Get Known Before the Book Deal

Intro to Social Networking: Blog Your Way to a Fresh Website and New Connections

By Meryl K. Evans

"I write a blog, also called weblog," I said.
 
"Huh?" Every friend would respond as if I spoke a foreign language.
 
These conversations took place somewhere between 2000 and 2002. Sometime after that, I didn't feel silly or awkward admitting I had a blog. The blog started out as a personal one as they all did at the time. Gradually, it morphed into a web design blog then finally settling to business, tech, and writing. Maybe it'll be something else in two years, or not. I like where I am today.
 
Blogging falls into the spectrum of social networking. In its earlier days, not so much. Blogs didn't have comments or plug-ins for connecting your website to a social network.
 
Is Blogging Still Relevant?
 
You can update your status in Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. They also come with tools so you can write longer notes. So, does that mean writers don't need to bother with blogging? No. Blogging still has value. Here are six ways blogging can help you.
 
1. Keep website content fresh: Search engines love content receiving regular updates. Writers, specifically those working alone, tend to be the only ones updating their own websites. Blog a couple of times a week, and you have hot piping content.
 
2. Share valuable information: Bloggers who give away information that helps or educates others earn trust and authority. You buy from or hire those you know and trust, don't you?
 
3. Support marketing efforts: Blogging and social media activities all contribute to your marketing efforts. These help you get out there, mingle, and connect. Blogging is also a way to market your platform.
 
4. Build your platform: Whether or not you have a book coming, you need to start building your platform now. That's how you stand out from the line of writers knocking on agents and publishing houses' doors. If you come already packaged with a platform, name recognition, and expertise, the doors are more apt to crack open.
 
5. Host a party at your e-home: Though visiting and interacting on other people's blogs does you lots of good, it's helpful to have a blog you call home and link back to when you post elsewhere.
 
6. Practice writing: You have no constraints when it comes to your blog. You can make it whatever you want it to be. Unlike writing assignments and projects, you don't have to meet a word limit or a deadline (other than consistent updates).  And you can keep every word, phrase, and sentence you want without worrying about the editor's scissors.
 
Should You Blog?
 
In spite of the benefits of having a blog, it doesn't mean you must have one. If you can't commit to regular updates and parting with your wisdom, then blogging may not be an ideal tool for you.
 
Instead, you can take advantage of social networking tools by interacting with other sites and linking back to your website rather than a blog. Many best-selling authors don't have a blog or one that offers regular updates. Consider your goals and business plan when deciding if you should start a blog.
 
One thing is for sure, people will know what you're talking about when you say "Blog."
 
 
Meryl K. Evans is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and contributor to many others. The long-time blogger and gamer has written and edited for a bunch of places online and off. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Though born in silence, she tries to show that deaf people are just like everyone else. Follow Meryl on Twitter at @merylkevans.

Intro to Social Networking: Twitter Your Way to the Hearts and Minds of Publishers, Fans, and Agents

By Meryl K. Evans

Many writers flock to Twitter, a colossal virtual water cooler where you can tweet thoughts in 140 characters or less. Some find the microblogging website eases the loneliness that comes with the writerly life. Others find it hones their writing because of the short character count. Others rely on it as a vital marketing tool.
 
Does the thought of marketing paralyze you? Marketing on Twitter doesn't mean the hard sell, pushing to sell your books and writings. Instead, look to Twitter as an opportunity to build relationships with readers, publishers, writers, and others in the writing business or in your topic's industry.
 
Five Ways to Tweet
 
Thinking "relationship building" compels you to write meaningful tweets that others will value. You can do that by writing five types of tweets.
 
1. Share links: Don't just share links to insightful articles and blog entries, but also explain what's behind them, add your thoughts or say what makes them a great read. Limit linking to your own content. Once or twice a day is a good rule of thumb as long as it's not the only thing you tweet.
 
2. Retweet (RT): Retweet means repeating what someone else said and giving full credit. Here's an example beginning with the original tweet and following with a RT:
 
wendyburt Q7: Don't think your work is done when you finish writing. You have to promote yourself. You are your biggest fan. And Mom. #platformchat   
 
merylkevans RT @wendyburt  Q7 Don't think work is done when u finish writing. U have to promote yourself. U r your biggest fan. & Mom. #platformchat 
 
The RT has a few edits because copying an original tweet in full sometimes goes over the 140-character limit.
 
