Ramblings and Poetry

‘The Door’ – a paranormal account

Lee Hall Leave a comment

The events relayed in this account are true.

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Image by Pexels from Pixabay

There have only been a handful of times in my life when something has happened that cannot be explained. Many of us have experienced the same; from the cliche odd bump in the night or the feeling of being watched to even something lurking in the corner of your eye. I’m a sceptic and even after this encounter and another after that, I still am. But to this day it still remains unexplained, so let me take you back to the summer of 2013…

Like the year previous I had joined my significant other and her family on the annual summer trip to the south of France; a beautiful place all year around; in the summer the weather is a hot as Spain and this is accompanied with the forest backdrop that could be England but way more rural.

Our road journey was around 10 hours plus and on this year my S.O and I were joined by some close friends. The accommodation and our home for two weeks would be on a former farm converted into ‘gite’s’ – barns which now serve as self catering holiday homes. Of course with our larger party we were in the 12 berth gite. Located on forest surrounded hills and farms, this place truly is picturesque and remote. All roads leading there are single track and you can even hear how quiet it is; bliss. This is without mentioning the stunning Jurassic Park like views.

Our rooms were decided upon arrival and so myself and my S.O took the top left area. You can see from the pic above the window in which our bedroom was and this was the left hand wing of the gite. Up wooden stairs and a left hand turn into an alcove half way up would bring you to a narrow corridor which then faces another corridor leading left and right with a bathroom between a pair of rooms. If you were to go further up the stairs instead of turning left it would take you up to a living room area and then moving right would take you to the higher section of the gite and to more bedrooms on the right wing – this is where a pair of our friends took a room each. It is worth noting the stairs which were varnished wood had been installed by way of slotting into the wall; you would have to literally tip toe not to be heard and they made a distinctive ‘drumming’ when anyone walked on them.

After what was a long travelling day, we had eaten dinner and the general mood amongst our camp was good and fun; we were in the usual spirits of exchanging stories, jokes and generally messed around like we always did in each others company. We were on holiday and things were good.

Eventually it was bed time and so myself and my S.O went back to our room and began to unpack our stuff. At this time everyone else was probably doing the same or going to sleep and so silence ruled over the gite for the night.

Whilst I decided not to fully unpack I got myself into bed and as my S.O was considering joining me our bedroom door softly opened. The door was previously closed with a handle that requires pulling to open.

At that moment neither of us were startled and I thought about perhaps yelling an expletive at probably a prankster in the night. Instead I walked up to the door and behind it was nothing but the darkness. Now there was probably enough distance for whoever decided to play this prank to be easily discovered and still I didn’t see a soul in sight. Upon walking out and even getting to the stairs I expected the culprit to be huddling somewhere but there was nothing. Being one of rationale I shrugged my shoulders and returned to bed, this time locking the door.

The next day I quizzed those who I consider to be behind such activities to no avail. To this day nobody has admitted to opening that door. It’s worth mentioning on that night the window in our room was not open and as far as I can remember there was no strong winds or even a breeze outside.

My answer wouldn’t point towards the paranormal until the owner of the place mentioned in passing to one of our party about this particular gite being ‘haunted’; not a lot of sleep was lost as this was mentioned on our final day. The story even developed to be one of a little girl who can be seen around the extensive forest surrounded site.

Because there are so many variables, I spent some time being very sceptical on the matter. We had even returned the next year to the same place and nothing had happened for the whole duration of that trip.

Even though I was slightly wary that next year it wouldn’t be until 2017 when something else happened involving ‘The Stairs’...

Free and Discounted Books – Today Only!

Lee Hall Leave a comment

For the first time ever all 7 of my books are being price promoted simultaneously to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Open Evening being published.

Without my debut novel nothing else would have followed and seeing as I have a plethora of books, they are all discounted except for Open Evening which is FREE to download today only!

Some thoughts, details and links are below. As always thank you for the continued support of your local neighbourhood indie author!

