Twitter / social media - how do you use it? Who do you follow / like?

[OlennasWimple]

I'm reluctantly getting into Twitter and setting up my own author website, as these seem to be standard for any fledgling writer these days.

Are there any writers who do this stuff really well that I could learn from? Who is worth following on Twitter? How do you use social media without spending so much time on it you have no time to write?

TIA

In relation to Twitter, I follow people who interest me. A lot of writers, especially people I know (I ran a bookshop for several years and we did a lot of events), other trade people such as other booksellers, agents, friends, journalists whose work I'm interested in, people whom amuse me... all sorts.

I follow book bloggers sparingly, and mute quite a few of them because a lot seem to endlessly retweet each other's reviews and little else. And I don't automatically follow anyone, especially self published authors whose feeds are just endless links to their book on Amazon. And I tend to unfollow anyone who sends an auto direct message containing a link to their book.

I post interesting links, interact with people... The key thing is to remember that it's social media, not broadcast media and the key thing is to contribute, whether it's links to relevant blogs posts or articles that other people may find interesting or talking to fellow Strictly watchers.

Enjoy it - twitter can be a great distraction for the writer at home alone struggling to find words....