How can you use Twitter?
February 26th, 2010 | 
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Folio: blogger Dan Blank has an interesting post this week about how several Reed publications use Twitter to improve their brand and connect with their readers.
The varying uses fall in a few broad categories that all publishers can emulate:
- Announcements
Using Twitter to post about new columns, or give a heads up on new coverage. This is the most obvious, and perhaps the most over-used, use of Twitter. - Reputation Building
By contributing responses and original “tweets” to the topics they cover, reporters can increase their reputation as experts in those topics. If those in the niches know they’re actively covering those topics, they’ll likely be notified of anything newsworthy - Conversation and Feedback
Using Twitter to get readers involved in the content of the magazine can increase loyalty, as well as help shape future coverage of similar topics. Asking specific questions to your niche followers can lead to stories and angles you wouldn’t have discovered on your own.Library Journal Managing Editor Heather McCormack….. [ Twitter] allows her to interact with her audience in small ways each day, even though she is actually sitting in a gray cubicle in New York City.
- Primary Source for News
While Twitter should not be used as the basis of a news story without collaboration, it is a way to get a heads up on online happenings quickly.The recent battle over e-book pricing at Amazon is a good example. I heard about Amazon removing the buy buttons from Macmillan titles on Twitter first and we were able to respond quickly with our own story. — Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly
Read the full post here.
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You know, I think that many are not using Twitter very creatively. So many Twitter users are merely pumping out links and it has become almost spammy.
I’ve noticed that it is the Twitterers that ask questions that end up engaging me the most and I’m more likely to click through to whatever it is they want me to read.
Hey Bob… will you follow me on Twitter? Hehe.. I’ve still yet to sign up for an account. I took a look at it one day, and it didn’t seem to be of much value. Maybe I need to rethink it.
Sure thing Jim, as long as you’re not twittering too much about your personal life!
There are a lot of good resources out there on making the best use of Twitter. I’d bet that authors are behind the times when it comes to this kind of social marketing unless they have a good advisor. One of my acquaintances is writing a book aimed at teenagers, and he had no idea he could set up a Facebook page for his book.