It’s kind of scary how time flies when your busy and trying to get the world to read your words and somehow it has been 5 years since my publishing journey began. Those who have been around a while will know in 2015 I basically started again with a project based partly on a bad dream and mostly on my own high school days of struggle. Add a little creature feature horror, scratch that, a lot of creature feature horror and somehow Open Evening was born. Originally taken from six sides of lined paper full of scratchy writing after my fourteen year old self tried to recollect the events of that bad dream, I somehow fashioned it years later, into a fully fledged book that probably means the most in all of my works.

Before Open Evening released in 2016. I kind of got caught up in the whole querying thing with sub-par science fiction that wasn’t ready and in truth I wasn’t ready so starting again paved the way to where I am now. Someday you might see that science fiction which has grown with me and I have a huge amount of books to offer the world but until then enjoy the ones I have available.

Some of the books on my shelf may be different in comparison but for today they are all the same price.

The Ghost Beside Me is a paranormal romance about an introvert who struggles with loneliness until something not of this mortal world tries to reach out. Based partly on my own paranormal experiences and a ghost story my late Grandfather told me its a short but powerful read. Perfect for the coming spooky season of Halloween and beyond.

The Teleporter, many of you will already know and this book has become my most successful title this year. With over 160 Amazon ratings in six months I think I can class it as a hit. Kurt Wiseman is a mid-twenties slouch who is suddenly thrown into his own super hero tale and has to make a choice in order to save the day. Full of comedic wit and fourth wall breaking fun, it is bound to make you laugh at some point.

Consistent Creative Content is basically the culmination of my journey as an author, blogger and social media personality. Part-memoir part-guide, this book is designed to show you what I’ve done to find success that I am happy with and how you can do that too. Follow my words.

Of course Open Evening is just the start of a wider series known as the Order of the Following. Every other book in that series is discounted for today!

Click on the banners for the links!

900 Followers Special

Lee Hall Leave a comment

When I began my foray into blogging way back in 2014 I didn’t really know what I was doing. Other than giving my writing brand a home I had no clear cut idea where it would take me or how it would work out. This wordsmith journey extended into blogging as a way to build a bridge to others because writing for the most part is a solitary thing and I knew from the very start that anything creative is better shared with others.

In truth, my whole persona as a blogger and author would be nothing if it wasn’t for the support I have found on here. The day in day outers who like my posts, read them and comment on them – you are the people who keep me going and you are all over the world. Many of you share the same struggles as me, we might not have a lot in common but our bond no matter where we are is shared on here, together.

Writing to me is a person journey and by that I mean spending the journey convincing one person at a time to read what I have to say and take part. We have write the damn thing first but after that, I know there is an audience for me. I half jokingly named this blog Lee’s Hall of Information and now it stands as the central pillar to everything I do in writing and blogging, it is my home and I am joined by 900 followers – something I take very seriously because that’s an incredible amount of people to have in my corner.

This post could have been so many things, from elaborate celebrations tagging the various influences and supporters that hold this place together to something much more but sometimes in this busy world a simple thank you is enough. After all I’ve got blog posts to write, books to write and a career to build out of this, all of which started from scratch, all of which started with your loyal support. .

You know who you are, so thank you for being here. And whether you signed up yesterday or years ago, thank you. My advice for anyone who wants real success in writing and blogging, its kind of simple, just keep going.

How about, just be kind…

Lee Hall 1 Comment

You never know how far those words of yours could go.

Someone could be sitting in a break room with their bag of Doritos trying to have a rest from the shit they have been shovelled and then they come across your words while scrolling for an escape. Your message of kindness could resonate with them to the point they forget where they are just for a moment. Then after finishing the Doritos and that break they face whatever crap they have to face with a smile, with hope and with a power you have passed on to them all because of kindness. They take on whatever shit comes their way with a spring in their step and that smile, that undefeated powerful smile and for the next fours hours or how ever long, they get through. All from kindness and being nice, that stuff can resonate trust me.

That Tweet you put out to support others or just to be positive gives perhaps one other person a power to carry on. Even if you never intended for it to be loved and liked a thousand times, the message within matters more because maybe it was something they needed to hear today. Maybe whoever you reach will go home armed with that smile and fire up their own laptop and be inspired to write down half a chapter or a paragraph or something positive all because of the good you said. A passing moment where you just wanted to spread a little nice, and trust me when I say nice wins and nice goes a long way.

