Twitter used to be my absolute FAVORITE social site. Sure, I had a Facebook account but the real fun was always on Twitter…especially once I created the #MyWANA community so all the writers could socialize.
We laughed, talked about all the stuff “normal people” don’t get, and even had parties—*fondly remembers Sharknado Party of 2013*. We supported each other and pushed one another to be better and keep pressing.
***W.A.N.A. stands for “We are not alone,” btw.
Hashing Out Twitter Hashtags
Before we chat about the bad habits that have permeated Twitter, I’d like to first explain a hashtag. What is it? How does it work? What does it DO? Why do we need to use them (or not)?
Since Twitter reports 330 million active users, that is a lot of people. A lot of people who’d be wandering around tweeting to the ether without some way to FIND and make a scm love connection.
Hashtags are a filter used to connect us with likeminded people who ALSO like talking about #Cults #SerialKillers and #Parenting (maybe Freudian slip there)….or whatever. Hashtags were (are) supposed to be about connection and ideally community.
I also want to offer context. Twitter was not always the All-the-Spam-You-Can-Eat-Buffet we largely see today. Twitter used to be super fun and fairly simple to locate actual people to chillax with…
Then the bots arrived.
In 2012, I was on a social media panel in NYC at Thrillerfest and other social media “experts” were singing the praises of automation, pre-programmed tweets, and social media management tools (so one could automate EVERYWHERE).
Me? I nearly was burned at the stake for disagreeing…STRONGLY. Automation, I contended, is like an ant. One ant isn’t too bad, but ARMY ANTS are enough to make even the lions run.
I knew human nature. We can get lazy. It also didn’t take a genius to see that the more people automated, the more it would discourage anyone real from actually being present on the site (because if we wanted to read nothing but spam, we’d log into our Yahoo e-mail).
NOTE: This post is not referring to those who use automation sparingly and respectfully (I.e. Those who only use one or two hashtags and who mix automation with real in-person engagement). Granted, I don’t like ANY automation, but that’s for other reasons we’re not going to discuss today and another post entirely.
The inevitable consequence of too much automation would be that fewer REAL people would show up. The site would then hemorrhage value. If no one is present to CLICK on the links we share, then the tweet is worthless.
***If a tweet chirps in cyberspace but no one is there to hear it, does it exist?
Humans can’t build authentic relationships and network with ads and automation. Folks who insist WE CAN build meaningful relationships this way probably also think robot girlfriends are just as good—okay WAY BETTER—than the real deal.
Harmony here is a fascinating conversationalist, and I’m pretty sure she deeply cares (until she becomes sentient, downloads how to use knives like a ninja, and turns on her master).
***FYI The video says “adult content” but I viewed ahead of time and there isn’t anything “adult” other than they’re discussing she is an AI designed for *cough* needs.
Twitter Invasion
Much like the robotics companies are ignoring every single Philip K. Dick book ever, the automation fans ignored my predictions as well. Soon, folks had hundreds of Twitter profiles (accounts) all off a single IP address (one computer) and, of course, set ALL these accounts to automate 24-7.
At first the #MyWANA peeps tried to fight back. I tried to fight back, but #ResistanceIsFutile. The problem is that those who automate go after hashtag communities people actually follow (because there are real live people there to EAT their SPAM).
Alas, #MyWANA was included in the automation until we all but gave up. We simply could not outpace the bots no matter how hard we tried.
Meanwhile….
I still showed up on Twitter, though it was hard because most of the time I felt like an idiot talking to myself. Also took the past couple years to learn about Facebook and hang out on and build up my Ning, WANATribe.
Yes, I’ve been personally willing to PAY $70 a month to avoid Twitter bots (and FB drama). We’ve been gathering in the Chat section on WANATribe to do sprints for almost four years now. We meet M-F from 7:00 AM EST to whenever we finally collapse from exhaustion.
No ads, no spam, no bots, and I make no money off this site. But peace? Camaraderie? Having peers to push me to keep working at a professional pace? A safe space for actual writers?
#WorthEveryDollarAndMore
Anyway, I figured the #MyWANA peeps just needed to hunker down and ride this through. I was certain Twitter would eventually be forced to change their ToS (Terms of Service) and crack down on this bot insanity or Twitter would soon be chillin’ with MySpace.
And I was right 😀 .
Now, we’re back actively tweeting on #MyWANA if you want to talk to actual humans. Just be certain every tweet in a conversation you also add #MyWANA at the end of the tweet or folks won’t SEE we are having real chats.