3. Reply to other tweets: Replying to another person's tweet turns it into a conversation. Someone asks a question. You answer. Someone posts a statement. You debate it (nicely) or share an opinion. Someone inspires you. You recommend others to follow that person and explain why.
 
4. Post original thoughts: Share what you're working on, give advice on how to do something, critique a book you read, ask questions, anything goes within reason.
 
5. Participate in a group chat: Get Known Groove's own Christina Katz (@thewritermama) moderates a chat known as #platformchat. The chat welcomes two guest authors who leverage their strengths and expertise to build a strong platform. Katz interviews the authors who share their experiences and then lets participants ask questions for the remainder of the chat.
 
People who focus on getting lots of followers rather than on content won't benefit from Twitter. High quality contacts and conversations take time to happen.  Twitter first timers: dig in and have fun.
 
Get over 50 writer uses for Twitter.

 

 
Meryl K. Evans is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and contributor to many others. The long-time blogger and gamer has written and edited for a bunch of places online and off. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Though born in silence, she tries to show that deaf people are just like everyone else. Follow Meryl on Twitter at @merylkevans.

Intro to Social Networking: More than an e-boob Tube

By Meryl K. Evans

YouTube may be social networking's red-headed step-child especially concerning writers. Video requires a different approach to communicating than blogging, Twittering and communicating on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Aside from YouTube, these sites rely on our words, our writing. The very things we do well.
 
Writerly Uses for YouTube
 
Every YouTube video comes with an information box on the right side containing information about the person who posted it, a summary (another opportunity to add a URL and contact information), category, and tags. Take care when adding tags. Some people view users adding too many tags as less credible than those who carefully select a handful of tags.
 
Promote your book: Cindy Ray, creator of The Stapler Caper, posted a video that explains how the children's book lets the child write the story and shows pictures of the scenes and characters. Her contact information appears at the end of the video, something all videos should have. While this video is more promotional than valuable to readers, it's a way for the author to present the book beyond a text-based summary. Think of it as a movie trailer for books like Argentum from Monica Valentinelli. "I've gotten more visibility out of my first trailer in one day than I had one week," she says.
 
Post presentations and classes: Do you hope to land more speaking and teaching opportunities? Record all of your presentations and you have an instant testimonial of your ability to present. Posting the video on YouTube rather than just your website allows others to discover you when searching YouTube. Poetics Arts Performance Project posts videos of featured poets from open mics. Mary McFarland teaches literature classes and posts videos to teach lessons such as iambic pentameter.
 
Reach a huge audience: According to Nielsen//Net Ratings in December 2008, YouTube is the #1 Internet entertainment site and #6 largest Internet destination. Furthermore, comScore Video Metrix reports that a third of people viewing online videos went to YouTube.
 
Promote expertise: Editor-in-Chief of K+BB Christina Trauthwein posts interviews and projects as a way to brand themselves, drive more traffic to the site, and position themselves as experts in the field.
 
Post client work: Sometimes people doubt the credibility of text-based testimonials on websites because it's easy to make them up. A video, on the other hand, is hard to fake. "I've used YouTube to post rough cuts of corporate videos for feedback from my clients and third party participants. It's an easy and quick way for everyone involved to review videos and move forward without the inconvenience of having teams spend time at a studio," says Carla Johnson.
 
See videos forwarded: YouTube makes it easy for people to add interesting YouTube videos to their websites with a simple copy and paste of code. Think about how you find out about good videos. E-mail? Twitter links? Facebook links? People help you by sharing their videos with their friends and colleagues.
 
A video doesn't have to include you saying something. It can be words, PowerPoint converted to video or a how-to based on your platform or expertise. If you want to convert a PowerPoint presentation that shares your expertise, convert to video AVI format using the free  E.M. PowerPoint Video Converter. This is just one application, plenty others can do the same.
 
 
Meryl K. Evans is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and contributor to many others. The long-time blogger and gamer has written and edited for a bunch of places online and off. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Though born in silence, she tries to show that deaf people are just like everyone else. Follow Meryl on Twitter at @merylkevans.

