Twitter

[MelissaBaby]

Do any of you use Twitter to promote your stories on Lit?

I tweeted a link to a story that is more than a year old, with the @literotica hashtag, and in a few days got more than 80 new views on it.

 

[sirhugs]

Twitter is evil.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Twitter is evil.

So, is that a yes or a no?

 

[Abbafan]

Twitter is evil.

Seconded.

Leaving Twitter was one of the best decisions I ever made.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have a Twitter account, but I sometimes forget to use it to promote stories. I think it can give my stories a little boost, but I haven't noticed a big impact.

The nice thing about Twitter is it's extremely simple to set up and use. It's a very easy way to promote one's stories.

 

[ef_oh_ex]

So, is that a yes or a no?

LOL. Witty reply (and I can relate to both sides of the discussion).

 

[Emirus]

Do any of you use Twitter to promote your stories on Lit?

I tweeted a link to a story that is more than a year old, with the @literotica hashtag, and in a few days got more than 80 new views on it.

I can see the point of using Twitter to advertise your business. As in your case your stories and wanting people to appreciate the fruits of your labours. It’s like an electrician putting up a notice in the local store advertising he’s available for work. Apart from something like that I’m struggling to think of a good reason for it and it does seem to be the source of a lot of trouble.

I can’t understand it when some “celebrity” has thousands, if not millions, of people anxious to know what they are thinking, or they are in a restaurant eating a dinner that’s costing £1000 plus, or they’re having a poo and thought while they had the time they’d share the information with their devoted followers. When I say “celebrities” I’m not just counting actors, singers and other entertainers (such as politicians) etc but also the “famous for being famous” cretins.

From what I know people say things on Twitter (as with Facebook) they wouldn’t dare say face to face with the person. Maybe someone will be able to defend the use of Twitter and explain to me why I’m wrong and it’s a force for good.

 

[KeithD]

I don't use twitter--or apps. Or a smart phone. Or Kindle (even though I have somewhere around 150 works on Kindle).

 

[Brutal_One]

If your current channels are working for you, why change. It’s likely to be a two-edged sword possibly. I guess it depends on the motivation. As I will never ‘promote’ my work on Lit I am probably not in the best place to say is the honest answer but I would be trying to understand if the motivation is right.

Brutal One

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I'm enough of a twit without Twitter. So, no.
I don't do any social media (unless you count this as social media).

 

[WoodmanStark]

#InstagramIsForFood #SnapchatIsForDicks #WTFIsTwitterFor

 

[lovecraft68]

I use it, but for a pen name I sell under so I don't link any lit stories as that would be counter productive.

Its like anything else, you have to build a following, get your following to retweet you.

Silkstocking lover I think uses it very well and you see the size of her lit following-not only #1 favorited author, but by thousands and untouchable. I imagine some of that came from tiwtter.

 

[lovecraft68]

#InstagramIsForFood #SnapchatIsForDicks #WTFIsTwitterFor

The endless screeching of offended snowflakes.

 

[WoodmanStark]

The endless screeching of offended snowflakes.

Such as the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC?

 

[Blind_Justice]

I'm sure if I used Facebook and Twitter, I would probably get more views, but honestly, every minute I spend there pimping my stuff is a minute I'm not writing and I know how easily I am distracted.

Also, I can do without the drama, the outrages about trivialities and food porn. My former classmates are obsessed with telling everyone what fantastic dinner they had. Six months of that madness on Facebook and I'm happy if I'll never have to see "Pasta Vongole with a nice Lambrusco" ever again. Who pairs delicious pasta with basically the cheapest piss masquerading as wine imaginable?!

 

[PennameWombat]

Do any of you use Twitter to promote your stories on Lit?

I tweeted a link to a story that is more than a year old, with the @literotica hashtag, and in a few days got more than 80 new views on it.

I use Twitter but generally only for newly-released stories and indeed Literotica always retweets me but I've not tracked the views that closely. Mostly because I don't track my dashboard closely enough so if the view is up a few hundred I cannot cite Twitter as the cause or not. But, well, no one is going to do it.

But I wouldn't say I use it to "promote," because I see people who do threads and much more detailed tweets around their story or stories. I throw in a short description and a link and tag the LitE account and that's about it.