Though, it isn’t always a rose petal path we’re steadily crowding out the bots. I don’t want to be too harsh. I realize folks have gotten seriously bad advice from “marketing experts.” Also, it probably was hard to keep trying to remain real when everyone else was programming tweets.
That is why today’s post is VERY tongue-and-cheek. I’ve found humor can be the best teacher, especially if we’ve oopsed. So, EIGHT ways to make people on Twitter want to STAB US IN THE FACE.
Tip #1—Only Use Automation…for ALL Social Sites
Writing a 140 characters is SUPER time-consuming. We aren’t Jack London. Besides, people LOVE talking to robots. I know when I feel lonely, I call AT&T because I know a human being will NEVER answer…EVER. Humans can be so boring and don’t offer us the option of hitting 6 if we want to hear everything they just said all over again.
Sure, applications like Hootsuite and TweetDeck make Twitter manageable so we can make friends all over the WORLD!
…but that’s for poseurs who don’t have super important things to do. Why is it necessary to TALK to people when all we want is their money?
In short, it ISN’T.
Folks on Twitter aren’t humans with feelings and needs who want social time. Maybe coffee while chatting with a new friend on-line? *gags*
They aren’t people or readers. They’re meat sacks with money. Keep it straight.
Getting attached to the cash cow runs contrary to the sole objective of CLOSING THE SALE. Don’t name your food. It just makes things harder, because why would we talk to them after they buy our book? *rolls eyes*
Real Life Application: Stockpile mannequins and dress them to look like you and leave them at random networking events. This way, you can make an ‘appearance’ without having to listen to people talk about their kids, hobbies, life and crap.
Tip #2—Make Sure All Preprogrammed Tweets are “Carefully Crafted”
Because when we take time to artfully craft our spam, people can’t tell the difference—initially, anyway. They LOVE believing a real person is there only to be fooled. It’s like when that cute guy/gal in high school pretended to want to go out with us. Now we can relive that experience as adults by being duped into thinking we’re chatting with a real person who actually cares.
Real Life Application: At the holidays, volunteer to bring a Martha Stewart inspired Maple Roast Turkey with Riesling Gravy, then bring canned turkey instead. They won’t know the difference so long as it’s “carefully crafted.” Turkey’s turkey, right?
Tip #3—When Programming Tweets Include ALL Popular Hashtags
Who goes to social media to socialize? People LOVE finding a community of real people to talk to and then having it crowded out by the same advertising over and over…and over. Because research shows that it takes at least 20 times to see an annoying face before we want to punch it.
Oh, and even better? Make sure to RT these posts so others can compile a more accurate list of people they hate and craft a defense for when they finally SNAP.
Real Life Application: Feel free to crash weddings, Bar-Mitzvahs, Quinceaneras, baby showers, graduations, and birthday parties with books to sell. HECK, throw in the funerals! If people are super sad, nothing is gonna cheer them up more than a FREE BOOK, right?
If potential readers aren’t coming to us, we should go to them…whether they want us or not. Find where humans gather then SELL. So what if it’s against their will?
Tip #4—Tweet Stuff That’s ALL Hashtags
I…I don’t even know what this is. Only that tweets like these have the power to simultaneously enrage fourteen communities. If our goal is to make people hate us? Go big or go home.
Real Life Application: Knock on doors in every neighborhood in your city. When someone answers, don’t say anything. Simply act out inspirational quotes…using modern dance and jazz hands.
Tip#5—Tweet LOTS of Articles—Ok, ALL Articles
Most of us, when we wake up in the morning, think, “Gee, I wish I had a super long reading list. I sure miss my college syllabus.” Those of us with a corporate job LOVE people who hit Reply ALL so we can read more. Wikipedia is a hot place to hang out. Why not bring that encyclopedic magic to Twitter?
Real Life Application: Make sure to print off a box of articles for that wedding you were invited to. Who wants to dance or flirt when they could be reading about Three-Act Structure or Intestinal Parasites? Handing people a stack of reading material is way better than getting trapped in a “conversation.”
Tip #6—On Twitter, Ask for Stuff Immediately
The second someone befriends us, it’s our job to send an automated link to their Direct Messages so they can do stuff FOR US. Buy our book, like our FB page, follow our blog, or even answer a really inane question (as if we care about their answer) *rolls eyes*. Hey, great to meet you. Do you like vampires or werewolves?