Intro to Social Networking: Becoming the LinkedIn Writer

By Meryl K. Evans

 

The frequent e-mails we receive from friends and colleagues urging us to connect with them on yet another network prove that social networking works. Currently,  LinkedIn has the distinction of being the go to network for businesses and professionals.
 
LinkedIn requires more steps than Facebook when you want to connect to others. Typically, you need to either enter the person's e-mail address or ask a mutual friend to introduce you.
 
To make the most out of LinkedIn, you need to go beyond "connecting" to people. Go there for Answers or become a groupie with its Groups.
 
Got Questions? Got Answers? Do Both!
 
For this article, I posted a question in both LinkedIn and Twitter asking writers how they've benefited from LinkedIn. I had more replies to this question in Twitter than LinkedIn. This doesn't mean LinkedIn doesn't work. It shows that relying on multiple social networking sites leads to more successes than just working with one. LinkedIn's  Answers may not have worked well this time, but LinkedIn has come through in the past.
 
Go beyond asking questions by looking for questions you can answer. Helping others grows your reputation and expertise. LinkedIn sorts Answers into categories so you look for questions in your areas of expertise. Whenever you post a question, LinkedIn lets you select the category for your question. It also allows you to share the question with selected connections. However, if you do this, you won't receive as many answers as you would if you post the question in public.
 
Hang out with Groups
 
You can start your own group or find groups by searching LinkedIn  Groups by keyword, category, and language. Using "writer" as a keyword yields 105 search results. LinkedIn provides a summary, the name of the group's owner, and the number belonging to the group so you can decide whether to join. LinkedIn also identifies groups you might like based on your profile.
 
Most group pages show recent discussions, news, posted jobs, list of members, and group settings. Before starting a new group, participate in a few to learn what works and what doesn't. Becoming familiar with Groups also helps you get the hang of LinkedIn's Group features and settings.
 
Find the Right Connections
 
Need an agent? Publisher? Editor? Virtual assistant? Your connection's connections may include people in these careers. Use "people search" to find the right people by keywords, industry, company, title, and more. The search results will show you how close your connections are to you. You have direct access to first-degree connections. For second-degree connections, you share a mutual connection. Contact that mutual connection for an introduction to the second-degree connection.
 
LinkedIn also includes a "recommendations" feature. You can ask colleagues, clients, and managers to endorse your work. You can also check the endorsements of others to see if you want to pursue an introduction.
 
Though LinkedIn has a few small barriers to connecting compared to other social networks, they're there to improve your connections. 

  

 

Meryl K. Evans is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and contributor to many others. The long-time blogger and gamer has written and edited for a bunch of places online and off. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Though born in silence, she tries to show that deaf people are just like everyone else. Follow Meryl on Twitter at @merylkevans.

Intro to Social Networking: Get Your Gameface on with Facebook

By Meryl K. Evans

Though Barbara Walters referred to Facebook as MyFace, hardly anyone confuses the social network with MySpace or any others. It's popular enough that some psychologists recognize people can become addicted to Facebook people can become addicted to Facebook .
 
Facebook began as a way to connect Harvard students. It later expanded to include other colleges and universities then high school students and now anyone over age 13 can join.
 
In its early days, you couldn't join the social network unless someone sent you an invitation. According to the company, those over the age of 35 now make up its fastest growing demographic.
 
Reach over 200 Million People
 
With over 200 million active users (this impressive number represents those who have logged into Facebook in the past 30 days not just anyone who has signed up), writers can access experts and publishers to land gigs, find opportunities and obtain memorable quotes.
 
While Facebook is one of a handful of top social networking sites, many say they see Facebook as a site for making personal connections rather than business connections. Nonetheless, plenty of freelancers and businesses include Facebook as part of their marketing toolbox.
 
Copywriter Mary Shaw  has landed client work through Facebook by staying in touch through private messages, letting people know she's available, writing on walls and leaving appropriate comments. "Many former colleagues from my old company are there and some have either gone on to other agencies or started their own ventures," she says.
 
Getting Known through Facebook
 
This newsletter's Christina Katz gained publicity for Get Known Before the Book Deal through a Facebook connection. She found a known publishing insider in Facebook and introduced herself. She attached her book's promo video without any "in your face" promotion. The result? He replied fast, asked for a copy of the book, requested to interview her for his blog and more. All this from one FB message.
 
