I used to spend a few hours every day on social media sites, but a while back, I found myself wondering if it was all worth it. I wasn’t engaging with people as much, and I drastically cut back on sharing content. The majority of my time was spent merely scrolling through my feeds.

I wasted a lot of time. The problem wasn’t social media. It was me.

In the back of my mind, I knew I needed to make more of an effort. It felt daunting. Plus, I no longer had a few hours each day to spend on social media. As I’ve mentioned here before, last year I decided to push myself to reach higher annual writing goals, which meant doing the bare minimum on social media.

My default has become putting in a consistent effort on my fave sites–Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter–for a month or two, but inevitably, a deadline or a persnickety manuscript will keep me offline for days at a time.

Twitter, especially, used to be my favorite site to hang out on. Then it got overwhelming trying to keep up with my lists. And when I stopped keeping up with them, I no longer “got” Twitter.

But I want to get it.

I’m working on ways to be more consistent there, which led me back to a few blogs I’d bookmarked. If you’re interested in reviving (or starting) your Twitter engagement, here are the articles I thought you might enjoy. The first two are over a year old, but they’re worth reading.

Twitter Advice 2018

• I Automated My Tweets for 30 Days and This is What Happened (by Tami Brehse via Inbound.org)
• 44 Essential Twitter Hashtags Every Author Should Know (by Caitlin Muir via Author Media)
• How the Twitter Timeline Works (and 6 Simple Tactics to Increase Your Reach) (by Alfred Lua via BufferApp.com)

I used to schedule tweets using Buffer, and it worked well for me. On the days I was too busy to post, Buffer did it for me. Bottom line: I’m going to start doing that again.

One of the reason I enjoy using Buffer is that it kicks me in the pants to read industry blogs and retweet them. I follow a lot of blogs, but rarely read them.  Enter Feedly. By going to Feedly, I can scroll through the titles and quickly read/share the ones I find useful.

As far as apps to use Twitter, I’ve gone back and forth using Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, and I always fall back on Tweetdeck. It’s a personal preference. I recommend finding the app that will make Twitter most engaging for you and sticking with it. Hootsuite does allow you to share one post across multiple platforms. I know Tweetdeck used to allow you to automatically share tweets to your Facebook timeline, but I don’t know if that feature is still available. A quick internet search didn’t provide answers, either.

In my opinion, the key to Twitter is responding to mentions, sharing engaging content, and following back when someone follows you. I realize Twitter and Facebook are increasingly becoming pay to play sites, but they’re still worth it for me to spend time there now.

My plan:

1. Schedule tweets in advance using Buffer.
2. Aim to interact on Twitter for 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the afternoons on most weekdays.
3. Once or twice a month, read through Feedly to find blog posts to share.

That’s it. Pretty simple. 🙂

Do you use Twitter? What do you like about it? What are your best tips?

If you don’t use it, why not? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Enjoy your day!