If you consider yourself a Bookstagrammer, chances are your content on Instagram is mainly book-centered. Perhaps you even have a separate account for your personal life where friends and family can keep up with you. It’s a business-like approach to building your Bookstagrammer identity. On the other hand, maybe you’re comfortable combining your business and personal lives and alternate bookish posts with life updates. Whatever the case, you’re here because you’d like to continue expanding on and building your brand. A great next step is to open yourself up to the wonderful, though sometimes chaotic, Twitter world.
The main difference between an Instagram and Twitter presence is that Twitter focuses more on little written bits and pieces you share with followers. Instagram, of course, emphasizes visual content. Here, you’ll learn about why using Twitter is a good move, the steps that may help you get started with a new Twitter account, or how to take your existing account to higher ground in terms of bookish and brand content.
Why Should You Use Twitter?
It’s one of few platforms that allows for near real-time updates, communication, and easily accessible conversations. Of course, Instagram has Stories that allow for in-the-moment posts, but Twitter is unique in that tweets show up on your followers’ timelines without them having to click on your profile. As they refresh, your latest thoughts and comments will pop up at the top of their feed. Additionally, Twitter is conducive to more newsy and time-sensitive content.
Let’s say you have an event going on or a countdown to a new release. You could start a hashtag for your followers to live-tweet your event, spread the word about it, and immediately get feedback and interaction with your audience. It’s a type of engagement that is rare on other platforms. It’s also a great way to see how you can adjust how you make content to engage your audience on other platforms.
Now that we know what benefits come from Twitter, let’s take a look at how you can use it to your advantage and some examples.
1. Make your profile visually appealing and recognizable
Because you already have an established Bookstagram, be sure to make yourself or your brand known. This means a clear profile picture, preferably the same one you use on Instagram for that recognizability as well as consistency. And if you update one of your profile pictures, update them all to avoid confusion if someone searches for you on different platforms.
When it comes to a header or cover photo, get creative! Maybe it includes your logo or it’s one of your favorite Bookstagram images. Whatever the case, the cover photo is an opportunity to showcase a little bit about your personality and to draw people into your profile.
One of our previous Bookstagrammers of the Week, Marcy (@marcyreads), is a great example of this. Her profile picture is the same on Twitter and Instagram, and her header is eye-catching and matches her vibe.
Marcy’s display name and bio are also clear, concise, and recognizable. She even seems to have a color scheme. Your display name and username should be clear and, if possible, the same or similar to your users on other sites. Once again, consistency! Make it easy for your audience to find you.
For your bio, you definitely have creative freedom. Whatever fits best with your persona or preference works. But keep in mind that the average person is more likely to give you a follow if it’s easy to digest and they don’t have to think too hard to figure out what it is you offer. It’s also a good idea to include links to your other social media or websites.
2. Do your best to be active daily
This means posting original and valuable tweets. Anything from bookish content, promoting content from your other social media or websites, personal content, to retweeting and quote tweeting other accounts are all fair game. While bookish content is good, a tweet about something fun you did that day, for example, is just as important. Be genuine. People like to feel that they can get to know you on a more personal level.
Daily activity gives potential followers a good sense of your content style and shows that you’re worth following because you will consistently give them what they want. I also recommend following anywhere from three to five new accounts every day.
3. Interact with the community
While Instagram is almost exclusively about your own content, Twitter encourages engaging with others. Be interactive with those you follow, your own followers, and even people you’ve never interacted with before. “Like” tweets, reply to them, follow new people, and join community-wide, nationwide, or even worldwide conversations with hashtags.
Hopping onto trending or popular hashtags will give you more exposure. A common tag for book lovers is #booktwt or #booktwitter. Anyone who clicks on the tag can see every public tweet under it.
4. Who to follow
I suggested following new people, but how do you know who to follow? This is essentially up to you and your goals. But an easy way to get started is to search for your favorite Bookstagrammers on Twitter. The people you follow on Instagram likely also have a Twitter profile. From there, check out anyone you aspire to be like, people who are interested in the same bookish content, or those who might be interested in what you do. Following people first attract new followers and provides inspiration for your own content. Twitter also suggests profiles to you based on your activity and who you already follow. So if you get to a standstill, Twitter’s algorithm will help you out
5. Use tweet-scheduling to stay consistent
For some people, daily activity across many platforms can be difficult to manage. Let’s say you have a Bookstagram, a YouTube channel, a TikTok account, a Facebook page, and a Pinterest account that you already manually upload to every day. Now you add a Twitter profile, and it gets overwhelming. This is why things like the scheduling feature exist. It’s an amazing tool that lets you plan tweets in advance.
You can schedule tweets down to the minute you want them to go out. This feature makes managing a Twitter account just a little bit easier. Aside from the consistent interactions, which you have to do manually, your own content can be planned and be one less thing to worry about.
Now you’ve got a bit of an outline for how to get started with your Twitter presence. It might be a slow process, but everyone starts somewhere. In the end, getting started means spreading the word and putting yourself out there. I hope these tips help and you feel more confident about using Twitter for expanding your reach as a Bookstagrammer beyond Instagram.
For more tips on the publishing industry or how to start a Bookstagram, keep reading Bookstr’s blog. here!