Am I twittering wrong?

In theory, it is polite to follow someone if they have followed you but as you say, if you don't know them and haven't asked them to follow you, then really you are under no obligation to follow them back.
Some people use Twitter as an advertising and marketing tool and in those cases, then the more people they have viewing their pearls of wisdom, the better. They will follow anyone and everyone in the hope of a larger audience in return.
If you are just using it for interest, then I would say just do what you are doing. Follow who you want to and the rest can go hang.

Yes, if you think you have anything in common with them and if you think they might be interested in something you have to say. Twitter is about news and promo and sharing info. If I want to know what is happening right this second in the world, I go to twitter search, put in a keyword, and bang I see what is going on right on right now. For instance if my webhost goes down, I can drop a search on twitter and right away others are having the same problem.

The second thing that twitter can do very well is connect you with people who have like interests. This is important if you want to sell a book say, but it's about more than that. It's about finding new info as much as it is about sending it. SO YOU WANT TO USE Tweetdeck to see all the info and who is talking about you.

You should also tweet maybe 5-10 times per day. Share websites and other info, it doesn't always have to be about what you selling, it should be about your interests. If you don't follow those who follow you, usually those people will go away. This means you will be stuck all the time at like a couple 100 followers. That does you no good at all. You want to have info flowing in, and you want to be able to send info out.

If you write music, post your gigs and talk about other bands you like. If you like F1 talk about that too. It is amazing how useful twitter is. Follow everyone who follows you and has like interests. Give those people a chance. They are going to be sending you info that you need, and they are also going to visit your site and listen to your music. Also, try Tweetdeck, it makes much more sense out of the twitter feed.

I don't follow anyone on twitter or any other social network that I am not interested in what they have to say, and that has nothing to do with politeness.

To me, its rather impolite to expect someone to follow you just because they follow you.

onesecondglance said:

I've not followed these people back because I don't know who they are, and, without meaning to be rude, I couldn't give a **** what some random person I've never met has to say about anything (and I would fully expect them to say the same about me and my opinions!).

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There is a part of me that feels this. And five years ago I would have agreed with it whole heartedly. But over the last few years, and especially over the last few months, I have changed my mind. Two things are responsible for this.

The first is I just sold a book to one of the big six (Don't have permission yet to release details, but that should change very soon now.) I am still a week or two from getting the contract via snail mail and already I have received a package of suggested self-marketing moves. Twitter is high on the list, as are several other social media outlets. So I started looking into it. The thing I've heard over and over about Twitter is that you only get out what you put in. You have to treat your followers with respect because in the end (if you are using Twitter as a writer) you really are promoting yourself. Being insular isn't going to help.

The second thing is I am friends with two different writers, both of whom have published over ten fantasy novels with major houses. The better of the two writers turned her nose up at social media (and I philosophically followed along for several years) while the other embraced social media. I've seen both their sales figures. Now I am not so naive as to think Twitter or blogging accounts for all the difference (and it is huge) but it sure as hell has played a large role. (The one not selling is far and away the better writer, not just in my mind, but in reviewer's minds as well.)

These two bits of new information have caused me to change my mind about the whole process. The day after I have permission to release details on my book, up goes the Facebook age, and up goes the Twitter and linked g-mail accounts.

But this isn't just about selling books. It's about a deep change in philosophy. I have already started trying to get more involved, hence my joining this forum. And just writing here, as well as other forums and writer's blogs, has removed much of my hesitation about social media. There are some good people out there (published or not) who have important things they can teach me. I might never know them as more than a profile pic and an electronic signature. It's a brave new world.

thothguard51 said:

To me, its rather impolite to expect someone to follow you just because they follow you.

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I understand what you are saying, but I think that the web works differently now. People do not see their value on the web. Every second you are on the web you are working for someone. You are either working for yourself or you are working for someone else. You may get something out of both exchanges, but we should all understand that following someone is worth something. Medievalist was talking about this earlier. We are no longer cogs, we are creators. Following and following back is worth something.

I follow people with similar interests, people I know in person and a few that I've known online for years and a couple of my favorite writers.

I am finding it annoying as all hell when anyone uses Twitter to spam their work. Ten tweets a day about why your book is the BEST THING SINCE TOILET PAPER is a quick way to have me unfollow you.

Hell, I follow a fairly well known porn star because her tweets are funny, interesting, entertaining and are not just about 'look at ME, look at my breasts, etc'.

I take the radical approach of following people whose tweets I want to read.

U2Girl said:

Hell, I follow a fairly well known porn star because her tweets are funny, interesting, entertaining and are not just about 'look at ME, look at my breasts, etc'.

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I think I've had a pornstar(let) or two follow me, but I don't think they're well-known, or they wouldn't have followed me - at least not for their own benefit. (I tend to check new followers out if I have the time, and one of them mostly tweeted about animal rights. Can't argue with that.)

What I love about Twitter is that there's no One Right Way To Do It. It's whatever you make of it. If you follow the #1 rule that applies in all social media ("Don't be a dick"), you should be fine. Whoever you choose to follow or not to follow.

There is a wrong way to do it, and that's the 100% self-promotion way. If all you do is hustle for clicks or sales, followers will get bored, and that's that. But even that has a place somewhere in the tweetsphere. I follow a couple of companies for product updates, if that's the most convenient way of keeping on top of things. But mostly, Twitter is a conversation and all about being conversational.

I follow two batches of people: those I want to read about, and those I think could benefit from me following them - i. e. little-known writer friends. I filter all of them through Tweetdeck's list function so I don't have to read everything, and everybody's happy.

everywriter said:

We are no longer cogs, we are creators. Following and following back is worth something.

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The thing is though, you'll be followed by bots and spammers, too.

I don't follow everyone who follows me; I follow people I know I will reliably want to read.

And I use Lists, a lot.

Twitter, like much on the Web is about conversation. It's about commenting in and around the conversation, too, but it is very much about adding to the quality of discussion.

Also, you use Twitter to produce Tweets. You are then Tweeting.

Here's another recent thread on Twitter you may find useful (and posting it keeps me from having to repeat what I said there):
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266834

onesecondglance said:

That was how I expected things to be - I'm glad I'm not totally out of my mind on this one.

I think I will try to be a little less dismissive, and will check new followers' post histories. If they say interesting things, I may follow them back even though I don't know them from Adam. If they're spamalicious, I won't. __________________
Λrchangel: near-future SF noir | 75,204 / 100,000 (second draft underway)

I write music. | I gave in and joined twitter. | And I have a blog too.

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And another thing, I looked at your Twitter profile but you don't have a link. On twitter, click the gear icon, go to Settings, then Profile, and at Website (underneath it says "Have a homepage or a blog? Put the address here.") put in your blog URL (or any "main" website you might want people to go to to learn more about you - I link to my G+ profile where I link to all my other online presences - you can learn a lot about me just from those links).

Also, in your blog bio, add a link to your twitter profile. If people find your blog interesting, they could find your twitter feed interesting as well. These crosslinks may not get you a million or even a thousand followers, but they can't hurt.

veinglory said:

I take the radical approach of following people whose tweets I want to read.

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My approach exactly. As an unpubbed writer, I don't have anything to promote and I have no desire to read links or tweets by people I don't care about. I check my new followers once in a while and most of them are spam, so they get blocked quickly.

Medievalist said:

The thing is though, you'll be followed by bots and spammers, too.

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I agree. I follow people with who have the same interests as I do. Also, usually on twitter it's easy to see that it is a bot. Spammers =Unfollow button is as easy to push as the follow button.

onesecondglance said:

But reading Medi's thoughts above, am I doing this Twitter thing wrong? Should I be following people back even if I don't really care?

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It depends on why you joined Twitter. If you just want to try your hand at social media and keep track of F1 drivers and some writers, you're doing it right.

However, twitter can be more. If you want to build relationships with potential readers, you're doing it wrong because you're limiting your followers and who you follow.