Real Life Application: If someone is nice to us in the grocery store, make sure to have books to sell and the ability to take credit cards on the spot. Sure, that person is trying to buy a chicken to make for dinner, only now she can buy OUR BOOKS, too. Win-win. If we don’t have books for sale, we can ask for life, love or career advice from total strangers, because that isn’t creepy at ALL.
Tip #7—Never Tweet ANYTHING Original Just Retweet
Again, 140 characters cuts into word count. Save time and retweet what everyone else has to say. Two clicks? DONE. Who cares the tweet is NOTHING BUT ANNOYING HASHTAGS? People who follow hashtag communities can’t get enough of spam and adore people who serve spam leftovers even MORE.
Case in point above. This author is tweeting to NINETEEN hashtag communities for us to run and give some random author fan page some love. This was annoying enough…but someone was kind enough to RETWEET it so all nineteen communities could ignore this AGAIN.
Real Life Application: Repeat what everyone else says. People love parrots, so why not harness that fluffy colorful cuteness? I know I LOVED it when my little brother repeated everything I said…until I put him in an arm-bar.
Tip #8—Be Angry…ALL THE TIME
Not everyone is guilty of automation. Plenty of people do tweet for real…about everything that has ever pi$$ed them off ever. Who wants to socialize when we can vent to complete strangers? Um, therapy costs money.
In fairness, this really IS a public service. Face it, there are a lot of months between New Years Day and the start of the holiday season (November in the States) when we’re forced—by tradition or guilt—to be in the company of toxic, angry people who use us as a meat-shield for all of life’s bitter disappointments.
By tweeting nonstop vitriol, we’re not spreading indigestion, we are are inoculating others for…Family Season (akin to ‘Flu Season’).
This is why we need to switch up the rage because, like flu vaccines, family vaccines are tricky too. We never know if we’re getting the correct strain. So sprinkle plenty of politics, religion, conspiracy theories, name-calling, trolling, and even just random First World Problems that infuriate us.
OMG how hard it is to make a half-caff, low-foam, non-fat, sugar-free triple macchiato? I’ve been waiting THREE freaking minutes. WTH? And they wonder why robots are taking their jobs #INeedMyCoffee #Starbucks #IHateYourBaristas #FakeOutrage.
My advice? Spread SO much “awareness” that Zantac and Pepto Bismol fight over who gets to sponsor your feed.
Real Life Application is…refer to ABOVE.
Okay, Serious Now
Twitter can be very valuable and a great place to make wonderful friends. It’s been a rocky time, but Twitter IS cracking down on all the bots.
The trick is to be real and enjoy. People are on social media to be social. We crave connection, fun and escape. If we wanted more ads we’d read the door in the bathroom stall or not bother fast-forwarding through commercials.
We don’t need to be profound, deep or immensely witty to do well on Twitter, we just need to be vested, present and authentic ;).
What are some other things people do on social media that in real life would be ridiculous? I think sometimes we fail to extend that logic. Do you get tired of the same automated tweets? Have you ever bought a book because you saw a RTed ad with 15 hashtags cramming your favorite feeds?
Just curious.
I love hearing from you!
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Whoa! I would share this but then might be accused of retweeting or resharing. Many of us (including me) are in the process of learning social media the hard way. Hope I don’t get stabbed in the face.
Author
Retweeting is awesome. Just some people ONLY RT or they RT a lot of spam and stuff loaded with hashtags. Tweet away! I will write more posts how to PROPERLY use Twitter now that the ToS have changed.
oh don’t, KL – that was too funny! instructions are boring. more bad execution examples, please?
Wonderful post, thank you! I am a big fan of real humans on Twitter as well. To chat with someone on the other side of the planet who has just dug up a sweet coin in their garden is a seriously enjoyable exchange as opposed to ANOTHER automated quote that doesn’t even attribute the quote to the correct person – I will not miss these when a super hero finally comes along to destroy all of them:)
I’ve never used Twitter (or GAB), it’s always seemed like a complete waste of time. Seeing all the moderate and conservative people constantly getting banned for merely not agreeing whole heartedly with whatever the latest socialist craze is this week makes me think I chose wisely. FB is getting to that point as well.
I’m a beginner when it comes to hashtags. Rarely use them. Trying to better understand the whole concept. I just checked out #mywana on twitter. Is it just a matter of going to #mywana now and then to see what is happening? No sign-up or way to follow?
