To Tweet?Or Not toTweet?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, it's happened again. Yesterday, Reds chose team Hank or Team Hallie on tax preparation--it didn't start out that way, but that's how it evolved.

Today, somehow, hilariously, we've got another H or H decision for you.

Ten years ago we had NO idea what this was!

I tweet. @hank_phillippi

Our fabulous secret weapon @JungleReds tweets. (You DO follow us, right? It's never a dull moment, trust me.)

@rhysbowen tweets.

And @deborahcrombie, and @LucyBurdette, and  @JspencerFleming.

Hallie--doesn't. (But she does other stuff, of course. And what ever it is, seems to be working quite successfully, thank you so much.)

So it happens again. Are you a Hank or a Hallie? 

According to branding expert extraordinaire Dorie Clark--and more about her below--anyone who thinks Twitter is too silly or too shallow or too difficult or too easy, should take one more look at this new-ish shiny thing on the internet. And Dorie, because she's always ahead of the curve, is now shairng--just for Jungle Red!--her

Three Twitter Tips for Mystery Writers (and Readers)

                     By Dorie Clark

Dorie Clark--actually tweeting!

I was originally a Twitter skeptic – when it first hit the scene seven years ago, it seemed like the worst combination of useless and narcissistic. But my opinion has changed, and I now think it’s one of the best ways to build a following, establish your brand, and keep connected with your community.

In my new book Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future, I profile a number of “professional reinventers” – including Jungle Red co-conspirator Hank Phillippi Ryan, who used her successful career in television news as a launchpad for her mystery writing career. Whether you’re seeking to grow your profile as a mystery writer or stay on top of news and cool opportunities as a reader, here are three quick tips I recommend.

• Leverage the power of lists. Twitter allows you to create lists, a terrific feature that enables you to make sense of the ceaseless stream of content. Set up lists for your favorite authors, other readers whose opinion you respect, industry insiders, potential agents you’re querying – you name it. That will make it easier for you to track what they’re posting and, if appropriate, respond in a timely fashion.

• Schedule your retweets in advance. How do you avoid the last-minute stress of not knowing what to post? And how can you strengthen your connections with other mystery writers and readers? Kill two birds with one stone by scheduling your retweets in advance. Using a service like Hootsuite or TweetDeck, you can glance at your lists once a week, pick out the best tweets others have sent, and schedule them as retweets throughout the week. Others will appreciate that you’re sharing their content, and your own pipeline will be full.

• Brainstorm in bulk. Another way to ensure you have plenty of Twitter content is by brainstorming in bulk. Block out an afternoon on your calendar to create a list of tweets (i.e., 1-2 sentence nuggets). I can often bang out 100-200 in a couple of hours. These should be tips, insights or recommendations that establish your expertise or give readers a sense of your perspective. (In my case, writing a book about business and careers, I might write, “How to create buzz? Think about marketing as you design a product, not after” or “Have you had coffee with your local reporter? If not, invite them today.”) For a mystery author, you could share links to the menus of restaurants your characters visit (“Want to try [protagonist’s] favorite apple pie? Visit [name of restaurant] in the South End”), information about the milieu of your novel (“Fun fact: 95% of the population in Thailand is Buddhist”), or simply recommend great authors or books you admire.

Twitter is a fabulous “real time” communication tool, and part of the fun is responding to messages quickly or commenting on breaking news. But to stay sane (and ensure you have enough time for writing and reading), most of us should only log in for a few minutes a day. The majority of your Twitter presence can be handled once a week, in bulk – and hopefully these tips will make that easier.

HANK: So how about you Reds? Are you on the twitter bandwagon? What have you learned and what are your secrets? We'll give Dorie's new book on branding to one lucky commenter! And hey, what's your twitter address..we should all follow each other!

***************************

Dorie Clark is CEO of Clark Strategic Communications and the author of the newly-released Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013), a book about how to change careers, embrace new professional challenges, and take control of your professional reputation. You can follow her on Twitter.