Through all of the things we want to be in our social media presence, how about, just be kind.

Taking a Break from Twitter…

Lee Hall 5 Comments

* This post is old *

I’m writing this post more as a statement than anything else and before I dive in I will firstly say that I am fine. This is not a publicity stunt, attention grab or an attempt to cause arguments or bad feelings. I thought I would lay out in length and hopefully clarify why I have decided to take a short break from Twitter; something I have been envisioning on and off for around three months because the truth is, I have been running hot on the platform since April 2020 and I am mentally tired.

By running hot I mean that in 16 months my efforts and time on the platform has increased by probably twentyfold at least while the rewards I got for it are very much apparent. Back in April 2020 I had around 4,000 Twitter followers. The last time I checked, I have around 13,500. This is partly testament to the effort I have put in to converse and connect with so many creatives, readers, friends and anyone else on a daily basis. These wonderful people buy my books regularly and read this here blog regularly and engage with me every day – most importantly they are probably the biggest reason for my social media success.

The personal connections are the main reason why I am already planning my return because simply walking away from so many wonderful people is not who I am. When I announced I was taking a break, so many good people wished me well, if you are one of them, thank you.  

This incredible journey I have been on has also contained the odd pitfall – anything worthwhile will always have challenges and to jump to the numbers I have now is something I have always been able to process. Twitter for the most part has become partly an addiction (a healthy one, mind) but only because I was getting good results and I was getting better at it – the statistics do not lie. The style that I developed over time works well to drive engagement and I figured out the psychology of the platform while making some awesome connections who have helped me big time on this path. To successfully sell anything on social media takes a lot of effort because the algorithms are so so against you pretty much all the time – this is a mental minefield on its own and statistics don’t always tell you what’s going on under the hood because after all I am a human of the regular persuasion.

The last 16 months were intensive for a number of reasons. In that time I released Book 6 and then Book 7 – with 7 becoming the most intense editing experience of my life – I had to get Consistent Creative Content right, and I did. I also began eyeing up the concept of reaching 10,000 followers right around the time ‘CCC’ was released after a lengthy pre-order run and so things were just happening all at once. This is also without taking note of what was going on in the outside pandemic world. Part of my reason for upping my author social media game was because the pandemic gave me time to do so. I used the time I was given to thrive on social media.

When I did reach 10,000 follows, a huge amount of self-pressure lifted. I had made it into a club that as an indie author who started from zero is rare. Most of my followers are folks just like me and my appeal is probably because I am still one of them and what I can achieve is possible for them too, it really is and I am public about that, not to mention open and honest. Together we made my Twitter a good place to be everyday. But under the hood things were kind of struggling for me and that 10k milestone paved over some cracks but I continued forth. My book had just been released and there is always work to be done but I always knew the chase on social media is endless and Twitter moves quickly, very quickly.

I can count on one hand the amount of bad experiences I’ve had on Twitter. I know what stirs pleasant conversation so I tend to not have many bad moments. I don’t go looking for them and at the very core of my belief is to post something that informs, inspires or entertains without any malice. You might even see my attempt at humour but very much in an inclusive light dad-joke style. If you are kind and pleasant no matter what flag you fly or where you are from, you are welcome on here and even in my own home – that will always be who I am. I do my best to bring that attitude onto Twitter and you might have seen me talk about the power of positivity, it tends to win the day most of the time.

Before I figured out the psychology of my following or even built it I always knew that Twitter was and still is a very public place where anyone can comment or find you anonymously. I’ve even described it personally as a ‘cesspit’ before and for nearly 16 months, to me it wasn’t because I had made it pleasant for me and my followers helped with that. Perhaps I was a little naïve and perhaps I haven’t adjusted my style too much over the last 16 months which might have left me vulnerable in my own head because there are types out there who have the opposite attitude to me and three separate incidents occurred in quick sucession that ultimately drove me to walk away from Twitter temporarily – and that is with the last 16 months piled on top. I say temporarily because most of the time I tend to get pissed off with something, then I process and then I dive back in quickly. And my followers mean too much to me right now to permanently walk away.

