If Margaret Atwood is Tweeting...

Share

Seriously, Margaret Atwood is tweeting. Tweeting a lot. Are you? Or, maybe you are at this point, but either don't update it much, or fall off the tweeting wagon from time to time (I know I do). Today on the Brian Lehrer Show, Margaret Awtood spoke about her new book, The Year of the Flood. But really, she spoke about her fascination with Twitter, stating that it is "powerful" and relished in her amazement at how much information one could get from asking a question via Twitter. Note, she has over 85,500 followers, a good many of them are most likely active readers of her tweets, so I'd imagine that her question would get more attention than most.

So how does Margaret know how to tweet? Brian asked Margaret if it was hard for her write in 140 characters because she is such a long form writer who weaves a great story. She explained that when she was creating a website for her new book, her website team told her that she needed a blog, and a Twitter. Not sure what that meant, she agreed, and they created a Twitter account for her. Not sure what to write, she just started writing. Margaret summed it up with:

"you learn by doing"

Earlier in a blog post, I encouraged those of you who weren't blogging yet or were facing bloggers block to "just do it" and start writing. That post was actually inspired by another NPR show, SoundCheck. Naturally, the words of such an accomplished author were music to my ears. Affirmation that even with a powerhouse publisher behind you, and whatever other teams she has, one still has to bunker down and get in touch with Twitter in order to use it effectively. Forget the auto ReTweets. Forget the auto blog reposts. Forget the auto Facebook updated linkages. Twitter is all about people and connecting and words and information. That's it. What do you have that people want? Start tweeting, and find out.

With the birth of my little girl, Ruby Ray, I haven't led a Tweetworking workshop in a while, but i will soon. Be sure you're signed up to our newsletter to learn of the next Tweetworking workshop, along with other workshops your business will benefit from. Until then, tweet on!

Category: