There’s an interesting story brewing on Twitter at the moment, as best-selling author Alice Hoffman has taken to task reviewer Roberta Silman for her review of The Story Sisters, Hoffman’s new novel.

There are countless blogs and twitter profiles talking about Hoffman’s reaction – she tweeted up to 27 times about the review, going so far as to reprint Silman’s email address and phone number, for her readers to join in.

There are plenty who are labelling this as a great example of ‘how not to use twitter’, while Hoffman herself seems delighted to have this direct channel to discuss ’snarky reviewers’ with her readers.

Our view here at boduweb? It’s a great illustration of the power of twitter, and the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. It’s also an important lesson on how writers can get involved – for better or worse – in their own promotion.

Ony time and sales figures will tell whether Hoffman has the last laugh in this.

One thing that is essential, though, for any writer promoting themselves on twitter, is to understand the ramifications of using the system. If you post up there – even if you only have a handful of followers – your words may well be taken at face value on thousands of sites.  Remember, the system is disproportionately used by journalists and bloggers ever hungry for new stories to publish. It’s a double-edged sword.

If you’re using Twitter to promote yourself / your band / your novel / your conference etc it’s obvious that you would like to have a large amount of followers. There’s one single thing, more than any other, that puts us off following people on our various twitter accounts, and it’s a simple thing that can be fixed.

First of all, try to think how many people will come across your twitter profile. Theire are a couple of very common ways, and they all work on the same principle – a list.

1) You’ve started following me. Twitter is a great place for information sharing and conversations, so it makes sense in most cases for you to check out the profiles of those following you. If you like what you see, you’ll follow back.

2) I’m following, for example, @three_monkeys who writes about a very particular topic close to my heart. I think therefore that the people @three_monkeys is following are probably worth following, so I click on his ‘following list’

3) My profile is based on a specific area, one well represented by a profile like @bbcbreaking, so I browse to their ‘followers’ list looking for like-minded souls

In all three of these cases, I will browse a list which presents profile pictures and names together. Crucially, when I hover over a profile name I ‘ll get the bio info of that profile. And here’s the tip, then: Make sure you have a bio field filled out for your profile. If you don’t, you’re making it more difficult for people to quickly see what you’re about – and if it ain’t quick and easy, why should they bother with you??

twitter tip - add bio field

Right-leaning British newspaper The Daily Mail found itself with egg on its face on Friday as one of its infamously non-neutral polls was targeted by psychologists on twitter.

The poll which had the decidedly non-neutral question ’should the nhs let gipsies to jump the queue?’, raised the ire of a number of psychologists who as part of their research staunchly defend questionnaire neutrality.

An email and tweet campaign got under way encouraging people to vote yes on the poll, and so it was that right-wing rag saw 96% of the polled answering yes (with traffic that apparently almost crashed the newspaper’s server).

An interesting story in itself, but one with lessons for bands/writers/ businesses trying to promote themselves online. Hold on now! We’re not suggesting you start posting xenophobic poll questions in a tacky bid to increase your hits! No, but this combination of normal polling with email and twitter can be a great and powerful way to boost traffic.

An example: you’re a writer, so you put a poll on your site asking ‘who is the most important novelist of the last 5 years?’. You send out details of the poll to your email list – if you have one. You send it out to your facebook friends, and you post a link on twitter (making sure that the title of the tweet is short and snappy enough to encourage plenty of re-tweets).

The plot is nearly always the same – social networks start off with a technologically clued in vanguard using them, then thanks to word of mouth their user base starts to grow, until that magical moment when the media starts latching on. At that point new users signing up skyrockets alongside hyperbolic predictions about how this new platform/network will change the world.

The latest blockbuster is obviously Twitter, which had a huge boost in the US during April when the hugely influential Oprah Winfrey dedicated time and space to the social network, and also set up her own twitter account @oprahwinfrey (with over 3,000 followers).

The New York Times, though, has an interesting article worth considering when you’re weighing up how much time and effort to dedicate to different social networks. It examines the retention rate for Twitter, and finds that for most of last year it was in and around 30% – while this year it has edged up to about 40% (source Nielsen Online).

What that means, in simple terms, is that only 40% of people setting up an account on twitter are still there a month later. They come, influenced by media events, word of mouth etc try it out, and then fade away. Not very encouraging, particularly when placed in contrast with Facebook and Myspace – both of which have retention rates of around 60%.

Does that mean that twitter isn’t worth bothering with?
Not at all. There are two things to consider about twitter that make it worthwhile for your online marketing:
1) Ease of setup – it’s free, and can be set up in seconds. With Myspace and Facebook, to do it properly you need to customise the look of your account page, and spend time adding useful features. Twitter setup is much simpler (though we recommend that you do use a customised background for your twitter page).
2) Networking possibilities
While plenty of people sign up to twitter and then forget about it, there are a whole host of important people in various different industries that use it daily – and due to the open nature of the relationships, you can start building up important contacts quickly and effectively.

So, the moral? Do work on your twitter acount, but take the ‘twitter is the new google/facebook/etc’ talk with a pinch of salt. See it for what it is, and use it to your advantage.

There were a lot of smug faces in the twittersphere (can you say that?), and abashed techies over at The Telegraph when they decided to publish live tweets posted to the tag #budget during the week, without thinking the obvious – without moderators you’re basically giving an open space for all – including the malicious – to publish onto your site.

Very web 2.0 in a sense, but not particularly clever for a leading news organisation.

Setting up #tags on twitter to group together tweets is a great idea, and can be used effectively for the purpose that the telegraph had in mind – but with more care, and above all attention.

It’s a common enough mistake to make, though – and easy to do. For example, how many WordPress bloggers out there have their settings configured, accidentaly, to allow anyone who has previously had a comment published on the blog automatic access to publish comments without moderation? (That’s one of the main reasons you receive those seemingly innocous ‘great site’ comments – though we can’t rule out that it’s because you produce great content!).

So commiserations to the Telegraph’s team for their error – it’s a useful lesson.

Many bands starting out have a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm – they want to evangelize and spread the word about how good their band is. The internet revolution has meant that – as opposed to when bands like the beatles, u2, or even nirvana were starting out – bands nowadays have a huge amount of tools that they can use effectively to do that evangelizing. One of the most effective of these can be twitter.

But hold on a second, because all that nervous energy can work against you as well. Twitter is a great and welcoming social network, but it’s also wary and unforgiving of people that jump in and send hundreds of tweets with the simple ‘buy my stuff’ message. You can easily build up a following on twitter, and just as easily lose it thanks to the crap you post.

So here are some points to keep in mind, to get the most out of your twittering:

#1 Make sure you have a site/page for people to go to

While the purpose of each of your tweets shouldn’t be to directly push people to your site, you do need to keep in mind the overall purpose of being on twitter – in this case, letting people know about your band.  So make sure you have your band website set up well first, before investing energy in twittering.  At the very least you should have a myspace page or similar, though we recommend you have your own site and possibly blog.

#2 Make sure your twitter profile page is eye-catching and contains important info

The basic information displayed on a twitter profile is limited, but there’s a way to get around this. Customise your profile page, setting a background image that also contains other important pieces of information – for example, the urls of your other social network profiles (facebook, myspace, last.fm etc)

#3 Search people out

You’re not on twitter to sell your album to each follower you can manage to pick up (though fair play to you if you manage that as well). You’re on twitter to network, and networking means identifying people who you think should get to hear about your band.

Check to see if your favourite dj’s, music journalists, club promoters are on twitter – and follow them.

Go through the lists of who they’re following, and follow the people that interest you.
Go slowly!. Don’t exaggerate with the amount of people you follow. You want to build a reasonable ratio between those who you’re following and those who follow you. If you’re following 2,000 people and have 4 followers (the rest of the band), you’ll come across as a desparate wannabe.

#4 Make your tweets worth reading

This maybe #4, but in a real sense it’s the most important of the lot. The best way to build up followers, and make them interested enough to head over to your site is to tweet regularly and interestingly. There are some golden rules to help you in this:

• Avoid the banal ‘having a cup of tea’ type tweet. That have some charm if it comes from Jay-Z, but in your case most people will respond with a ‘who cares’ as they drop you from their following list.
• Avoid a barrage of self-promotion. Do give out useful info – for example your next gig, album release etc. But try to ensure you keep a healthy ratio between tweets advertising the band, and tweets that talk about other stuff
• You’re a musician – tweet about music you like. Tweet about what it’s like to be a musician.
• Be generous – re:tweet other people’s messages, if they’re relevant to your audience.
• Respond to other people’s tweets – one of the great things about twitter is that it can be the starting point of conversations

#5 Get savvy about tools/directories that will help you twitter

Twitter is a great tool, but it’s admin leaves a bit to be desired. Luckily, there’s an army of developers out there releasing tools regularly that can help you get the most out of your twittering. For example, one of the simple rules that seems to exist on twitter is the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ one. If you don’t twit regularly, people lose interest and are liable to move on elsewhere. Twitting regularly, though, is time consuming. One handy way to do it, is to use a tool like tweetlater to do your work all in one go. Instead of tweeting 20 times a day every day, you can spend an hour or two over the weekend writing some good tweets, and then using the tool have them scheduled to publish throughout the week.

There are lots of directories springing up for twitter now – get yourself added to ones that seem popular and useful.

#6 Last but not least – enjoy it

The final point is the one that will probably make the experience the most useful to you, if you can manage. Relax and enjoy using twitter. It’s a tool for sharing information, and as such can be fascinating. Allow yourself to be fascinated, and share that with other people on the network. The more real conversations and relationships you strike up, without worrying about whether they’re going to get into your band or not, the better. Rest assured, people who appreciate your twittering will eventually make their way to your band site.