Twitter Tuesday #25–Beware TADD (Twitter Attention Deficit Disorder)

Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of Twitter Tuesday. In the spirit of Twitter, this blog will be short and sweet and to the point. The tips offered here are all based off my best-selling book We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. If our goal is to build an author platform in the thousands to tens of thousands, then we will have to approach Twitter differently than a faceless corporation or even the regular person who does not possess a goal of becoming a brand. This blog will help you rule the Twitterverse without devolving into a spam bot.

This Week’s Fail Whale–TADD or Twitter Attention Deficit Disorder

Social media changes so quickly even us experts have a tough time keeping up. There is always some new fancy tool for Twitter, some app that promises to make life easier. One key way to use social media effectively is to get good at knowing what to ignore…which is about 85% of everything offered to us. I recommend TweetDeck. Maybe there are better information management applications. But I know that if I keep swapping tools, I will never get good at the one I am using. I will also be wasting time trying to learn a new application. As writers we need our time for writing books, so we must guard our time and not get into habits that drain time and energy from our writing. TADD, if left untreated, can cause wrinkles, hair loss and a weird eye twitch.

This Week’s Twitter Tip–Be a Focused Tweeter

There will always be some new application promising new and wonderful ways to manage your tweets. Here’s the thing. If you stick with one of the more popular applications, they are keeping an eye on the competition. Let them worry about social media, you have books to write. Trust me. If there is some new app that promises to rub our feet while we tweet, and it works, and people are signing up by the hundreds? Tweet Deck programmers will raise them a neck rub AND a cup of coffee.

Yeah, wishful thinking, but you get the gist.

We really don’t have to bounce from app, to app, to app. Focus on building a community and writing great books. At the end of the day, our goal is to be an author with a rockin’ social media platform, not a social media expert of a bazillion different platforms and applications.

Tweet ya later!