Tag Archives: social media

How Do I Manage My Social Media?

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How Do I Manage My Social Media?

By Rory C. Keel

 

As we have already discovered, social media will help the writer in building their brand, platform or fan base for their writing. Social media is expected in the modern world of technology.

We previously explored the large variety of social media applications available to the writer such as blogs, business-to-customer avenues like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We also looked at business-to-usiness focused applications such as LinkedIN. And let’s not forget the use of picture and video oriented social media venues such as Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube.

Managing Social Media

Now that we have a social media presence on the web, how does the writer manage the avenues he or she has chosen?

First, you must understand that social media is NOT FREE.

Are you surprised?

While you may not have pulled out your credit card to set up an account, you will pay by investing either time or money. Your time equals money and unless you are a professional blogger, the hours you spend managing your social media accounts are hours NOT spent on writing projects.

Secondly, you need to understand the different ways to manage your social media accounts.

Individual App Management

This will require you to log on to each application and enter information, reply to messages or requests for followers and manage the account yourself. If you have several different applications this can be time consuming.

The optimum average time one should spend managing all accounts should be no more than 15-20 minutes in the morning and the same amount of time in the afternoon.

Basic Simple Links

Basic simple links in the applications offer the user shortcuts to link them together. By linking these social media platforms, one entry can be made and it will be posted on all applications, saving time and money.

Management Programs and Services

When you achieve your fame as a writer, management services are available to manage these accounts for you. They range from free limited services to different levels of service for various monthly charges.

Next week we will discuss some general tips in using social media.

 Roryckeel.com

Which social media platforms should a writer use?

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Which social media platforms should I as a writer, have a presence on?

By Rory C. Keel

As we discussed on my blog post last week called Basic Social Media for Writers, that Social media for business has become the norm. For a writer it is no different, you are a business and your customers are your readers.

With literally hundreds of options to choose from such as Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube, it could drive a person mad. Before deciding on which social media venue to have a presence, you need to do your research.

RESEARCH

First, you need to develop a platform of readership. Choose a B2C social media platform. B2C simply means a business–to-customer platform that will allow you as a business, to focus on your genre and connect with your readers, the customers.

Second, understand what the venue is and how it works.

A Blog is a place to publish thoughts, tips, ideas. Regular blogs provide keyword-rich content for search engines and can help create you as an expert in your field.

Facebook, Google +, Myspace and other similar platforms, are used to connect and interact with your audience with personal and/or business pages

Twitter allows you to follow and connect with a target audience.

Tweeting about your writing with excerpts, answering questions, and offering helpful insights can help to build loyal readership.

YouTube is the top site for user generated video content. It’s a place to share your business by how-to videos, video readings, discussions, or simply a video introducing YOU.

Other social media sites use the medium of photos to share ideas and communication, such as Instagram and Pintrest.

Another type of social media platform is a B2B platform. B2B simply refers to a Business-to-Business platform. In another words a wholesaler to you as a business.

As a writer, you need access to editors, publishers, or agents. You might even need connections with an ink cartridge and paper supply company. You as a business can connect with others who offer services you need.

LinkedIN is an example of this type of platform and has a business focus.

Having the proper research and information, you can begin to formulate an idea of which social media platform to focus your attention.

With that in mind, next week we will discuss how to best manage your social media so that you will still have time to write.

 

Basic Social Media for Writers

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Basic Social Media for Writers 

By Rory C. Keel

 

After mountains of research, hours of keeping my rear end in the chair and wearing out the keyboard, they expect me to do what?

Yes, that’s right, as a writer you need to have an internet presence on social media.

Recently, I was asked to present some basic materials about social media, to the Ranch House writers, a group of writers who occasionally gather for a meal and encouragement from others in the writing community.

This blog will be the first in a series of four, dealing with the basics of social media for writers.

What is Social Media

Simply put, social media is a varied group of internet based applications that allow YOU to create and share content.

Early in the development of the internet, most websites were static. In other words, much like a billboard on the highway, it was costly to change and no had ability to interact with consumers.

