By Indie Authors for Indie Authors.

Tag: author twitter

10 Must-Do Tips for Authors on Social Media

If you’re like me, you constantly have to balance what time you spend marketing on social media with what time you spend writing—you know, that thing you actually love doing and wish you could do full time? Yeah, writing. This doesn’t even account for time with family, friends, hobbies, day jobs, or countless other things that quickly fill up your day.

The point is your time is limited. While social media can be beneficial as you build your author platform, it can also be a never-ending time-suck.

Here’s some advice on how to best utilize social media to build a solid Author platform.

 

Author Social Media Tips

 

1. Be Selective

There’s a mantra I tell myself regularly: You can do anything. You can’t do everything. This is important to remember throughout life.

Managing your social media engagement is no different than other aspects of your life. Be selective on where you utilize social media. Each platform is different.

Twitter can help you reach new readers, while Facebook can drive more traffic to your website and create relationships with readers. Goodreads is wonderful for engaging with the indie author community. Instagram and Pinterest can help you build a brand, if that’s what you’re going for. This is just the tip of the iceberg of social media options.

Figure out what works best for you and focus on those one or two platforms. Personally, I mostly engage on Twitter and Facebook.

 

[clickToTweet tweet=”You can do anything. You can’t do everything. Be selective on social media. #amwriting” quote=”You can do anything. You can’t do everything. Be selective on social media.”]

 

2. Create Better Images

People love pictures on social media. Images get exponentially more engagement than just words. This is the very reason Twitter started allowing images on their platform a few years ago. Their lunch was getting eaten by Facebook.

Spend the time necessary to create better images. One place to do that is Canva. That’s how I create many of the images I use on this site. (No, I don’t receive any kind of commission for referring you to them, but I should, huh? Somebody look into that for me.)

 

3. Engage

This really should be rule number 1. Engage! Engage! Engage!

Don’t just scream for people to buy your book. Engage them. Learn about them and who they are. You’re likelihood of finding a new reader will be much, much higher. Answer questions. Respond to comments. And who knows, you might just find a new e-friend.

 

4. Tag People

If you’re talking about someone in one of your posts, tag them so they’re aware. There’s a higher likelihood they’ll interact with the post or that some of their followers might as well.

However, DO NOT tag people just to tag them so they see your latest marketing message. One of the most annoying things on social media platforms is getting tagged by someone with no context on why you’re getting tagged other than they want you to buy something from them.

 

5. Keep Tweets Short

This may sound odd since the very nature of Twitter is already short quips, but just because they give you 140 characters doesn’t mean you have to use all 140. Try to keep your tweets short and simple. Around a 100 character max seems to be a good sweet spot.

 

6. Try Videos

As much as images and pictures get more interaction than simple text, videos do even more so. If you’re inclined to face your fear of being on camera, it can help your engagements on Social Media.

I realize most people have a fear of being on video. I do as well. Just because you have a fear of something, though, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore it further.

I’ve begun dabbling in videos with my content, both with photos I’ve taken and with being in front of the camera myself. I really enjoy the author and reader videos anaisbelieve creates on YouTube as well. Try creating a video yourself!

 

7. Make Your Headlines Work

I’ll admit, I can be much better at this. People that tease the reader and pique their curiosity get more engagement and clicks. I’m not saying to use click-bait as a strategy. Everyone hates that and Facebook is even working to get rid of it where they can. I’m saying captivate your followers imagination with your posts. Give them a reason to think, laugh, or be moved. Put thought into your headlines.

 

[clickToTweet tweet=”Put thought into your headlines. Give people a reason to think, laugh, or be moved. #indieauthors” quote=”Put thought into your headlines. Give people a reason to think, laugh, or be moved.”]

 

8. Remain Positive

Social media is a real quagmire of negative individuals, isn’t it? It’s obnoxious. If you’re not careful, you’ll find you’ve fallen into one of the two large cess pools that social media hosts: (1) The cess pool of Negative Nancies (or Negative Nates if you please); or (2) The cess pool of look at how wonderful my family / my vacation / my life is.

Don’t fall into those traps.

Keep your positivity. Show your excitement. There will always be haters. Don’t worry about that. People can sense your excitement. They feed off of it. Remain positive and excited.

