I Am On Twitter - What Do I Do Now?

Okay, I am on Twitter. I have an account, my pic is up, I am following people, and they are following me. Actually, I used an icon for a long time, but the pic is up now. So ... what is my next move? I want to build my presence, as I have a book coming out this fall. (Yes, I really do. A book on Tarot Birth Cards. My mystery book is still in the "finish writing it, then edit it, then send it off for editing" stage. I do have a couple of leads on good editors, though.)

I see that I have done the number one thing that I needed to do - and that was place a pic on my page, as opposed to an icon. Easier for people to connect with, and a better choice for getting people to take me seriously (and buy my books!). I will replace the pic in a couple of months, but right now it will do. It was professionally done, and looks fairly business like.

My bio is up, and represents me fairly well. I will have to tweak it a bit to get a balance between my Tarot world and my world as an author, but that is an ongoing project.

I have a link to my website, and my website covers both of my worlds - Tarot and writing, so that base is covered. It will evolve as I evolve, and I'm fine with that. A basic site is all I want. Leave the exotic stuff to someone else.

Now, how do I balance my "following/followers" ration. And should there be a ratio? Why can't I let that take care of itself? My thought on this is that I follow people I am interested in. My follow numbers may be greater than the number of people following me - at least until my books come out. The rule of thumb here is to unfollow people who are not following you. For myself, I will continue to follow people who interest me, whether they want to follow me or not.

I need to look at my feed and make sure that I am actually saying something, that I am interacting. I do announce my own blogs as they are written, and I do a lot of retweeting of messages that I consider important. But I also wish people good morning, respond to what they are saying, and send out little updates on what I am doing (and yes, occasionally a diatribe or two!). I think I am good here.

I think that as long as I don't appear to be too closely related to a used care salesman, that I am good to go. I may not address Twitter in as uber-professional manner as some, but to date we get along fine (even when it is acting up and has to be told off).

How are you addressing your Twitter presence?

(c) May 2011 Bonnie Cehovet