Fan and Group pages are popular tools for businesses. Fan pages don't require approval, but Groups sometimes do depending on how the founder sets it up. Stephen King's fan page may have over 28,000 fans, but most writers won't gain fans on name alone. Instead, create a fan page for your platform or topic specialty. Add resources of value to your readers, link to the page in your signature and other websites and offer contests to attract new members.
 
Don't just promote your books or business. Think of these pages as a way to get in readers' minds and give them valuable information that will help gain their trust and view you as credible. Plus, it turns into another link in your networking web.
 
Reach Infinity and beyond with Social Networks
 
Think of social networking, blogging, websites and e-mail newsletters as a web of marketing tools that help you build and grow your relationships. People don't buy on first meeting. If something doesn't happen the first, second or third time you try in Facebook, don't give up. Grow your web and people will take notice.
 
 
Meryl K. Evans is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and contributor to many others. The long-time blogger and gamer has written and edited for a bunch of places online and off. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Though born in silence, she tries to show that deaf people are just like everyone else. Follow Meryl on Twitter at @merylkevans.

Intro to Social Netorking: Simple Ways to Promote Yourself Online

Part 2 of 2
By Penny Sansevieri

When it comes to online promotion, it's really about participating. Think of the Internet as one big cocktail party. Go strike up a conversation with someone who you'd like to get to know better. Here's a great way to do that.

First, go to Technorati.com and find the top five blogs in your market, then watch them for a week or so and when you're comfortable with what they're talking about and the angle of their message, start posting comments and offering your own insight into their postings. Bloggers love comments and by participating you're doing two things: virtual networking (aka cyber-schmoozing) and promoting yourself via the link back to your site that's part of your post every time you comment.
 
Conduct your own blog tour: after you've done some virtual networking and gotten to know some folks in your industry, contact them about guest blogging opportunities. Guest blogging is pretty simple, you post an article on a site (sometimes it's also a Q&A) and you respond to comments that come in during that day or week that you're guest blogging. Be ready to host a blog tour of your own and unless the content is really off-topic from your site, consider it.
 
Blog carnivals: if you haven't participated in a blog carnival and you've been blogging for a while then head on over to http://blogcarnival.com and get started. Find a category/topic that you can speak to or have blogged on and submit those blogs for consideration. It's a great way to virtually network and publish more content online.
 
Help promote the good stuff: do you get Google alerts on yourself? If you don't, you should and here's why: how else will you know what people are saying about you online? Google alerts is a simple way to monitor the cyber-chatter and get in touch with folks who review your book or feature you on their site. You can also go to Technorati.com, plug in your name, company name or title of your book and see what you pull up, then you can subscribe to the syndication feed of the search (just hit the RSS button and it'll automatically subscribe you to that feed).
 
Once you have your feeds ready you'll want to promote all the good stuff. How can you do that? Offer a cyber-thank-you to whomever mentioned you, reviewed your book or featured you on their site. Next, link to their site from your blog and finally, go to a few social bookmarking sites and bookmark these postings for enhanced exposure. To do that go to either Digg.com, Stumbledupon.com, or Delicious.com and create accounts (this takes just a few minutes). Then follow the instructions to bookmark a blog post or page on the site that's featured you. This will help drive interest (and possibly traffic) to the site (which site owners will love you for) because you're placing it in a public bookmarking system.
 
The simpler you keep it, the more you'll do. If only one thing on this list appeals to you that's great. Keep in mind, doing one more thing this week than you did last week keeps you moving forward and helps you continue to create marketing momentum for your book!

 

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the innovative Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books including Red Hot Internet Publicity, which was just sold to Sourcebooks with a planned re-release in Fall 2009. To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com.

Intro to Social Networking: Simple Ways to Promote Yourself Online (Part 1 of 2)

By Penny Sansevieri

As I've taught Internet marketing and publicity classes, I've found that marketing oneself online is still very confusing to a lot of people. Let's face it; our company has a department dedicated to this. Why? Because stuff changes all the time on the Internet; if we didn't have a dedicated department researching this and reading all the "geek stuff," we'd never be able to keep up. So I want to give you the bottom line basics because, at the end of the day, we all need to start somewhere and the best place to start is online.

