Galleycat, the people who know all things related to books, publishing and authors, realize that a lot of Twitter users don't make the best use of socializing for fun and profit. They've put up a "Cheat Sheet" to teach writers to tweet more effectively.
While aimed at those of us whose idea of a good time is pounding the keyboard, the tips in the article sound beneficial for all tweeters. The tips are taken from a data report by Buddy Media, and Galleycat passes along the hints in a handy, easy to save "Cheat Sheet."
I found some of them surprising. For example, they say that the best time to tweet is between 8 am and 7 pm and tweets during those hours receive a 30% higher engagement rate. That surprised me because during most of those hours many poor, unfortunate writers are - like me - chained to a day job we're trying to write our way out of. If these are the hours with the highest traffic, lots of day job writers must be tweeting on the clock. (I take the 5th on that).
The "Cheat Sheet" also says you should tweet 4 times a day - or less. That, I really don't get. Lots of the people I follow seem to tweet links to or reviews from their books alone more times a day than that! I don't tweet book links a lot. Some days I'll tweet one, but I worry about people thinking I'm ONLY engaged in the forum to drive sales. I guess that's one of the reasons all writers are there, but I don't think it should be the main one - it's certainly not mine.
The main reason I'm on the site is that it is one of the best ways on Planet Earth to interact with a huge range of people I'd never normally get to meet, and all those folks pass along lots of different info. For example, from Twitter I knew we'd gotten Osama long before the press publicized it.
Maybe I should tweet more sales links and reviews. Some of the people who do - I shall NOT name them - have amazing sales numbers. I guess my "Southernness" interferes with me being an effective tweeter of sales links -- imposing is impolite, don'tcha know?
I'm guessing most of us could use some lessons in twitterology and this "Cheat Sheet" seems to give some great pointers that pass along lots of info in a quick and easily understandable chart.
Enjoy - and if you don't already, follow me on twitter @quackingalone.