All A-Twitter

@JUNGLEREDS: Much as some of us might like to, it's hard to ignore Twitter. After all, it's fueled more than a few middle eastern revolutions, brought politicians to their knees, and exposed Hollywood luminaries.

So, using 140 characters or less, and using your Twitter handles (if you've got 'em), do you tweet? Do you see a point? And is it a love-hate relationship? Or nothing but #fun?

@LUCYBURDETTE: (AKA ROBERTA) I'm new at this and I can tell I don't have the hang yet--following too many people and not enough of my own tweethearts

@Janbrogan Def. love-hate. Sometimes fun, but value is ? Is entire world a social media expert? Think so. #amwriting They'll clog your box.

@hank_phillippi Agree, love-hate. But seems like a one-way street. Kind of fun to do, but impossible to respond. Because--how?

@hank_phillippi And, scary, too, b/c 140 used to seem short. Now, it's plenty of room. Above love-hate "tweet" is only 110.

@jspencerfleming I'll step out and boldly declare I love Twitter. I'm a short 'n snappy kind of gal. What I want to know: @hank_phillippi - 15,000 followers?

@rosemaryharris1 tweethearts...I love it! It's fun..I post about movies, sports, moi but never check twitter on my phone and haven't sent from phone.

@deborahcrombie Just getting feet wet. Need tweet-torial.

@lucyburdette--(Roberta) Julia, tell us what you love! (Deb, tweet-torial coming later this week:)

HALLIE: Tweetless. Says me today. Tomorrow? Not sayin yes, not sayin no. Livin in the present. Have I exceeded 140 yet?

@deborahcrombie Said the same as Hallie. Have now joined #darkside.

@jspencerfleming Despite the 140-character limit, I feel Twitter is more authentically "my voice" than FB, where I'm in professional mode.

@jspencerfleming In other words, Twitter is like hanging out with friends old and new at a conference. Our blog is #writing - which makes it more like work!

@jspencerfleming And remember: SocMed expert Paul Hochman, who was our guest http://bit.ly/dOK2fV, said the Holy Trinity was Twitter, FB and Youtube.

@rhysbowen Julia is cheating. Doing multiple tweets. So I'll cheat too.

@rhysbowen: I tweet. Still haven't discover full power of being a tweet-magnate.
Want 90,000 followers like Sarah Weinman

HALLIE: If I tweeted when would I have time for Farmville?

@LucyBurdette Too funny, Hallie! tips and picks Jungle Red Readers?

Twitter. Yes, Twitter.

Twittter? Really? Are you guys...sure?

"We wanted to capture that in the name -- we wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. So we did a bunch of name-storming, and we came up with the word "twitch," because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. But "twitch" is not a good product name because it doesn’t bring up the right imagery. So we looked in the dictionary for words around it, and we came across the word "twitter," and it was just perfect. The definition was "a short burst of inconsequential information," and "chirps from birds." And that’s exactly what the product was."
—Jack Dorsey, Twitter creator (quoted on Wikipedia)

HANK: Twitter. What a weird, weird thing. But then someone told me--you can't live without it. Gotta have it.

I thought--you're kidding me,right? Why would I want to do that? But, just like I wouldn't try to make a souffle without a recipe, or go to another country without at least trying to know the language, I found a Twitter expert.

Yes, there is such a person, and Patrick O'Malley is quite a twitter genius. And he taught me all about it! (You can't believe all the cool stuff he knows. All kinds of short cuts and info and messages and searches.) And we'll hear from him in a minute. But JR's--do you tweet? Why or why not? And any questions for the fabulous Patrick? He knows ALL.

HALLIE: You know, Hank, you really can't make a souffle’ without a recipe... No, I do not Twitter. It's on my to-do list. #36.

