed many people I followed had multiple interests and I couldn't decide where to put them either.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm getting the sense that the lists aren't really going to be worth the effort for me. It's like creating a huge multi-drawer filing system for the 34 pieces of paper on my desk. So far, it's small enough that I can manage it on my own.
DeleteI haven't used Twitter as much as I thought that I would. I just don't have the hang of it or something. My twitter groove is off. So until I figure it out, I'll stick to blogging.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I'd call what I have a "twitter groove", but it's easier to keep up via 140 characters instead of a full blog. Maybe that makes me lazy? :)
DeleteI love Twitter.
ReplyDeleteI don't use lists...not sure what the benefit is for me right now. I just have everyone in one big ol' feed, and I like ti that way.
One feed is helpful, but I am impressed with someone who has as many followers such as yourself... a feed of 1000+ followers could possibly grow quite unruly!
DeleteI just started blogging a few months ago. I haven't had the guts to try the the whole Twitter thing yet. I have no idea how it works. :)
ReplyDeleteI am so not organized on Twitter. The most I do is follow a few of my favorite hashtags in columns on Tweetdeck. Every now and then I check out what's happening in the main feed. Twitter is fun though--it feels less formal than FB to me.
ReplyDeleteI haven't really gotten into Twitter. Mostly, I just jump on every now and then to check a few specific feeds. Otherwise, I find I just don't have time to keep up with it all.
ReplyDeleteI love Twitter.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought it was silly, but I have so much love on Twitter compared to Facebook, it's unreal.
The secret to success on Twitter is to show luv.
Visit their websites and blogs and give their good stuff a shoutout on Twitter.
Interact with people (it is social media) retweet their important messages to help them get exposure and followback. Tweet interesting things, not just commericals for yourself (have a follower that tweets micropoetry.)
I am on many lists but wirh over 2500 followers, it's time to start organizing them into lists, too.