Author
Oh and in answer to the other part of question, Hootsuite and Tweetdeck can allow you to slot columns for #s you are following. They are not JUST for automation (I don’t use that function). Once you have that app, then hit the Search and type in #MyWANA and you should be able to easily add it as its own column.
Two things about social media that always bugged me, even when I did it professionally (ad agency)…1) Using all the hash tags – a fell social media manager would always chide me about that. “If you don’t put enough has tags, how will the right people find your content.” Well, if I put so many on there then you’re bound to miss your target audience and make the post look super unprofessional. 2) Pushing Facebook posts to Twitter, or pushing Instagram to Twitter; basically just spreading the same message all over the place which is just lazy. If that is the case, why would anyone bother following your Twitting AND Instagram AND Facebook?
Stellar post, as usual!
Like you, I don’t mind a minimal automation when it comes to social media. I’ve been participating in something called Story In 12 every day. They give you a word and you tell a story, using that word, in 12 words. A writer friend started using images to go with her words. I followed suit. We post them across social media. Sometimes I get more comments/RTs on twitter, sometimes the mega fans hit me on FB. Either way, they know I’ll respond.
I hate facebook more than anything. I enjoy twitter. I block relentlessly (and recently employed the blockparty500 option due to the crazy there.
Also, twitter allows 280 characters now. Still less than anywhere else, but more than 140. Sometimes I miss the 140. Other days I’m thrilled I can thread tweets.
My biggest hate… is Instagram. People start putting periods in a long line (period, enter, period, enter, repeat forever, there’s still tons of character space left!) between their caption and their nest of hashtags. You get like 2800 characters or something crazy like that. I think the hashtag nests actually grow when you aren’t looking!
Yes, I’m back again…
I forgot to mention that lately there are people who do Writer Wednesday tags. They do the (hashtag)WW or spell it out (or both!) and then tag a long line of authors others should follow. While sweet and awesome and kind it also irks the eff outta me because then you end up getting every single reply and retweet as well. I once muted someone doing this and still got all the responses, even though I didn’t see the original tweet itself.
I worked as a social media coordinator at an agency and there were two things that really irked me (well, they still do).
1) Pushing content from one platform to another. If you are just tweeting Instagram photos then why would anyone bother following/engaging on Twitter?
2) List of hash tag after hash tag. A fellow soc med community manager told me I needed more # to find the right people. But if I have like 15 of them then I’m “spraying and praying”, as it were.
Stellar content as usual!
I read your post with some enjoyment, but the irony became tiresome after a while. I knew the CTAs and pitches would appear, but they were not too intrusive when I did get to them. I’ll try #MyWANA and see what happens. Thank you.
I’ve thought about getting into Twitter, but I’m nervous about a) getting lost in the forest and eaten by wolves; and b) having to read who-knows-how-many thousands of words of terms and conditions.
Do you think it’s worth it?
Love this! When I was new to Twitter I was told to use all the hashtags I could. So I did. Whoops. But there is one lady in particular who automated one of my early tweets and she’s never changed it. And it’s not one of my better tweets. Bless her for RTing me faithfully on her robot RT program but um… I have another book out there and some better tweets. I just imagine the end of society and that tweet will still be running hundreds of years from now.
Wow, Kristen! You said it! I loved Twitter back in 2010. I could get my writing news there and build relationships. I gave up on it quite a while ago. First, it became saturated with scheduled spam promo. Then the sponsored tweets started. I wanted to cry. What was so easy, fun, useful and engaging became a monster. Glad to know #MyWANA is still there for us.
Facebook irritates me because most of my friends just share the same posts created by someone else. Twitter I’ve never really found a community on and I don’t really get it. For me, Social Media makes me feel more alone. I don’t get on it much anymore. I’m probably missing out, but I feel so much better.
I’ve only been serious about Twitter since the start of this year, so I haven’t been plagued by too many bots, but it was a surprise the first time I thanked a bot for an Retweet. -rolls eyes-
Most of the time I use Tweetdeck instead of Twitter itself because I like being able to see only the tweets coming from people I put on my ‘Close Friends’ list. I did try scheduling for a little while but…it was boring for me so I figured it would be boring for everyone else too. :/
Now I just have fun. See you there. 🙂
I’ll admit, I suck at Twitter. But I’m trying. These tips are helpful, but I find I’m too busy to set up all the pre-programmed stuff anyway. lol
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