Thanks for writing this. As a BlueSky long-hauler I'd say that if many more people used hashtags, their stuff would be seen by people who would want to hear about it. They would be followed or added to lists so that other users could regularly check in on their posts - and then be more likely to engage since they actually saw the things in the first place.
Really insightful. In the past Twitter served as a discoverability engine for me; I’ve purchased at least 100 bucks off recommendations and tweets over the years. As an author, I’ve never had very good success with it, however. I joined back in 2008, and my feed was always far more engaged in the early years. I mostly feel like I’m talking to a ghost town at this point. Thankfully, my experience on Substack has been radically different. I share book reviews here that readers seem to value, and I find the notes feature every bit as enjoyable as the old Twitter. I’m not sure how this works exactly, but I suspect the non-aggressive algorithm works better here than at Bluesky because Bluesky grew primarily for political reasons, whereas Substack seems to have grown more organically and with a large percentage of literary readers in the fold. There are simply far more literary people on this platform here for non-political reasons—at least, that would be my guess based on my experience.
I left Twitter/X as an author simply because the platform no longer works for authors unless they pay and/or fill their feeds with histrionic or argumentative content. Posts that would have received tens of thousands of views in the past plunged to a few hundred views. My exit had nothing to do with Elon Musk or an aversion to promotion. The value provided was simply no longer worth the time spent or the type of content that must be provided to make the algorithms work in your favor.
Another big challenge with new Twitter is that if you don't pay for premium you're reach is massively limited.
A post I do every year used to get a minimum of 50k views (and often quite more). Despite having more followers than ever, this year's post got circa 6k views. That's a lot less people seeing details of upcoming books despite no behavioural change!
Thanks for writing this, Derek. I pulled back from Twitter (I locked my account and no longer post there) after EM took over, but I hadn't really thought through why sharing my work feels more artificial or forced on Bluesky (my preferred Twitter alternative), Instagram, and LinkedIn. From my perspective as a writer/author, sharing work on Old Twitter felt more like contributing to a conversation than flogging a product. The community/conversation element doesn't feel robust or organic enough yet on those other platforms. As you suggest, the diffusion and fragmentation of social media don't help. Threads, which I don't enjoy, offers the illusion of writing community but has felt mostly like an outrage/attention-grabbing machine to me. Substack is where I turn for a more conversational sort of engagement, like the discussion in these comments, but I don't feel I've quite gotten the hang of it yet.
I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling to adjust! And I agree that Substack feels like it has promise—although it's maybe more like a text version of Instagram, something the user crafts carefully more than just jumping in and riffing. For me, at least.
Thanks for writing this. As a BlueSky long-hauler I'd say that if many more people used hashtags, their stuff would be seen by people who would want to hear about it. They would be followed or added to lists so that other users could regularly check in on their posts - and then be more likely to engage since they actually saw the things in the first place.
Really insightful. In the past Twitter served as a discoverability engine for me; I’ve purchased at least 100 bucks off recommendations and tweets over the years. As an author, I’ve never had very good success with it, however. I joined back in 2008, and my feed was always far more engaged in the early years. I mostly feel like I’m talking to a ghost town at this point. Thankfully, my experience on Substack has been radically different. I share book reviews here that readers seem to value, and I find the notes feature every bit as enjoyable as the old Twitter. I’m not sure how this works exactly, but I suspect the non-aggressive algorithm works better here than at Bluesky because Bluesky grew primarily for political reasons, whereas Substack seems to have grown more organically and with a large percentage of literary readers in the fold. There are simply far more literary people on this platform here for non-political reasons—at least, that would be my guess based on my experience.
I left Twitter/X as an author simply because the platform no longer works for authors unless they pay and/or fill their feeds with histrionic or argumentative content. Posts that would have received tens of thousands of views in the past plunged to a few hundred views. My exit had nothing to do with Elon Musk or an aversion to promotion. The value provided was simply no longer worth the time spent or the type of content that must be provided to make the algorithms work in your favor.
https://substack.com/@timothypauljones/note/c-121832716
Another big challenge with new Twitter is that if you don't pay for premium you're reach is massively limited.
A post I do every year used to get a minimum of 50k views (and often quite more). Despite having more followers than ever, this year's post got circa 6k views. That's a lot less people seeing details of upcoming books despite no behavioural change!
Thanks for writing this, Derek. I pulled back from Twitter (I locked my account and no longer post there) after EM took over, but I hadn't really thought through why sharing my work feels more artificial or forced on Bluesky (my preferred Twitter alternative), Instagram, and LinkedIn. From my perspective as a writer/author, sharing work on Old Twitter felt more like contributing to a conversation than flogging a product. The community/conversation element doesn't feel robust or organic enough yet on those other platforms. As you suggest, the diffusion and fragmentation of social media don't help. Threads, which I don't enjoy, offers the illusion of writing community but has felt mostly like an outrage/attention-grabbing machine to me. Substack is where I turn for a more conversational sort of engagement, like the discussion in these comments, but I don't feel I've quite gotten the hang of it yet.
I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling to adjust! And I agree that Substack feels like it has promise—although it's maybe more like a text version of Instagram, something the user crafts carefully more than just jumping in and riffing. For me, at least.