Twitter: Now I Think I Get It

by G.M. Malliet

I was reading a newspaper the other day. You know, a newspaper. It's this thing that gets printed on a printing press and gets delivered to your door, in my case by a guy in a pickup truck. A printing press? Well, a printing press--just, never mind.

Anyway, the article I was reading on this old-fashioned handheld device was about Charlie Sheen. I had, up to this point, actively avoided reading about Charlie Sheen. I had never seen his TV show and I have no plans to see it now. But somehow an article in the mainstream press made me think this was something I needed to be up on. It mentioned that Charlie has about a gazillion followers on Twitter. All of which is prompting a lot of online comment, which the Post (print edition) duly reported on.

I am not in the group of people bashing Charlie. I really, truly am not--it's clear this is a guy with troubles of his own, and if it were someone less blessed with money, talent, opportunity, looks, and the works, no one in the world would be interested in bashing him. But there was one comment repeated in the paper that made me choke on my coffee laughing--I really couldn't help myself. It was from Rob Thomas (http://twitter.com/ThisIsRobThomas) and it went like this:

"the more charlie sheen speaks, the more i think, "you know, lindsay lohan really seems to have her [stuff] together."

Now, I'm sorry, but that is funny. Bundling together two people who simply cannot see they have the world by the tail? Yes. Because we all have this blind spot to some degree? Yes--although most of us are operating on a much smaller budget. (Charlie's upcoming live shows are selling out, btw.) And so of course, I had to go online to see who Rob Thomas might be. It turns out he's a songwriter, and (as of the last time I looked) he has 219,150 followers on Twitter. I would bet he had a whole lot fewer followers before the Sheen tweet.

And surely some of these followers have gone on to look up Rob's Web site...

This is the power not of tweeting, but of tweeting in an original way, combined with some Zeitgeist-y thing that gets you mentioned in the mainstream press, driving people to go online to see who this funny or interesting person might be.

But without print, I'd most likely never have heard of online Rob.

The other day Paul Hochman, the Director of Social Media at St. Martin's Press, was interviewed at Jungle Red about how every author MUST be doing Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube--but only for 20 minutes a day (relief). I do all three (sometimes) although I am lamer when it comes to YouTube than I am with, say, roof repairs. But I did try with my first book, and I have an old trailer up there somewhere that at least ten people have viewed.

Would anyone shopping for a book start with YouTube? Probably not. But they might find a book through that Zeitgeist-y thing, so if you're an author, you need to be there.

Facebook I'm not crazy about lately. No reason, except it's become such a promotional tool it no longer seems friendly. My opinion? Authors are starting to overuse FB as a vehicle to sell their books and only to sell their books. A little of FB is starting to go a long way.

Twitter, as you can see, I'm coming around to. There are all kinds of people on there commenting on all kinds of things.

Cricket did a great blog here the other day about the many different sources for books these days, and that blog made a similar case. It's not an either/or proposition. Writers have to take advantage of all the choices out there. Online, in person, and what have you.

But, not all at once.

And only for 20 minutes a day.

Now, if someone could please just explain the point of FF on Twitter to me...

G.M. Malliet http://gmmalliet.com/
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Twitter image taken from aperture.org.