This post is me processing because I know there will always be trolls or less desirable folks who in my opinion probably need help but instead they’ll try to drag people like me into their bullshit or their problems. This is not just me being some privileged guy having a whine because someone randomer said something I didn’t like. I’m not easily offended and I am big enough to handle 10,000 people downloading my book in day and then dealing with the influx of low ratings after. I also know there are a lot worse things happening in the world but to me, my mental health will always come first so I have to process this on my home turf and like I said at the start I am fine but this is me intervening to keep my very stable mental health just that. .

These three incidents that occurred were unprovoked because like I said, my tweets have zero malice. I am on Twitter to connect and learn with others and find a readership for my books. I’m an author first and foremost, not a social media personality, I got into writing before social media existed and ultimately it’s a resultant of that. I had been eyeing up a break from the platform since May but these incidents were probably the motivating factor to tell me it is just Twitter and I don’t need it right now.

And for anyone ever struggling with Twitter, remember that sometimes it is just Twitter. You come first.

So what happened and who did what? The specific details of who aren’t important and it wasn’t you that pushed me to take a break. In fact the three incidents were from non-followers which might have been why I reacted the way I have. I won’t give you specifics but I will tell you now from when I return to Twitter, my style will now be adjusted to one of a larger following. I was once a small business operating like a small business, but now I have grown, my approach will change it. I’m going to act like a bigger business and I have to be shrewd to protect me. This will include 3 rules that are for me to follow in order to protect myself and my mental health while using the platform.

  1. If someone attempts to correct me in any way, including my spelling they are gone. (blocked, gone sounds more dramatic);
  2. If someone attempts to make a funny comment that is actually a back handed insult or I cannot grasp their tone in that comment, they are gone;
  3. If someone attempts to spin what I say, gone.

I know as an author and blogger I sit in a very glass house and I’m not attempting to control anyone or silence anyone because this approach is to protect me and life is too short for me to be effected by people who don’t know how to converse properly on a platform designed for conversation. By glass house I mean anyone can hop on over to where my books are listed and drop a low rating – this is part of the reason why I am the way I am on social media and these three rules ultimately depend on how well someone knows me and how we interact. The majority of my wonderful following could do all three of these and as long as they are honest and decent, I probably won’t even bat an eyelid or we might even laugh about it. I am also going to look into privacy settings but approving every single follower will be a lot of time. My current daily follow rate was north of 50 a day and 90 on weekends. It is still moving up now and this is after a whole day of me not tweeting a single thing.

Personally, these rules are basic conversation etiquette and for a lack of it to come from non-followers really surprised me or maybe it just proved I have become naïve to trolls or maybe this even the sign of true prominence. I know this world is full of bad people and I am wise to that but maybe now because of my following I am a target. I also know that I cannot control others but I can shield myself from them. My larger following is an opportunity to some folk who dwell under bridges it seems and like I said, I don’t tweet about anything that deserves this behaviour. One account literally followed me minutes before backhandedly insulting me on a tweet I composed as a light-hearted humour attempt, that account then disappeared after I reported it for abuse.

Number 3 in particular is something that surprised me also but it happened twice in a week. Trying to spin my non-malicious words into something malicious will earn you a block. I am not a politician or a billionaire so stop trying to spin what I say like a cheap journalist. If someone is that insecure about what I say, then the problem is with them not me. Yes, Twitter is a public highway with freedom of speech which I fully support, and you could just tell me to grow up here but I will counter with just two words that define what all humans should be able to do:

Be Kind.

There is a human behind that handle and following. Above all, I have spent a lot of time on the platform and I can see through words, very well.

I take my online author endeavours seriously and authoring will be my primary career one day. Above all, I am adjusting my style to protect my mental health which has dipped partly because I ran hard for so long and partly because unpleasant people do not deserve me. Now I’m having a week away and very much enjoying being a writer. My mind and imagination is my greatest asset and I will do anything to protect it. Right now I am deep into editing the book I began this writing journey with back when I was 12, its way more important than a few random trolls trying to get a reaction. The writing matters, it always will.

