How Twitter can help you as a writer…

Twitter. I am sure you`ve heard about it, right? The great social network with a little blue bird icon…:) You know it, don`t you? Well, what you may not know is that this “little blue bird”can actually help you expand your business. Yes, any business. In our case…your writing business:)

Indeed, Twitter can be a great tool for every writer who wants to expand himself and his writing. After all, regardless of how wonderful the writer can write, he/she still needs a small ingredient called Popularity. How can the writer achieve that, and how can Twitter help…? Read below…

Less is more. This is a statement which I`m pretty convinced you`re aware of. As modernists, we accept this maxim for architecture, design, and just about any art form —so why can’t it be true for writing?

I firmly believe that tweeting itself is not a new art form, and that expressive fragments have existed  for as long as writing has existed. But speaking of  Twitter as an internet exchange, I have a theory that Twitter—if used correctly—can actually make you a better writer. No, I’m not talking about the “lol’s” and the RT’s and all other short forms that Twitter has spawned( although I have to admit that I like them a lot:)) but rather of the mechanics of Twitter. [image error]

For instance,  we all know that Twitter has a character limit: tweets must be 140 characters or less. Because of this character limit, users are forced to keep it short and less wordy with language.  R.Z. Sheppard once said that “Adjectives are the potbelly of poetry.”  Similarly, Stephen King once said that “The road to hell is paved with adjectives.” Twitter leaves very little room for adjectives: after all, why would you waste any of your precious characters on   “very” or “really” when you could actually be saying something substantial and straight to the point? This is why Twitter exists. If you want to write more and have a larger number of characters, you`ll have to go on some other social networks, because Twitter isn`t build for that.

Personally, I love making quick updates on my Twitter account. It`s so great! And I like it very much!:) Whether it`s about my writing or any other activity of mine, Twitter is a wonderful way to let your followers know what you`re up to…:) Like yesterday, one of my tweets was:” Enjoying a delicious cup of green tea…I`m loving it!:)”. Pretty nice, isn`t it?

How else can Twitter help you?

I`m following some very good writers on Twitter. The other day I`ve noticed that one of them uses her Twitter account to update her fans and try out fragments of thought( or excerpts from upcoming works). Oftentimes, I’ll see a tweet like that the writer`s tweet stream, and later, I’ll hear the line in one of her spoken word pieces. This means that she`s using  Twitter as a kind of testing ground for her more developed writings. So, you can do that too. Tweet little pieces from your works and ask your followers what do they think on it. This will give you great further ideas on how to add/remove/improve that work. Your followers are your audience, and if you wouldn`t ask them, who then?

Many journalists/writers also use Twitter to try out ideas. Whenever you`re reading tweets of other writers, you can get great ideas on almost anything! For example, the idea of writing this article on Twitter came to me when I saw a tweet from one of my followers. He tweeted:” I love Twitter. It helps me, but how could I use it even more?”

And finally, Twitter makes you more aware of your audience as a writer. Since a tweet is essentially a thought “gone public” the best tweeters demonstrate a keen awareness of their audience. “The beauty of Twitter is the unfollow button” “If you don’t like what someone’s tweeting, or if you feel they’re inauthentic, you don’t have to follow that person anymore.”

Hope you`ll find the article helpful!:)

See you next time and…keep Tweeting!:)

Cristina I.