I've taken to following some of the authors I like to read on Twitter. I've done this hoping to get a glimpse of their personalities and personal lives. I've gotten that, but I've also gotten something quite annoying. Many, especially the new authors that need to promote their work, do that promotion with social media. I'm all for (shameless) self-promotion. I blog, I tweet, I facebook. I get it.
The annoyance arises when the Tweeter repeatedly Tweets the same thing over and over. It was explained (when I inquired) that due to acquiring new followers on a daily basis, it is necessary to continually Tweet links to past stories, blog posts, etc. to insure that new followers are led to these items.
So, here is my request to authors that use Twitter to promote their body of work. Like many experienced Tweeters, I use a third party client to view my Twitter Feed. This client allows me the option to mute keywords. If you're posting a link in your Tweet, and it's one I've already followed, I can copy the "text" of your link and mute it so that it no longer clutters up my feed of your pearls of wisdom. The problem comes when you let Twitter, or whatever client you use to Tweet and read Tweets, shorten your link automatically. If you're letting Twitter or your client shorten your link each time you Tweet it, it generates a new short link. So my mute keywords feature is defeated and you annoy me by cluttering up my feed with repeats.
So here's my advice. Once you've tweeted the Tweet you'll want to repeat. Copy that tweet, including the short link, and use it for future re-tweetings. Then I can keep your repeats to a minimum and we all win.
Peace out!
Julie