In 16 months I gave everything to putting together a loyal engaged following on Twitter.

All of you who do follow me are worth that everything.

You can expect to see me return to Twitter late next week to do battle with the algorithms and be with the people who made this journey worthwhile. Thank you for reading.

Birthday Book Discount

Lee Hall 2 Comments

Hello loyal followers. Today is my 32nd Birthday so I’ve decided to significantly discount the price of my authoring and blogging guide book Consistent Creative Content. I know many of you either write, blog or spend some time on social media and this guide will help you with all three, plus it’s available today for a fraction of the price.

Thanks for the support, rock and roll man!

Joining Patreon

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As mentioned recently I have taken the rather uncertain step towards authoring and blogging being a potential career by joining Patreon. Yesterday my first guide post launched rather softly and that is going to be my approach to begin with. Gradual has always been my key to success in any new venture and social media is a tough arena to launch new ventures in.

My ultimate goal is to help others in the world of authoring, blogging and creating because helping others is fulfilling and being known for that has presented me with an opportunity. Over the past year I have experienced enough growth to justify my work to have a certain value and so Patreon feels like the best choice to showcase future guides, book promotion results, writing tips, social media tutorials and even my fictional works. Most of this stuff is what my readers and followers want and I have a plethora of work planned for this venture. I hope it is received well while some of you on here consider joining me over there.

This blog will still operate at normal capacity. Lee’s Hall of Information will continue to provide readers with book reviews, weekly rambles, guest posts and all the usual content you can expect as a follower for free.

While some might think joining Patreon is just a cash grab, and there has already been some frosty-ness shall we say towards the idea of my blogging work being monetised but those who do choose to join my Patreon will be rewarded. The incentives range from a basic shout out on social media all the way to a free digital copy of my book ‘Consistent Creative Content’ and the higher tier will also include exclusive one on one Q&A’s. For now all of my future guides will be available first on my Patreon first and then eventually they will make their way to here, my base of operations. You can find all of the relevant information here.

The first month of content which includes a few guides and some exclusive fictional work will be FREE to read. I would have never got to this moment if it wasn’t for the loyal support you guys have shown for this blog. Whether you are a blogger, writer, creative or just a reader, I hope you’ll join me in this new venture that dreams are made of. Rock and roll man!

Link Sharing on Twitter – My Verdict/Results

Lee Hall 3 Comments

This post is based upon my own experience and circumstances on Twitter. Everyone’s experience and circumstances are different when it comes to twitter so this post is designed to help anyone who uses it for the sake of marketing. As an author myself, I very much appreciate the struggle of social media as a marketing tool and to sell books regularly takes a lot of presence and work.

While increasing my presence on Twitter over the past year or so I have began to form a conclusion in my own mind that the platform has a complex underbelly that favours those who use it more often, those who post often and of course those who use it for conversation. Twitter wants you to stay on Twitter and so when you try to divert others away from it through links, that complex underbelly kicks in – the word algorithm get’s used often when it comes to Twitter and now I firmly believe that under the right circumstances, if you share an external link on twitter and specifically via one of your own tweets, it will get less visibility – sometimes dramatically less visibility.

This post will do two things:

1. Lay out my own Twitter circumstances (my following count /tweets per day, etc).

2. Show you what I did to prove that Twitter reduces visibility on Tweets that share links and how to get around this in 2021 – no doubt this post will become outdated but you can still share links on Twitter and get good results. Everything is variable and subjective and this is just my experience.

So who am I when it comes to Twitter?

My Circumstances

My circumstances are important to lay out because it will give you an indication of my engagement and activity on Twitter.