Blogging: If you feel like you can't do anything online or you don't have the time for extensive promotion, the quickest and simplest thing you can do is have a blog. A blog is a great way to keep your site fresh (search engines love sites that are updated often) and a blog is great way to reach your readers. If you don't have a blog or haven't blogged in a while, take heart: start somewhere and plan to blog a minimum of twice weekly. You'll need at least two posts a week to keep it current. The biggest problem though with new bloggers is deciding what to blog about. Well, here are some ideas:
Talk about trends in the industry you're in. (This works even if you write fiction; talk about the publishing industry.)

Review other (similar) books. This is a great way to network with other people in your market.

Blog "in character." Readers love this!

Develop your next story on your blog: you can ask for reader feedback on story direction, characters, etc.

Lend your voice to a "hot" industry issue or controversy.

Comment on other blogs or feature them on your blog.

Interview people on your blog.

Talk about the elephant in the room: If there's a looming issue in your market, why not offer your insight on your blog?

Feedback and blog comments: If you aren't getting people commenting on your blog, don't despair. It takes a while to get folks commenting and offering feedback, but the more you can tap into issues your reader cares about, the more comments you'll see popping up on your blog.

Publishing content: The Internet has really opened the door to publishing and pushing a lot of content online. Whether it's articles, audio, or video, there's a home for all of it on the 'Net. Consider doing article syndication as a good place to start pushing content online.

Here are some basic guidelines for article syndication:

You don't get paid for this syndication. This is always the first question I get when I talk to authors about syndicating their articles, book excerpts, or tip sheets. You post it online for others to use and promote you. What could be better?

Your articles need to be helpful, not self-promotional. The more helpful they are, the more likely they are to be used. Yes you can mention your book but my recommendation is to keep any and all promotion of it to your byline.

Article titles are important. Remember that the title of your article must be descriptive, don't make people guess what you've written about. If you do, you'll find your pieces aren't as popular as you'd like them to be.

Articles should be a minimum of 500 words, max of 2,000. Generally the most popular pieces are around 1,000 words. Don't forget your byline and website address. Also, and very important, get those articles edited before they go out on the 'Net. Once you send them out, you can never get them back.

[continued next month...]

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the innovative Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books including Red Hot Internet Publicity, which was just sold to Sourcebooks with a planned re-release in Fall 2009. To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com.

Intro to Social Networking: Tag! You're It! (Part Two)

By Penny Sansevieri

Ok, here we go!

Simple steps to tagging:

Create a blog post: Just write your blog, don't worry about doing anything different.

Identify some keywords you'll want to use, as many as you want. Don't worry about getting too scientific with this, just be thorough.

Create your tags: Head on over to egmstrategy.com and generate a tag (this will be choice #1). Once you input the keywords make sure the default button is checked at Technorati. Then go to the bottom and click "generate code." This code will get posted right into your blog. It's that easy! (Tip: always post this code at the end of your blog.) When you're done you'll see code in your blog like this: http://www.redhotinternetpublicity.com/blog/?p=45

Social bookmarking: Tag each of your blog posts in one or all of the following social networking sites. The one slightly time consuming activity you need to do is to set up accounts for each of these. Once you do, however, it will only take you a minute or so per post to add a social bookmarking tag to each of them.

Here are some of the most popular social bookmarking sites to use: dig.com, del.icio.us, yahoo.com (this is still in beta but I recommend using it anyway), blinklist.com, spurl.com, reddit.com, furl.net, and stumbledupon.com.

Nuts and bolts: Each of these sites has a different set of criteria for bookmarking your blog post. If you're blogging everyday this might seem pretty tedious. If it's too much work to tag and bookmark each of your posts, handpick a few each week and focus on those. The idea is that you want to get these keywords out in cyberspace so folks can find you.

Ready for a final tip? If you want to impress customers with your endless list of resources why not share your del.icio.us page with your readers/customers. Del.icio.us gives each registered member their own page with all of their bookmarks. Ideally you'll want to include other resources besides your own blog but a link to this page could be a fantastic way to gain additional exposure not just for your blog, but to your wealth of resources as well. Here's my page: http://del.icio.us/bookmkr.