 

9. Repost Old Content

Reposting something from a few months ago is called Evergreen Content. Don’t be obnoxious and tweet the same thing out over and over and over again. But if you’re judicious, there’s a lot of fantastic content you’ve posted in the past. Don’t let it go to waste. One plugin I utilize for Nothing Any Good is “Revive Old Post”. I set it to randomly send out a previous post of mine every 16-24 hours.

 

10. Manage Your Time

Let’s end at a similar place from where we began. Just like you need to be selective with which social media platforms you spend time on, you also need to be selective with how much time you spend on social media. Don’t forget about your writing because you’re working so hard to get people engaged with your writing. Manage your time and stay focused on the craft. After all, what’s the point of having an author social media following if you’re no longer writing?

 

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

Author Tweets of the Week (1-20)

  1. Tweets of the Week (4-15)
  2. Author Tweets of the Week (6-3)
  3. Author Tweets of the Week (7-29)
  4. Author Tweets of the Week (8-5)
  5. Author Tweets of the Week (8-19)
  6. Author Tweets of the Week (8-26)
  7. Author Tweets of the Week (9-2)
  8. Author Tweets of the Week (10-13)
  9. Author Tweets of the Week (10-28)
  10. Author Tweets of the Week (11-4)
  11. Author Tweets of the Week (12-2)
  12. Author Tweets of the Week (1-20)
  13. Author Tweets of the Week (1-27)
  14. Author Tweets of the Week (2-3)
  15. Author Tweets of the Week (2-10)
  16. Author Tweets of the Week (2-24)
  17. Author Tweets of the Week (3-3)
  18. Author Tweets of the Week (3-24)
  19. Author Tweets of the Week (10-6)
  20. Author Tweets of the Week (11-10)
  21. Author Tweets of the Week (2-16)
  22. Author Tweets of the Week (3-16)
  23. Author Tweets of the Week (4-6)
  24. Author Tweets of the Week (5-11)

 

It is a new year and we sure as hell aren’t going to move through 2017 without Author Tweets of the Week, right?! Back by popular demand. (Or at least continued by popular demand.)

To kick us off, let’s begin with a slew of Winnie the Pooh related tweets. It was A. A. Milne’s birthday just the other day, (and it will be Milne’s death day in just 11 days).

 

 

https://twitter.com/Whippenz/status/821704764773675008

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/EnglishHeritage/status/821624443395076096

 

How can you not love Winnie the Pooh when the characters say such beautiful and wise words like those?

Speaking of beautiful and wise words…

 

 

 

I love me some Maya Angelou. So wise.

If you’re looking for some motivation, or if you just need a little reminder to keep on keeping on, here you go.

 

https://twitter.com/CallMeTheFixer/status/818689022419697664

 

Relax friends. Stay cool. Go back to the drawing board and don’t sweat it.

 

An ongoing pet peeve of mine is writers that don’t read because they don’t have time or don’t want their writing to be swayed by their reading. With no exception, this is ridiculous. If you don’t read, you can’t claim to be a serious writer. Simple as that.

 

https://twitter.com/RebeccaKlay/status/821314976757534720

 

As for our next tweet, while you can’t be a serious writer without reading, you can certainly be a serious writer without drinking. It’s not my preferred mode of operation, though.

 

https://twitter.com/andyjamestrevor/status/820922154782855168

 

Now, some twitter etiquette for everyone.

 

 

Please take that to heart my friends. No one wants to see 20 tweets about your “amazing book.” Sorry, it’s the truth.

Wondering what you can share besides just your book? There are 13 tweets right here in this post. There’s got to be at least one you like. Let’s start there. Share one of them. Here, try this one on for size:

 

 

Finally, a reminder that failure is not only an option, you shouldn’t be afraid of it.

 

 

Take chances my friends! Don’t be afraid of so-called failure.

Keep writing away! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

 

6 Twitter Tips for Authors

Twitter Tips Authors Need to Know

Yesterday we looked at how author’s should approach social media. (If you need the cliff notes, you’re lazy, but also: ENGAGE.) Today we want to look at some resources for how to better engage.

