I have a twitter account for my author name and I’m relatively active on it. But recently I found myself facing a growing twitter problem that seems to be happening in the writing community. A little research traced the problem back to a self-published book on how to promote your self-published book. Okay, let me say this — the first time someone tries a new promotion technique, it’s new and catches attention. But by the time that person markets that promotion technique to a few thousand eager followers, it can become a pain in the twitter.
The advice causing all the trouble is the advice to engage all your twitter followers by personally sending them not a DM (direct message) but an @ (at) message with a link to your blog. Now the trick here is to try to make it look like you are interested in them or something they have to say. The person who tried this with me the other day was probably not happy with the response I sent them. They tried to be personal by responding to a conversation between me and an acquisitions editor by sending me a link to the blog promoting their book. I blasted back a reply, the reported them as a spammer.
So, what, I’m upset about one person? Well, no. As I said, this advice is out and being eagerly followed. I know folks in the industry who are plagued by promo links pretending to be something else. Does this mean you can’t promote your blog on twitter? Of course not. It’s all in how you promote. Writing a blog post and then tweeting it from your feed or even targeting a relevant hashtag is fine. But sending an @ message to everyone on your twitter list is likely to get you reported for spam by people who are being besieged by this “marketing technique.”