Today, social media platforms give writers the ability to create, share, discuss ideas, and publish user-generated materials.

These applications are often categorized into groups such as networking sites, blog sites, video Sharing sites and even photo sharing sites. There are hundreds of applications and Facebook, Twitter, Google +, YouTube and Flickr are just a few examples.

Will Social Media benefit me as a writer?

While there are many reasons an individual might use social media, for the writer it’s as simple as Business 101.

Writing is a business

Have you ever read the reviews of a restaurant before going out to dinner? Have you ever researched someone on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIN, before meeting for an appointment?

It is estimated that in 2015, 93 percent of all businesses will use some form of social media. For both consumers and businesses it has become the norm and is expected.

Using Social Media

Using social media as a writer allows easy communication between you and your readers. It is a medium that allows the ability to develop relationships by having accessibility to groups where individual time is not possible.

And finally, social media allows you multiple mediums to develop your brand as a writer. By blogging, posting, tweeting, google plus-ing, you can establish yourself as a writer and build a large readership.

Next Tuesday we will discuss which social media platform to use. See ya’ then!

 

Twitter in the New Year

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Twitter in the New Year

By Natalie Bright

Take a look at this list of names:

Cynthia Leitich-Smith
David Morrell
Christine Taylor-Butler
Elizabeth Hoyt
John Kremer
McDonalds TX Panhandle

Can you tell me what this group has in common?

Give up yet?

All of these people, or place as in the McDonalds, are on Twitter and they followed me back. This is a big deal because they all have way more followers than I do. In all of these cases, I do buy their books, follow their blogs, and repost their tweets, except for McDonalds to which my teenager contributes. I believe that’s how social media works.

It’s not too late to make New Year’s Resolutions is it? I’ve decided to make an effort to be more friendly on Social Media. There’s really no reason to be snooty on Twitter. In my mind, we should all repost and retweet, and more importantly, follow back the people who follows us.

How do you determine who to follow back and who to skip over?

There are local people I know personally who did not follow me back on Twitter. If that’s you, out you go. I’ve had to unfollow a lot of you, so that I can follow back the people who are following me. It just good manners.

In 2015, I promise to be kinder, friendlier, and retweet all things bookish.

You can find Natalie on Twitter @natNKB.

OT, Head Bug, Et Al

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

OT, Head Bug, Et Al

By Nandy Ekle

Almost a month into the new year. There’s been mandatory overtime at my day job, visitors in my home, deep cleaning, and rearranging, all topped off with the onset of that old head cold I’ve named Rhino Virus. Rhino Virus is not my friend. In fact, I’m actually a little bit of a baby where Rhino Virus is concerned.

The good points? Well, the overtime at work adds to my vacation fund. The visitors are fun and interesting, sometimes leaving me a new story to think about. The deep cleaning and rearranging, well, those benefits are obvious. As for Rhino Virus, I can still manage to have a little fun with that.

For instance, I can think of this head cold as a character, give it a name, and create a whole scene around it. We all know how our bodies fight disease, so let’s just imagine a championship ball game (going along with the season) take place inside my nose and sinus cavity. The game players wear white uniforms and the cheerleaders are dressed in red. The virus team wears an ugly puke green.

The fun in this is with the social media sites I belong to. I can make short random updates giving play-by-play reports of the action going on.

Leave me a comment and let me know what mundane parts of daily living do you turn into stories?

 

 

Marketing, Promotion, Social Media

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Marketing, Promotion, Social Media

By Natalie Bright

The concept of marketing has changed greatly over the years since I minored in this vocation in college. We learned about target markets and ad copy, much the same terms used today, but a marketing plan involved the precise art of ‘targeting’ a clearly identified group of consumers through printed magazine and newspaper ads, snail mail flyers, radio, television, and other buzz generating tools.  It was a labor intensive process utilizing lots of brain power in which timing was the key. Everything relating to that product or service had to hit consumers from all avenues at the same time. Sales numbers provided measurable results. If you were serious about selling, a marketing plan was best left to the professionals.