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the innovative Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books including Red Hot Internet Publicity, which was just sold to Sourcebooks with a planned re-release in Fall 2009. To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com.

Intro to Social Networking: Tag! You're It! (Part One)

By Penny Sansevieri

One of the biggest questions I get from authors is: "I have a blog but how do I get people to it?" First off, keep blogging, but there are other things you can do too and we'll discuss two of the most powerful ones here.

If you've spent any time online you've probably heard the terms: tag or social bookmarking. But what exactly do these terms mean?
 
If you think of the term "tagging" like you would a name tag at a party or networking event it will start to make much more sense. Generally when you post a blog, it's recommended that you "tag" it with various terms appropriate to the message of the blog. The Wikipedia definition of "tag" is: A tag is a keyword which acts like a subject or category. This keyword is used to organize web pages, subjects, and objects on the Internet.

What you're really doing is organizing each of your blog posts so that folks can find and search them. By tagging each of them with specific keywords you'll come up faster when someone searches those keywords than if you left your blog blank. Make sense? Okay, then let's get started learning how to tag. (I promise, it's very easy.)

When creating tags, there are two types that you can create. You can imbed your blog with tags using services like Technorati (more on that in a minute) or you can go to social networking sites and tag your blog as well. I recommend a combination of both.

Social bookmarking is a way of "bookmarking" favorite sites (i.e. yours) so you can easily share them (via tags) with the Internet community especially folks searching for your search term. I'll explain how to get your site bookmarked but for now take a look at sites like www.digg.com and www.del.icio.us.com. These are the top two social bookmarking sites you'll want to use.

There are others and we'll discuss those in next month's part two of two.

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the innovative Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books including Red Hot Internet Publicity, which was just sold to Sourcebooks with a planned re-release in Fall 2009. To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com.

Intro to Social Networking: Tips for Using Twitter

By Penny Sansevieri

If you've pondered using Twitter, a popular social networking tool, but aren't sure how to use it effectively, here are some quick tips to get you started:

• Teach stuff: Teach a mini-lesson on Twitter.
• Delve into your area of expertise or talk about book publishing and how to get published.
• Share sites or blogs that your followers would be interested in. Be their "filter" to new and exciting information.
• Use Tweetlater.com to post tweets to your account for later posting so you don't have to be sitting on top of Twitter every minute of the day.
• Use Twitter as a news source: You can easily announce news both from your world (as long as it relates to your topic) and from the world of your expertise. For example, I've done tweets on book industry stuff, breaking news, etc.
• Offer advice: Use Tweetdeck.com or Twitter Search (search.twitter.com) to see who's asking for info on your area of expertise and then offer them some help/insight. This is a great way to build relationships.
• If you're on tour with your book or doing an event, tweet on that and invite your local followers to attend.
• Remember it's not all about you: People want to know useful stuff.
• Promote your Twitter account in your email signature line and on your blog.
• Follow everyone who follows you. You can use sites like Socialtoo.com and Tweetlater.com to autofollow everyone who follows you. These services can also send a nice welcome message to your new followers.
• There is a lot of noise on Twitter; the sooner you get comfortable with that the better. It's like being at one massive cocktail party. You have to find ways to filter out the noise. Sites like Tweetlater can help you do that.
• Use sites like Tweetlater or Twitter Search to see who's talking about you and then follow them too or comment on their tweet.
• It's ok to repeat your tweets. With the volume of messages people get, your followers will often miss some of your posts.
• Feed your blog through Twitter using Twitterfeed.com.
• Don't feel like you have to respond to every tweet but I generally try to respond to all tweets that are replies to mine (you can find these under @replies on your Twitter home page).
• Review a product or book on Twitter.
• Follow big names in your market on Twitter: this will often bring in their followers too and you want to see what the "big guys" are up to.
• Get a good picture: don't leave your avatar blank. Personalize your page if you can.
• Videos can also be shared on Twitter and 12seconds.tv is a great way to record a video (12 seconds long, hence the name) and share it with your followers.

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the innovative Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books including Red Hot Internet Publicity, which was just sold to Sourcebooks with a planned re-release in Fall 2009. To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com.