When it comes to writing a promotional tweet, there are a few things you can do to ensure you get the desired response, and don’t annoy your followers.
It is important to include the hook early on. The title or the price of your book are not hooks. Your tag line (the short sentence you might put on the cover of your book) could be used or you could “quote” from a review.
- Shorter tweets do better – 40-60 character tweets have better click rate
- Using a lot of hashtags doesn’t mean a lot of engagement – one or two hashtags is enough
- Ask a question – drive more clicks
- Turn off CAPS LOCK – tweets that use capitalised words will be retweeted and liked less
- If you have a book discount, use urgency words such as “hurry”, “now”, “fast,” “limited time”
- Mentions don't help – don't waste characters on mentions
- Using new in your tweet will drive more engagement
- Fear can help, using words such as “Don't miss this . . . “
Other advice:
- Develop a relationship with your followers
- If someone retweets or likes your tweet, it would be good to thank him for it,
- Engage further if you think that the person is interesting to you
- Engage and participate when someone mentions you in a tweet
- Have a clear call to action button. Include one short link to the site you're promoting
- Use URL shorteners, such as Buffer or bit.ly
- Always-on-approach works better than using Twitter for major events only
- Use hashtags according to your targeted audience, i.e. “If you like #gameofthrones you'll love…“
- Your author’s Twitter username should be short, so you have enough space for the Tweet
- Use pictures in your Tweet, but don't over do it!
Getting your promotional Tweets right is important. You will get orders for your book and start conversations if you do.
Here are some examples of good tweets:
“I love it! A classic locked-room #mystery.” – Writer Beat smarturl.it/muw by @OmenBooks
A collection of 8 gut-wrenching, spine-chilling short stories. Psychological #horror for the brave. smarturl.it/aos @robin_hutton
If you like Hitchhikers Guide you’ll love this! #humour #scifi smarturl.it/tust by @antonmorse
If you like American Horror Story, you'll love The Dead of Winter. Gruesome and a little camp. smarturl.it/tdew @ABGibson1
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Excellent tips and most appreciated. They make sense.
I follow your tweets just to get great ideas of good book treats.
That’s sensible advice and just common sense when you think about it. If you post a clumsy and unattractive tweet to promote your book then maybe the reader will be lead to believe that the book itself isn’t any better. After all, they come from the same stable.
My personal dislike, and I speak here purely as a consumer, is any post with ’99cents – two for one – and free’ in the text. If it isn’t worth more than that then perhaps I should be looking elsewhere if I want a good read.
That’s the point at which I usually go to the bookshelf and heave down a copy of Trollope, say, or Salman Rushdie, or even Bill Shakespeare. You know, a canon of some sort. I just can’t read bad prose however new and ground breaking it might be.
Best wishes to all.
I totally agree with you.
Great tips. I will certainly be using them!
Thanks for writing this I recently posted an awkward promotional tweet and it got no response 😕
Thank you for sharing your insight.
Wonderful great advice. Definitely will be a very good tool. Thanks for sharing.