In my opinion, promotion on the other hand was ongoing, and included everything related to that product such as the author or owner, the store front, etc. In the case of authors, they kept writing and waited for their publisher to identify a plan for marketing their latest release. Not that long ago, options left up to authors were snail mail postcards, speaking events and bookstore autographing.

It’s a New Day!

Times have changed. In my mind, the distinctions between marketing and promotion have blurred.  Authors have an abundance of promotional options available, and the concept of identifying a specific ‘target audience’ has basically been thrown out the window. Let’s tell everybody we know, and they’ll share with everybody they know, and someone, somewhere will discover our book.  This realization hit me in a big way this past month.

One of my short stories, which I had written in 2006, was selected for an anthology published by a university press released during this past holiday. You might have seen the blog post about it right here on Wordsmith Six, WEST TEXAS CHRISTMAS STORIES is a collection of stories by West Texas authors by ACU Press, compiled and edited by Glenn Dromgoole.

The publisher asked that authors help promote the book. As most university presses have extremely limited budgets, I wasn’t surprised at this request. I tweeted, Facebooked, and sent private emails to friends and family sharing the news. I also gave away numerous review copies, asking people to please post on Goodreads and Amazon. A specific marketing plan was never considered.

Promotion Results

Recently I began receiving notes of appreciation about how much people had enjoyed the collection of stories. My Uncle gave copies to all of his friends in Colorado. One of my high school English teachers sent me a message through Facebook saying how much she enjoyed the book, and shared that they had sent copies to all of their friends which included a star by my name. She also asked that I let her know when my next book comes out. So, wow! How does a little collection of holiday stories grow legs like that and go places?

The great thing about social media is that it’s everywhere, can be done anytime, and is nonstop.  The bad thing about social media is that it’s everywhere, day or night exhausting, immeasurable, and can rule your life.  There’s no way to know where your tweets will land. There’s no immediate result that you can attribute to your efforts, so don’t even stress over it. The good thing about being an author in today’s social media climate is that we can do something everyday to promote ourselves and our work. It only takes a few seconds, and then we can go back to writing.

Oh, The Place You Might Go!

How many social media outlets are you utilizing? Even if you’re new to writing and unpublished, start today and begin building your social network. You can never imagine the places it may take you and your work. And as I’ve learned, don’t give up on your work. You never know where it might land, even years later.

Thanks for following Wordsmith Six, and please SHARE our posts with your friends!

nataliebright.com

Should I?

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Outtakes 91

Should I?

By Cait Collins

 

I have learned there are some things a woman my age should not do. Like buy a pair of 4-inch heels. I’ve worn high heels since I was in high school, but they were two, maybe two-and-a-half inches. Maybe heels do make your legs look sexier and add inches of height to those of us who are vertically challenged, but they also mess with your balance, put stress on your back, and kill your feet. Sorry, but there’s only so much I will do in the name of beauty. However, I have new respect for the ladies that can pull it off.

By the same token, there are some things a writer should seriously consider before taking the plunge. Recent events, politics, religion, and social changes have spawned massive email and social media campaigns that are offensive and degrading. I believe in freedom of speech, but should I risk my professional image as a writer by posting negative comments about political parties, religions, or special interest groups? I don’t think so.

Have you listened to an actor, sports figure, or an author accuse a group or individual of being racist, behind the times, or people haters. Has your faith or your choice to take no stance on religion been disparaged? How have you responded? Have their words so enraged you that you refused to buy tickets to the person’s movies or sporting events? Have you quit buying books by certain authors? I know I have made those choices. I’ve blocked Facebook posts and emails because I was hurt and disappointed by careless comments from someone I had admired and respected.

We all have strong opinions and positions on various subjects. That’s right and good. The error comes in airing those views in such a way that we offend others. It is unprofessional to use our author pages and websites for such negative postings. Professional sites should be used to promote our work, not alienate the audience.

MORE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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Middle Grade Mondays

MORE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

By Natalie Bright

At this year’s Oklahoma Writer’s Federation conference in Oklahoma City, I attended a very informative session by C.Hope Clark, blogger and author.