But the spammer that bleats about their book or service every few tweets and follows everyone is also doing it wrong. I was told that 80% of your tweets should be fun, personal stuff and 20% should be promotion, but I don't take that as a hard and fast rule. More as a warning not to be annoying when I promote.

I'm still trying to get the hang of things and participate in dialogs with other tweeters. I'm a little shy, so it's hard for me to step out of my comfort zone. I like to lurk and read other people's tweets, but I pretty much follow everyone who follows me.

Which means that my twitter feed gets clogged up a lot. So the tweets by Neil Gaiman or Nathan Fillion that I really want to read because I'm a hopeless fangirl, sometime get lost in the noise from my other tweeps. You can put all your writer friends and F1 drivers in a category and then just view that feed, but I'm not too sure how to do that. One of these days I'll get organized and figure it out.

Most people on Twitter, I've discovered, have no idea how to use Twitter. I will follow anyone back as long as they're not advertising porn or how to make more money or clearly spam about their products.

But even with all my followers, they spam my newsfeed with links to their books, and it gets tiring. I have to wade through all of these to find someone who is actually talking about fun stuff. If I'm interested in your conversation or you as a person, I will check out your website. If not and you're just throwing links up, expect to never get clicked on.

Jamiekswriter said:

But the spammer that bleats about their book or service every few tweets and follows everyone is also doing it wrong.

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I just unfollowed someone who was doing that.

Jamiekswriter said:

I was told that 80% of your tweets should be fun, personal stuff and 20% should be promotion, but I don't take that as a hard and fast rule. More as a warning not to be annoying when I promote.

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Tweet about your writing when something changes (published, nominated for something, won something, particularly glowing/high-profile review, paperback, audio, etc.) and then another one about the same thing twelvish hours later. Everything else should be fun personal stuff.

But, uh, I'm just some guy on the Internet.

Clogged newsfeed = Tweetdeck

I don't know how people with non-desk jobs can keep up with Twitter. Seems that you need to have a separate window or even monitor open just for that, to let it stream by until something catches your eye, then you can stop whatever else you're doing on the comp and look at Twitter for a bit, then go back to work, or writing, or playing solitaire, or whatever you're doing.

I'm away from my home/laptop for 11 hours on the days I go to my job. I don't have an office/cubicle with my own computer there - I move from workstation to workstation and am almost always in a trafficked area. Little privacy to check Twitter - which is really frowned upon there. We're supposed to be working! How unreasonable.

I've occasionally looked at Twitter on my iPhone but it's so sporadic I really can't keep up with what's going on. I follow a few authors I like, a couple of people here, a couple of organizations - but if I want to know something, I look at their blog, or website, or FB.

On the days that I don't work, watching Twitter doesn't enter my mind often, probably because I'm always so lost on it.

Is there a way to only get Tweets from people I've followed? That would make it a lot more manageable, rather than wading through reams of miscellaneous stuff.

juniper said:

Is there a way to only get Tweets from people I've followed? That would make it a lot more manageable, rather than wading through reams of miscellaneous stuff.

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Your timeline already only has tweets from people you've followed. You can also set up a Twitter list with people you particularly want to keep up with, for times when you're busy.

I don't sit with Twitter scrolling by as I work. I have the web version in a window and I check it sporadically. If something interesting is going down, I'll check it more then, but mostly it's the odd glance, and I read whatever is there at the time.

Polenth said:

Your timeline already only has tweets from people you've followed.

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Huh. Does it also have Tweets from people who've followed me (for whatever strange reason)? Cuz I don't know some of those folks. Maybe my cat is using my Twitter, although she has her own account.

juniper said:

Huh. Does it also have Tweets from people who've followed me (for whatever strange reason)?

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Not unless you've followed them back.

mmmhh I'm new to twitter and taking it slowly. Anyone who decides to follow me, I look at their profile. If they have similar interests I'm tempted to follow but then I check the number of tweets a day. If it's more than 20 I'm not interested. I don't want to hear every brain fart.