ROSEMARY: I know ...never say never..but I can't imagine anyone that I'd want to hear from that frequently. Or who would want to hear from me that often. What are we talking about? Maybe some people think it's cool to know when Demi Moore is getting a cavity filled but I'm not all that interested. And anyone who wants to know what I'm doing ten times a day is a little scary. Then I'd be like all of these weirdos walking around New York looking at their phones instead of watching where they're going. (That may be another blog.)

I've had a few people send me emails asking if I wanted to follow them on Twitter. Not even Russell Crowe. Okay, maybe Russell Crowe.

HANK: Two resounding thumbs down from JRW. Hmmm. But certainly it's a hugely popular site. So, you get 140 characters per message, and that's all. Patrick, you think Twitter is here to stay?

PATRICK: Twitter may not be here to stay, but there is certainly a place for something like it. Twitter has problems, like the fact that you can waste a lot of time reading about nonsense before you find some tweets that are useful. They’ll have to solve this soon or some people will never invest time in it.

HANK: Why do you think it’s so effective?

PATRICK: It has a few essential elements that are critical for our fast paced society, including

- It’s quick to setup an account
- It’s quick to post a message, since you’re limited to 140 characters
- It is quick to read an individual message. (However, reading hundreds can be daunting)
- It can be updated and read from mobile phones

HANK: See how organized he is? So--what can it do for people? How can it help them? Who's a good candidate?

PATRICK: Twitter can be good for

• learning cutting edge information in your field of interest
• finding out entertaining information from celebrities
• getting the most current news

It can also be used by a group of friends, neighbors or family members to just see what others in their group are doing at any moment. One great example of this is that impromptu meetings, parties, et cetera, can be done with a single message if everyone knows how to look for it on Twitter.

You can find the thought leaders in your field by going to the Twitter yellow pages at http://www.twellow.com/ and searching for “mystery author” if that is the type of person that you would like to follow.

You could also follow celebrities and entertainers like ashton kutcher (@aplusk), Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow), or Britney Spears (@britneyspears), who all have over 2 million followers. The Twitter-ers that have the most followers can be found at http://twitterholic.com/

You could follow CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk), Barack Obama (@BarackObama), or The New York Times (@nytimes) to get current news.

Or, you could just follow friends, colleagues, et cetera, on Twitter. You can then see their “tweets” and if they follow you, they would see your tweets.

Of course, most people probably do some combination of all of the above.
HANK: Some people turn up their noses...and say, this is such a waste of time. What do you think about that?

PATRICK: That can be true. One of the biggest problems with Twitter is that the same people who may give you a pointer to a valuable blog entry or news article may also send out tweets about having coffee, going to the gym, or going to catch a plane. These are a waste of time for most people, so I encourage clients to always think about whether their “tweets” will be valuable to others. If more people followed that guideline, Twitter would be a more productive way to spend their time.


HANK: I know this is your job--but just for Jungle Red--tell us one Twitter secret. Okay?

PATRICK: I’ll give you two.

One is to realize that your tweets don’t just go to your followers. They can be seen by anyone on Twitter, possibly for eternity, so be careful what you write. To see a great example of this, Google “Cisco fatty paycheck”, and see the story of a woman who lost a job offer because she broadcast a message on Twitter saying she had to “weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.” Cisco saw the tweet and rescinded the job offer.

The second one is to tweet information about great articles that you might find on the web. If you find a good article, create a small description about why you think it’s useful, and then put in the URL (i.e. the web address). If the URL is too long, a free site called http://tinyurl.com/ can make a smaller URL that will go to the same location.

HANK: Well, Twitter suspended my account for no reason, bizarrely enough (what 's up with THAT?)…but I persevere. Not exactly sure why, thought Patrick is so enthusiastic and he does know his stuff! So now I have a new address http://twitter.com/HankPRyan

(Thanks, Patrick! )

Twitterers—or is it tweeters?—come find me there!

Do you tweet? What do you think about it? And feel free to use more than 140 characters.