RECOGNIZING OPPORTUNITY

C. Hope Clark [fundsforwriters.com] encouraged us to take advantage of all opportunities. As a writer, you may want to establish brands in various venues. She said, “Become a person who is reachable; become a personality.” Her fundsforwriters blog has around 43,000 weekly visitors, which was not her first goal. She began with the idea of writing mystery novels, and by being receptive to the opportunities around her, she successfully developed an invaluable and popular resource for writers.

POLITCIS AND RELIGION

Social media reaches a world wide audience. If you’re an active blogger and tweeter, most likely you have followers from all socio backgrounds and everyone these days has a political opinion. Besides political leanings, more than likely, you have readers who are atheists, wiccans, Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics. As a personality, trying to sell your book to as many readers as possible, why would you want to offend anyone?

Clark does not want to offend anyone, politics and religion are prohibited topics on her blogs, and any controversial comments are deleted.

BIG, BAD and BOLD

On the other side of the issues, you may want the attention. Clark noted that if you do want to be deluged with controversial comments and the arguments don’t bother you, then you should declare your position loudly. If you’re going to say it, say it loud, say it bad, and say it bold. And don’t be offended at the results.

PASSIONATE ABOUT PLATFORM

Clark reiterated the need for consistency when using social media. The most important place to start is:

  1. blog
  2. twitter

The second next most important thing you can do is to include your full name in comments on other people’s blog. Remember why we’re doing this in the first place; “don’t rush the book”, she said. As we’re writing the best possible book ever, we can be quietly and consistently building our platform.

Ms. Clark said, “Don’t just be a writer like every other person that’s out there. Recognize opportunity when it knocks on the door.”

Natalie Bright

www.nataliebright.com

GOOD NEWS ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

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Middle Grade Mondays

GOOD NEWS ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

By Natalie Bright

The Oklahoma Writer’s Federation Inc [owfi.org] sponsors a conference the first weekend of May every year, offering informative sessions for writers of all levels. Around 300+ people attended the conference in Oklahoma City this year. They also offered a contest with opportunity for cash prizes and helpful critiques.

My middle grade western took 2nd Place in this year’s OWFI Contest! The aggravating news is that I had a typo. On my manuscript I had the date 1887 and on my synopsis I had 1897. How many times did I read over that submission? It doesn’t matter how many times, obviously it wasn’t enough times.

The sessions were excellent and as always, I come back home armed with something new about story craft and inspired to work.

Update on SOCIAL MEDIA

The social media panel at OWFI 2012 this year included C. Hope Clark, Jan Nipps, Lela Davidson, and Adrian Carenza with a wonderful job moderating done by Amy Shojai.  Each of these writers have impressive numbers of blog fans and they shared some interesting, insightful facts about social media.

The most amazing aspect about social media, as pointed out by Clark, is that ten years ago authors didn’t have this medium to promote their work.  All agreed that it’s an exciting time to be a writer.

General Rule

The main misconception is clarified; it’s not about “me, me, me”.

The general rule is to use 1/3 of your posts on links to interesting articles, blogs, or things you’ve discovered (these can be automated), 1/3 can be retweets, as in do unto others and help them with promotion of their books or blogs, and 1/3 should be real-time conversation. Sprinkled within that mix would be posts about you and your work. The reader wants a “take-away”. Don’t waste a reader’s time with what’s in your crock-pot unless you include the recipe.

Sure, social media offers amazing and low cost opportunities to promote yourself and your work, but you don’t want to bash in everyone’s head with a hard sell of you. Be gentle, be kind, be aware of what you’re putting out there for potentially millions of people to see, FOREVER.

How to Offend

Each of the panelists were adamant on one point: they do not talk politics or religion. Everyone has an opinion today, and some topics definitely push people’s buttons and emotions run very high.

As authors, we’re trying to sell a body of work and create a fan base. We hope that people will buy our books or read our articles again and again for many years to come. In the world wide access of social media, you might have followers that are atheists, Wiccans, Baptists and you probably have followers that side with the Left, or the Right, or feel neutral on anything relating to politics.  Why would you want to create negative or hurtful feelings in your potential readers? Why would you want to offend anyone?