Top Tip: The more time you spend on Twitter, the more it will reward you eventually and this goes for tweeting more, commenting more and just being on there more. What to tweet about you ask? Anything…

My name is Lee Hall and I am an independently published author who probably spends way too much time on Twitter. Although I will say I enjoy being on Twitter and eventually I must have started doing something right because back in December 2020 I had Five Thousand Followers and now I have Twelve Thousand. My Tweets regularly get 20 to 40 likes or even more and normally a few comments – this depends on what I Tweet about and the time of day but generally I have quite a decent engaged following. Here are the numbers in clearer format:

Followers (July 2021): 12k – Mainly UK/US/Canada Time zones

Tweets Per Day on Average: 7 to 10

Hours Spent Per Day: I’d rather not say… but it’s a lot.

These three factors are important to note because firstly my following is a mix of time zones which means when I wake up only UK followers are around mainly so later in my day tends to bring better engagement levels as the US and Canada see sunrise.

Tweets per day is another big factor because the more you tweet, the more your profile will be pushed to followers. And well, hours spent, if you’ve got the time then do it…

Because I have spent so much time on Twitter over the last year I have started to realise that sharing links doesn’t always work out well and so I decided to run a test for a few months to see if this was the case.

The Test

‘Write a book and then share it with your social media following. Instant sales and success’

‘Marketing Expert‘

While the quote above might have been the case once, right now in 2021 it is so far from the truth and kind of makes me mad that there are people out there sharing this kind of ‘expertise’. Being a social media author who started at zero takes a lot of work, time, patience, effort and drive to reach any level of happiness with your results. The mountain is so high sometimes and the inner workings of social media are designed not to help you.

There are so many authors who will tweet daily about feeling invisible only for me to check out their feed and see it is full of links or they just sporadically tweet every other day. In this day and age that’s the equivalent of standing up in parliament and then taping your mouth shut before trying to give a speech. If there is just one thing I want you to take away from this post it is this:

Talk first, share links later.

And that is what my test is based upon.

The Actual Test

What have I been doing to avoid my links being silenced by the ‘algorithms’? Quite simply I’ve been following a two step approach.

1. Tweet something enticing about a link.

2. Put the link in a reply below that tweet.

Now I am going to prove to you that this approach works.

On July the 9th I set out to share a link in two different ways and at two different times of the day. The link I shared was for my ever popular blog post ’10 Ways to Sell a Book Without Dropping The Link on Social Media’. Yes I am aware of the sarcastic irony which I have a PHD in. Also to make this test fair, I used the same link, hashtag and set specific timings to simply prove how effective this two step approach is.

Tweet 1

At 10:09AM UK time I put out this tweet with the link in the reply. Now my only major audience online at this time is the UK so there is generally less people around to see this tweet. I did this deliberately – you’ll understand why below.

The Reply

Tweet 2

At 07:00PM UK time I put out Tweet 2 with just the link – by this time the majority of UK, US and Canada Time zones were in daytime hours. So you’d think this tweet would get way more attention and this is after several tweets went out during the day.

The Results

I deliberately gave Tweet 2 the advantage of a much bigger audience being online and so you’d think this would work in favour of that tweet. Now I left both of these tweets until today (13th July) to harvest the statistics and so here they are.

Tweet 1

As you can see this time with the numbers its looking quite good. And now with the statistics of this tweet….

The ‘Detail Expands’ tells me followers were enticed by this tweet and moved on to the reply where the link was contained….

The ‘Link Clicks’ is the important number there which is also quite high for me. Now let’s take a look at Tweet 2

Tweet 2

As you can see, very little activity for a Tweet that I put out during ‘prime time’. And so here are the stats…

And the numbers are dramatically less than Tweet 1. These numbers were taken on the day this post was published.

The Supplementary Test

Okay, so I have tried my best to do my own ‘fair’ or at least decent enough test but here’s some a supplementary extra. because there will always be someone trying to refute me it seems.

Yes this is Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and yes he put the link in the comments below the status. Now I know this is taken from Facebook but if the man who basically founded social media in part is doing this, well it says it all really…

The Conclusion

I’ve had my eyes set on putting a blog post like this together for a while and from the numbers shared above I can pretty much confirm that link dropping on Twitter most of the time will have an adverse effect on a users numbers. Let me stress that this is entirely dependent on your circumstances which I cannot speak for. Most of my guides are based upon what I have done and learned.

