on The Book Designer:

What can you do with social media?

Clint Watts, a cyber-security expert and author of Messing with the Enemy, used Twitter for his counter terrorism work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On Twitter, he met communities of people he could talk to about counter terrorism as well as terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. For example, he might pose a question about where Al Qaeda was going and terrorists would provide feedback.

In his blog posts, he would sometimes purposely write inaccurate information so that the terrorists would correct what he said and provide additional information he couldn’t find otherwise.

By using Twitter he built a community, sought comments, and learned a lot.

Authors can learn from his example. No, we won’t solve terrorism, but we can connect more deeply with our readers and colleagues.