A writer's guide to Twitter

This question came up on a thread in r/writing on Reddit from a writer trying to attract followers on Twitter.  Although my answer is geared therefore towards authors who tweet, I think it's good advice in general for anyone seeking to establish a genuine online presence on Twitter that's worth following:

1. Don't just follow your friends/followers! Use a Twitter client that allows you to monitor multiple hashtags- follow tags like #writing, #amwriting, #abna (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards), #litchat, #pubwrite, #authors, etc. Hashtags are conversations. Don't be afraid to jump in, reply, and retweet, but don't go crazy and blow up peoples' tweetstreams with multiple serial RTs and replies all at once.
2. Tweet about a variety of topics. This might sound a little counterintuitive, but writers who tweet about nothing but writing are boring, and run the risk of coming off as shills. Tweet about other things that interest you- for example, I like to tweet about libraries (I'm a librarian), D&D and gaming in general, the Boston Red Sox, and how the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ruins my commute pretty much every other day. Not only will you pick up more followers this way, but it also helps your real personality shine through online and makes your tweetstream seem like less of a marketing gimmick.
3. Do not automate your tweets- this may work for larger organizations but it's never a good idea for an individual. Also be careful about overly clogging your tweetstream with third-party app tweets. No one will begrudge you the occasional Foursquare check-in binge, but if most of your tweets are coming from apps people are simply going to tune you out.
4. Direct Messaging strangers is creepy. Just don't do it!
5. Share links to interesting and informative content. Reddit may have seen it all already, but never underestimate the RT power of a quality cat meme. I follow a ton of RSS feeds in Google Reader, which makes it easy to share content out to social networks. If I found something worth reading, chances are someone else out there on Twitter will as well.  The internet is such a wild and woolly place that people who help make sense of it for others are valued in social networks.  If you establish yourself as a thoughtful digital curator, people will follow you.
6. Be authentic in your tweets. As much as it seems to be driven by celebrities and Trending Topics, Twitter does actually reward original expression and the clever turn of phrase. Think of a RT as an upvote here on Reddit and you'll get the idea. Have opinions. Make jokes. Show some genuine emotion. Provide running commentary to that morning's episode of The Price Is Right (helpful hint: people on Twitter LOOOOOOOVE Plinko).

So that's pretty much how I've built up a modest Twitter following. It won't happen overnight, but you'll be surprised how tweeting on a consistent basis on a wide range of topics will translate into a steady trickle of new followers. The key is engagement. If you don't put anything into Twitter, do not expect anything substantive out of it in return.

Enjoy!  And happy tweeting...

We didn't start the fire

I've been doing a lot of ruminating since "The Great Librarian Massacre" the week before last (kudos to someone at Daily Kos for picking up the story even if they completely missed the fact that my post title was meant to be a tongue in cheek homage to Bob Darnton's seminal history treatise The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History), especially concerning the role that social media-- mainly Twitter-- played in the dissemination of information that day. After a spirited conversation with a colleague I began to worry that our tweeting had only thrown gasoline on the fire, or even worse, had actually sparked the blaze in the first place. For wasn't it true that the whole brouhaha begin when someone claimed on Twitter that we'd all been effectively fired? Had we Harvard library folk not been livetweeting the Town Hall Meetings on the #hlth hashtag, it would not have been nearly as easy for the conversation to spin out of control amid a concerned global audience of librarians, higher ed trend watchers, and both boosters and detractors of the World's Greatest University. Or so the reasoning goes.

Even though I am a firm proponent of Living Out Loud and one of those annoying Information Should Be Free kind of evangelists, I'm not averse to a little soul-searching about the disruptive nature of new technologies. From the so-called Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, Twitter has been blamed for facilitating revolution across the globe, so it's not all that surprising that social media is providing a voice during a period of radical transformation here at the Harvard Library. As these things tend to happen, our perfect "social media shitstorm" started out innocently enough, and use of the #hlth was even encouraged by library administrators as a mechanism by which the Town Hall proceedings could be shared with colleagues who could not attend one of the three meetings (the 9am meeting was also livestreamed online on a publicly accessible website). Was this an example of misunderstanding the viral reach of Twitter, or did the Powers That Be simply believe that the content of their meetings was not nearly as controversial as it turned out to be?

I would argue that it was a little of both. Although I was not personally in attendance at last week's community meeting with our Executive Director and Senior Associate Provost-- the first meeting between administrators and staff since the Town Hall Meetings-- having spoken to people who were there and reading the tweets of those who covered the event, it's clear that there is still a disconnect between perceptions and reality between library staff and the highest echelons about just how much of a disaster the January 19th meetings were. Many of my colleagues who went expected some token fence-mending only to be disappointed, so it will be very interesting to see if there are any PR course corrections during the run-up to the next set of Town Hall Meetings in February, especially now that the HUCTW has weighed in about not having been notified in advance of the key points in the Transition Team's presentation and labor activists have already picketed the exterior of Harvard Library administrators' offices.

As far as Twitter itself is concerned, certainly nothing that Harvard has done via social media channels to date would have prepared administrators either for the speed at which information about the Town Hall Meetings traveled or the vehemence of the response from the library world and beyond. But that is not an excuse for not being prepared at least for the possibility that such a viral event might occur and engaging the backchannel with reliable information once all Hell had indeed broken loose. And yet the Harvard Library Twitter account was idle throughout the entire day, and moreover continues to be silent (its last tweet was on December 7th of last year). Ironically, those of us who were livetweeting the meetings quickly found ourselves scrambling to combat the rampant misinformation that others were spreading in the absence of any official Twitter presence!

It is my understanding that the library administration is currently reexamining its communications policies from the ground up, which is welcome news, but even the best-formulated policy will never adequately address the messy turbulence of social media. Nor would we be in a better situation if those of us who had been livetweeting the Town Hall Meetings had not shared information and our outrage on #hlth. Word would still have broken out among the library community, only it would have been even more riddled with rumors and falsehoods than the Twitter stream itself. An open communications channel may invite those with an ax to grind and other anonymous online agents provocateur, but I believe that transparency will always carry the day on its own merits. Despite the initial fear and subsequent controversy, look at the myriad discussions that have been inspired by our Town Hall Meetings.

I have always argued quite passionately with my colleagues that whether or not the Harvard Library regards the rest of the library world when it thinks, plans, or acts, the rest of the world is always watching us. The events of the past few weeks have vindicated my belief, and suggest that librarians and library staff everywhere consider themselves stakeholders in our Library Transition-- a humbling, terrifying, wonderful thought. I still believe that we are capable of transforming our great but centuries-old library system into a model research library for the 21st century and beyond, but this requires engagement and a willingness to lead from our administration as much as it demands patience, enthusiasm, and optimism from the rest of us.