There is hope when it comes to link sharing because right now there is a simple way around it. Tweet 1’s two step method of an enticing tweet followed by a call to action and then sharing the link in the reply is an effective way to get traffic clicking on that link. There are also a plethora of methods to sell something without sharing a link all the time. Hopefully this post has at least stirred some thoughts about how to better get something from social media when it comes to link sharing.

Thanks for reading and you’ll find some further reading below.

Further Reading (Because I kind of have a family to feed…)

If you enjoyed this post then you’ll probably enjoy and get something out of my self help guide book for authors and bloggers. Consistent Creative Content is written with you in mind and will hopefully guide you to results that you are happy with. Here are some recent reviews and click on the billboard for the US link. Everyone else, just search Consistent Creative Content Lee Hall on Amazon – this will boost my key word relevancy

Of course the link mentioned in this post is also a guide and so here is ‘10 Ways to Sell a Book Without Dropping The Link on Social Media’ .

And those looking for better results on Twitter here is another detailed guide.

What’s Next?

Lee Hall Leave a comment

The next step on this author road beckons. While in the foreground I have put together one hell of a successful year so far in writing, my eyes are now set on stuff that has been happening in the background. I’m extremely happy with how things have turned out this year although much of it came with a struggle and perhaps that struggle is always going to be there for a creative who started at zero and has no real industry backing. Selling books when you have no industry backing is such a grind. This month has been slow but I’m hopeful it will end well. What I don’t have has never bothered me and the never haves aren’t worth the worry – my following is the best ever and there’s now a focus on spreading it across platforms that aren’t Twitter or this blog.

It has always been the plan from day one of book one being published to eventually aim to find an agent or publisher to take my work to new heights. Those seven books behind me are proof that I can do this on my own back and accompanied by a following forged over time – perhaps something that will make me as a creator unique and appealing. You never know if you don’t try and while it has been many years since I tried to attract the attention of a literary agent my sights are now set on it. I know how to write stories, I know how to sell stories and I know how to work on building a social media following. Perhaps agents need to apply within…

Tips For Better Twitter Engagement

Lee Hall 3 Comments

The Tweet machine. A conversation driven social media platform full of opportunity for pretty much anyone. Engagement is the way to succeed but how do you get more? This is a post dedicated to helping a fellow tweeter with that, but first, what exactly do I mean when it comes to engagement?

To me, and from experience, Twitter engagement simply means conversation. In really simple terms, engagement is basically any activity resulting from a tweet, so better engagement equals more activity and conversation. This also includes likes and retweets. From there, many more possibilities will emerge from making new friends to even sales. Now we’ve defined what engagement is, here are some tips and methods to get more?

Spend More Time

Everything I have achieved in authoring, blogging and social media-ing revolves around having the time to be present for it. This is more of a long-term thing but it is also the most important tip I can give you because presence is what makes the tweet machine turn. If you do spend more time on the platform eventually you shall be rewarded for it and over that time you’ll probably figure out what subjects best suit your audience. Twitter has a very specific psychology that takes time to master and as long as you set out to inform, inspire, entertain or provide some level of value you’ll be okay.

An average day for me on Twitter is around 7 composed tweets, sometimes that can be pushed to 10 but this took time and I gradually ramped up to that number. This leads us to…

Consistency

Tweeting sporadically and even randomly probably won’t get as much attention as someone who tweets regularly every day so a consistent tweeter will naturally draw more engagement. If you tweet 3 or four times daily for a week at spaced out intervals then I’m pretty certain by the end of that week those tweets will see better results. I’m no expert but I’m certain the algorithms at play will push regular tweeters to more people.

Figure Out What Works

Using the above, eventually you’ll be able to figure out what your audience responds best to. Tweets that do get better engagement – do more of, Tweets that don’t – do less (easier said than done right…).

What kind of subjects get more engagement? There are too many inputs to list but keeping it either visual or conversational will probably get a better reception. Twitter wants users to stay on the platform so posting links seems to have a negative effect on engagement most of the time – I know this because I have spent hours figuring it out. For those of the author persuasion you might find this post useful. Variety is key when it comes to subject matter.

