Analyzing tweets from the experts

Let’s look at some tweets and see what we can learn from the experts as they put these techniques into practice.

It's Friday! What will you be reading this weekend? #weekendgoodreads

— goodreads (@goodreads) November 2, 2012

Getting book lovers to talk about their weekend reading plans was a great idea for reading community site Goodreads. Goodreads created its #weekendgoodreads hashtag to make it easy for its followers to share their weekend reading with fellow Twitterers.

Regular promotion by Goodreads and usage by an enthusiastic group of Twitterers creates a valuable place for readers to network — including people who don’t follow Goodreads — and lets Twitterers connect beyond their own networks.

Guest post by Maggie Malone, Dir. of Creative Development @WaltDisneyAnim & co-author of THE ART OF #WRECKITRALPH http://t.co/4qTtke4O

— Chronicle Books (@ChronicleBooks) November 8, 2012

Lots happening here in fewer than 140 characters. Chronicle is using its Twitter account to promote its author’s blog post, using an @ Twittername reference to alert the author’s company to the post for possible sharing through their network; and adding a popular movie hashtag to the book title to get further reach outside its Twitter follower network.  All of this in 129 characters, leaving some spare characters for retweeting.

On top of all this, note that the blog post is actually a guest post on Chronicle’s own blog — an example of how a publisher can use its blog to support its authors.

Finally, you can see the use of a so-called URL-shortener (in this case, using Twitter’s own t.co domain) to shorten web addresses. Twitter has popularized these services which convert a long web address to a shortened version to save precious characters in the tweet.

Other popular services include bit.ly and tinyurl.com. As well as saving room, these services can be used to provide click-tracking, giving you data on how the link is being shared.

RT @WmMorrowBks: Bestselling author Maria Semple calls THE HOUSE GIRL “A wise, stirring, & assured debut." http://t.co/gZafxfPs

— HarperCollins (@HarperCollins) November 8, 2012

The HarperCollins US corporate Twitter account uses retweeting to boost the reach of a tweet from one of its imprints, William Morrow Books. William Morrow also kept its original tweet well short of the 140-character limit to allow room for retweets. And the link in the tweet promotes its new author’s Facebook Page rather than its own site.

Authors' Funniest Responses to the Film Adaptations of Their Work http://t.co/UATpgQCi (Thanks @flavorpill!)

— Penguin Random House (@penguinrandom) November 1, 2012

RandomHouse shares some relevant humor and uses the @Twittername to give credit where credit is due.