There’s an old adage, “Work smarter, not harder.” While I prefer working smarter to working harder if it’s an either/or scenario, I prefer even more an adage of my own: “Work smarter and harder.” If you want to make it as an indie author, you need work smarter, you need to work harder, and of course you need a little luck.

 

[clickToTweet tweet=”Work smarter, not harder? I prefer Work smarter AND Harder. 6 TWITTER TIPS AUTHORS NEED TO KNOW” quote=”Work smarter, not harder? I prefer Work smarter AND Harder. ” theme=”style6″] Here are some resources for working smarter on Twitter.

 

1. Build Lists

Twitter lists can organize and simplify your twitter activity immensely. Organize your lists by your fans, blogs you follow, fellow writers, reviewers, or any number of other lists. In the world of fast moving tweets where, let’s face, only 5% are of interest to you, a list can help you stay up to date on the people you want to be tracking much easier. If you don’t believe me, here are 6 Ways Twitter Lists Can Help Build Your Author Platform.

 

2. Write Better Tweets

We just got finished saying 95% of tweets are boring, so stop writing boring tweets! Why are you adding to the never-ending list of boring tweets? Learn how to tweet more effectively. Mike McGrail has a great article on How To Write Effective Tweets from a few years ago that is still very relevant today. Always engage your audience. Ask them a question. Have a call to action or invite them to participate. Always think, “Why is this valuable to my followers?” If you can’t answer that, it’s probably not an effective tweet.

 

3. Have a Marketing Plan

This doesn’t have to be some 14-page outline for how you aim to most effectively utilize twitter. We all have very busy lives and it’s difficult to have a detailed social media marketing plan. Hell, corporations hire hoards of people to do that. My very close childhood friend is the head of social media at JC Penny. He’s terrific at it and has created a number of viral campaigns for them, but he works long days and has teams of people working for him. He has a huge marketing budget.

No one expects you to have that type of marketing plan, but you should at least have a vague idea of what you’re trying to accomplish on social media and how you plan to do that. Are you trying to meet friends? Are you trying to sell your book? Are you trying to participate in discussions with other writers? Figure out what your goal is. If you don’t even know where to begin, check out Jeff Bullas’ How to Create a Twitter Marketing Strategy That Rocks.

 

4. Put Thought Into Your Profile

This may be self-explanatory, but think about your profile. How are you presenting yourself to the twitter-verse? Have you even considered this? When’s the last time you looked at your profile? Have a look. Maybe it’s time to update it.

 

5. Consider When You’re Tweeting

There is purportedly gobs and gobs of data on the best times of day to tweet, the best days to tweet, the best weeks to tweet, the best centuries to tweet… I don’t have any of this data. In fact, I’ve rarely seen a single actual statistic here, so maybe the same twitter lies are being repeated over and over. It seems to happen a lot in the blogosphere, especially with celebrity gossip. If you’re looking for some of this data and quick tips, check out 7 Simple Tips to Help You Promote Your Book on Twitter. Regardless of whether these statistics are accurate, though, you should still be more thoughtful not just about what you’re tweeting, but about when you’re tweeting it.

(Confession: I’m terrible at this one. I tweet when I can, not when I should.)

 

6. Be Authentic

I love @JayBilas. It’s as if Jack Dorsey (twitter founder and current CEO) sat down and said, “Jay Bilas needs a platform where he can crush it. Let’s come up with that.” Bilas is an expert at twitter. I would love to be as snarky, smart, witty, and funny as him. But I’m not Jay Bilas. I could never pull that off. That’s not me. If I tried, people would just think I’m a dick. (You already do, Mark! Well I never…)

Be yourself on twitter. Be authentic. There’s haters and trolls everywhere. Don’t worry about them. Just this weekend I had two different haters hitting up my account telling me how wrong and boring I am. Ok. Thank you for sharing. I don’t claim to be right and I certainly don’t claim to be interesting. What I do claim to be is me.

As my longtime book-friend Dr. Seuss once wrote, “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” I can only be me, twitter included. That goes for you too. Be authentic.

[clickToTweet tweet=”‘Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.’ -Dr Seuss” quote=”‘Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.’ – Dr. Seuss” theme=”style6″]

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

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