Feeling Invisible? My top tip would be to take a look at some previous and recent tweets, do they all contain links? Links tend to bury your visibility. Try posting that link in the replies or simply talk about the link instead. I’ve said link a lot..

Reply Where Possible

A revelation for me and an actual physical tip to instantly get more engagement is to reply to a comment that someone has written on your tweet. Doing this will boost the visibility for both parties engaged in conversation and all you need to worry about here is thinking of something that has conversational value. A simple thank you is enough sometimes. Get replying tweeters, it is good for conversing and it boosts everyone involved.

This also applies to you commenting on other users tweets because when I am not tweeting I tend to find something to comment on and this will boost your presence further.

Use Hashtags but Sparingly

Opinion alert but there is nothing worse than seeing a tweet that is full of hashtags. It screams sales, sales, sales and won’t encourage conversation. Sometimes there is such thing as too many hashtags because to me they appear a little too try hard plus they make a tweet difficult to read so I’ll just scroll past if I can’t understand something. From experience you only really need a maximum of two or three per tweet and I tend just use one and put it at the end of a tweet. Remember that specific experiences will differ for each user – this stuff is just from my own experience and not a solid set of rules.

If you really want to test your engagement levels, try tweeting without a hashtag and see how well that tweet performs.

Offer an Incentive to your Followers

No matter how big or small your following is there will always be a fellow tweeter looking for a signal boost. Offering a retweet in exchange for a retweet is great way to cross promote one another. Every few weeks I tend to change my pinned tweet and then ask my followers to retweet it. In return I’ll offer to do the same – this is great for maximum visibility and that pinned tweet of yours could strike up some conversation.

As you can see from this tweet I offered an incentive and also prompted others to drop a fun gif or picture which boosted it even more. Considering this tweet didn’t have a hashtag the numbers were great.

Offering a shout-out is often incentive enough for another tweeter to engage with you. While my recent book release was on pre-order I positively mentioned anyone who did reserve it and I even added some of their books to my tbr list – I shared that also.

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If you are enjoying this post you might find my recently released self-help guide book useful also. Its packed with tips and guides for an author or blogger just like you!

Ask Constructive Questions

Asking questions seems to be an overused method to get more engagement on twitter to the point where it is pretty much a trope. Saying that, tropes do work and asking constrictive questions or questions that provide some thinking to answer, work very well. Personally I tend to ask questions for stuff I don’t know the answer to because I genuinely need an answer. My advice would be to stay away from the inane type of questions and only ask questions on occasion. This also leads to…

Keep it Conversational

‘Talk first and let the talking do the selling’ is becoming my philosophy on Twitter. These days I hardly share any links to my works and while some of my tweets do mention my books there are so many other things to share and talk about. As long as your product is easily findable you’ll be surprised how many sales are generated just from conversation.

Go Against the Grain

While everyone in the author twitter world might appear to be dropping links, asking inane questions and putting out that same tweet every morning some of them aren’t and sometimes it will do you good to try different things. Standing out will get engagement and you really need to do is confide in your following. How much you share is your choice but sharing enough to prove you are human will connect with at least one person.

Manage Expectations and Perspective

Try not to be too hard on yourself. It takes a long time and a lot of tweeting to get good engagement but the journey getting there should be fun and one of trial and error. Every tweeter is different and their engagement levels face different circumstances.

If someone has 20 followers and gets 20 likes for a tweet then their engagement rate is excellent whereas I have over 10k followers and 20 likes for my tweet is sweet victory for me personally. All of the above seems to work for me but even in a few months time that could change. Twitter can be a wonderful platform for connectivity and as long as you set out to be conversational eventually you’ll find rewards.

Thank you for taking the time read this post, if you have any tips for better Twitter engagement then do let me know by leaving a comment below. You can find more guides and stuff over on the resources section. Peace out, rock and roll man!

Further Reading

If you enjoyed this post then you’ll probably enjoy my self help authoring and blogging book that is full of experience based advice on social media. Head on over to Amazon and search for Consistent Creative Content.