I Suck at Twitter

I suck at Twitter.

This is not news, really. I have struggled since signing up for it years ago to understand how best to use it and why I even should.

Since becoming an independent author, I’ve gotten even worse at it. Despite being told not to, all I really did with my Twitter was post links to my books. When I truly realized that wasn’t working, I quit.

Again, this isn’t really news.

What I’ve been able to ascertain is that, to be good at Twitter, you have to have something to offer. You can’t just promote yourself.

So I’d like to forward links to things I think are interesting that my followers might like, and I’d like to offer the occasional witty nugget about my life, so that I show I actually am a human being, not just a Twitter robot.

There are two problems with that. First, I’m really busy. I have a hard time keeping up with stuff that doesn’t directly impact what I’m working on, because there’s just so little time in my day.

Second, I couldn’t keep up with my Twitter feed because I was following too many people. I followed 859 tweeters. That number was so overwhelming, I just quit reading my feed. So how was I to find anything to retweet?

So, last night, I unfollowed over 700 people. I felt bad about it. It wasn’t that I necessarily didn’t like their feeds. I just couldn’t keep up.

If I unfollowed you, I’m sorry. You can take heart in the fact that, since I wasn’t reading my feed, I wasn’t really following you. If you have one of those services that tells you who unfollowed you, I won’t be hurt if you unfollow me back.

From now on, I’m going to try to read my feed and RT stuff I think is interesting. I’ll try to tweet interesting blog links. And I’m only going to post links to my books if they are brand new or on sale. (I also tweet my own blog links, but, hey, I have to get the word out somehow.)

I’m still not sure I won’t suck at Twitter. But I’m going to try to get better.