I've also not used it to promote my back-catalog. But I do have one story that with one more '5' rating would get the always-desired 'H'!

I'm also not sure why people are any more down on Twitter as on any other social media. I always get told that if I want to be a 'real author' I'll need to be very active and build a following on Facebook to promote myself and my works. THAT causes me to just want to hang out and not be a real author... But Twitter just doesn't rub me the wrong way like Zuckerberg's creation does.

 

[SisterJezabel]

Do any of you use Twitter to promote your stories on Lit?

I tweeted a link to a story that is more than a year old, with the @literotica hashtag, and in a few days got more than 80 new views on it.

I've had a twitter account for over 13 years and use it for professional reasons mostly- probably not the place for me to promote erotic writing, although a lot of my contacts may appreciate it! Part of it for me is separating my online presences.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

I've had a twitter account for over 13 years and use it for professional reasons mostly- probably not the place for me to promote erotic writing, although a lot of my contacts may appreciate it! Part of it for me is separating my online presences.

I have my erotic author account and I have a personal and a professional one. Keeps all three separate and I do not retweet anything from one account to another.

 

[Voboy]

It's like anything else: you have to want to do it.

I got a Twitter account because my publisher told me I should, then forgot about it because I despise it, see no good in it, and don't respect it. So in fairness to the platform, I didn't give it a chance. I didn't actively sabotage it, but I felt foolish posting there.

I see Twitter and similar platforms (all of them, from Facebook to Instashit) as emblematic of a lifestyle I don't want to lead. Subconsciously, I suspect I don't really care if anyone on Twitter reads my stuff.

 

[HeyAll]

Yes, it works.

An erotica story tweet usually gets thousands of impressions (people who see it) and the interractions (people who click on it) is in the low hundreds.

Lit gives a retweets to their 15,000 followers.

It also really helps to use hashtags like #erotica and #sexstory or whatever.

Lit doesn't retweet incest. But I've noticed that the incest tweets with tags like #taboo #incest really give those tweets a huge boost.

 

[Wilson Spalding]

Do any of you use Twitter to promote your stories on Lit?

I tweeted a link to a story that is more than a year old, with the @literotica hashtag, and in a few days got more than 80 new views on it.

I resisted Twitter forever. Sure, most of it's vacuous, but it's also a challenge: like flash-fiction (or flash non-fiction). After building a tolerance to it, it's not bad at all – I just don't have the time to really build a brand on it.

That said, yes: I've used it promote story releases and yes, it has provided a small bump in views.

@WilsonSpalding5
...And yeah, Literotica usually retweets when you give them a shout out.

It's kind of a nice little bump, especially given that somebody that clicks through from a tweet is far more likely to be positively interested in the subject matter – a nice change from the toxic crusaders that infest Loving Wives.

 

[RejectReality]

I typically put up a tweet for new releases. Title, brief description, a couple of hashtags that always include "erotica", and the cover image.

Sometimes promote contest stories, contest wins, etc. Laurel retweets most everything that you @literotica.

You do get a lot of unfiltered bot hits with every tweet, but you can attract some new human eyes as well.

Spend a little time filtering certain keywords and blocking annoying politicos/activists and it's not so bad when you go on to put up a promo tweet.

 

[KeithD]

It sounds like there's promotional worth to be mind in twitter for push promotion. Someone who's using it with good results should write a "How To" essay on it to post to the Literotica story file. I'm sure a lot would be interested. (I'm not interested in push promotion but there's no reason why others shouldn't be if they are trying to build a fan base and want to put in the time and energy.)

 

[RejectReality]

The "How to" is actually to do more than just promote. People who truly use it successfully ( IE, not me ) are engaged in more than just promotion. Responding to other authors, ( exposing you to their readers as well ) tweeting about writing related things such as Amazon changes, and otherwise engaging as you would in any other forum is where the big numbers come from when you do put out a promotion.

Otherwise, you can get a reasonable trickle from just a good description, hashtags, the link to the story, and @literotica resulting in Laurel retweeting it to her often much larger follower base.

Settings->Content Preferences->Muted->Muted Words

Start filling that up with Republican, Democrat, POTUS, Trump, Pelosi, congress, election, etc., and you can remove a large amount of noise. Then just mute anyone who engages in an abundance of annoying behavior as well. You'll soon enough have a tolerable experience.