The exception would be if you have a political or religious blog. Then yes, you want to push buttons. You want to have those heated discussions with people who feel strongly enough to post comments.  Use your best judgment and consider that the ideal place to air your opinions for sensitive topics may not be your blog or Facebook or through snarky Tweets.

Design It for Your Target Audience

Design your social media promotion efforts based on your interests. Of note, Pinterest has become the second highest referral after Google and topped Twitter for outgoing links. All panelists agreed that at the very minimum you should start with a blog and twitter, but be consistent. The second best way to get involved is to leave intelligent comments on other people’s blog and leave your name in the comments.

Think about using Goodreads to connect with readers who enjoy the same genre you do. As an author, you can set-up boards on Pinterest to showcase your book covers, pictures of hobbies, and locations of settings relating to scenes in  your book.

THE BOOK OF THE FUTURE

I think the best comment came from Lela Davidson [leladavisdon.com], who reminded us that in today’s publishing environment having a book is not the be all, end all of a writing career, because who knows what the “book” is going to be in the future. A writing career today encompasses so much more. She encouraged us to be receptive to all forms of social media and pointed out that a directed, planned approach is the most effective in the long term.

It’s All Good

Authors were never able to reach the numbers of people we can today. Take advantage of all opportunities and become a person who is reachable. Know your target audience and connect with the people who will want to buy your books.

Natalie Bright

http://www.nataliebright.com

Getting Out the News

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Outtakes 33

Getting Out the News

At one time or another, we volunteer to help with an organization’s fund raiser or special event. Once the committee learns we are writers, we are appointed to serve on the publicity committee. One would think writing press releases or commercial copy would come easily to a writer.  And of course we’re naturals for appearing on TV and radio. Not necessarily so. Even the experts have problems preparing quality announcements.

One only has to watch television ads to realize good spots are scarce. I’ve watched commercials that did not sell the product or service. Sometimes I didn’t even know the point of the advertisement. If the viewer is scratching his head at the end of the spot, the copy writer has failed his client. I’ve written copy over the years, some good, some not so great. This is what I’ve learned about writing ads and press releases. Simply approach the release as a story.

That’s it. Give it a beginning, middle, and an end. Ad classes say we should create the need (beginning), provide a solution (middle), and seal the deal (end). Keep it simple. Don’t leave out the details. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve had to call a client to get event dates, location, times, or contact information. Omit this vital information, and the reader or listener is still in the dark. Proof read your copy for typo’s and transposed numbers. Phone numbers, email addresses, website information, street addresses and dates are easy targets for errors. Finally, make sure you submit the information at least 48 hours prior to the media’s deadline. Early submission gives the media reps the opportunity to verify information before the ad hits the air or newspaper.

Radio and television stations often provide slots on morning shows or talk news for non-profits and community organizations to promote events. Seize the opportunity! It’s not as frightening as you might think. Send a press release to the station so the producer has enough information to properly schedule your appearance. Make a few notes on index cards and keep them with you during the interviews. Arrive early so that the producer or interviewer can review the press release with you before going on the air. Relax. Be open and friendly. Listen to the interviewer’s questions before responding. Thank the interviewer for their time, and write a thank you note afterward.

One of the things I’m slowly learning is the value of social media. Press releases may be posted on Face Book or any of the numerous social media sites. If you send the message out to all of your friends, one of your contacts might share with their friends, who will share with their contacts. The potential is amazing. Linking to friends’ websites provides another avenue to promote the activity. Above all, it’s free publicity.

Good promotion takes time to prepare. It can make or break your event so don’t wait to the last minute to get started. Now if you will excuse me, I have a PSA and press release to write for Frontiers in Writing’s Let’s Write Weekend to be held June 29-30, 2012 at the Amarillo College Washington Street campus in Amarillo, Texas. Additional information may be found on our website, panhandleprowriters.org.

Cait Collins