Welcome to the third installment of Twitter Tuesday. In the spirit of Twitter, this blog will be short and sweet and to the point. The tips offered here are all based off my best-selling book We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. If our goal is to build an author platform in the thousands to tens of thousands, then we will have to approach Twitter differently than a faceless corporation or even the regular person who does not possess a goal of becoming a brand. This blog will help you rule the Twitterverse without devolving into a spam bot.

This Week’s Fail Whale–The Self-Centered Twit

Twitter, when we pare it down to its core, is basically a global cocktail party. There are millions of conversations happening simultaneously. Twitter can only serve us well if we become good conversationalists. This is one of the major reasons auto-tweets offer very little benefit.

People are gravitating to social media to engage with others. Understand this core need, and you will rule the Twitterverse. Yet, I see people who rarely tweet, and, when they do, it is because they suddenly want the rest of us to stop what we are doing to check out their blog or book.

Recently, I received an automatically generated DM (direct message) from an author who has never so much as said, “Hello,” to me, but he wanted me to get the word out about his book. Yeah…I am right on that.

What this author doesn’t seem to understand is that it actually takes very little interaction to give others the sort of urgency he desires. If I would have recognized him as one of the people who regularly reposted my blogs, I probably would have dropped everything to help…and I would have mobilized members of MY platform to join in, too. As it stood? I had too many other people who made an effort at relationship, and they took priority over a spam message.

This Week’s Twitter Tip

We are all in danger of being seen as a Self-Centered Twit, but here is a tactic that can help.

Make sure you get an application like TweetDeck. Applications like TweetDeck are essential for anyone trying to build a platform, as you guys might have noticed by now.

It is easy to be perceived as a Self-Centered Twit if we use regular Twitter. Why? We can’t properly “SEE” what is happening around us, and when we don’t properly engage, people generally will assume the worst. It’s just human nature. If you stare at us too long, we assume it’s because you are noticing our fat thighs, not our fabulous outfit. We can be very negative. So put your best self forward by being actively vested in others.

When you can get a little time, watch the video below–The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us–and I hope it helps you understand social media better and make you far more effective.

Tweet ya later!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc]

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