Don\u2019t be like the poet whose entire Twitter feed was copies of the same message asking people to check out her new book on Amazon. No doubt someone told her she should be promoting her book on Twitter, so she did that without first learning how to use that platform.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s okay to tweet \u201cmy health book that will save your life is now available here,\u201d or \u201cread a sample chapter of my espionage thriller here,\u201d now and then. Limit it to 20 percent of your content, though. The remaining 80 percent of your messages should be interesting, entertaining, or helpful, not self-serving.<\/p>\n

One author new to Twitter recently noted that after joining that social network the day before and tweeting several times, nobody engaged with her. She wondered what she was doing wrong.<\/p>\n

Her most obvious mistake was expecting results of any type in 24 hours. In addition, four of her seven tweets promoted her book — about four too many to start out. This approach is the real life equivalent of trying to sell life insurance to party guests as soon as you walk in the room.<\/p>\n

Don’t do it.<\/p>\n